A desire to reduce costs and carbon footprint is undoubtedly changing consumer behavior here in the UK. While many still aspire to afford luxury items, the reality is that budgets remain tight and the demand for cheaper and more efficient products is on the rise. This may be a relatively recent phenomenon in the UK but it’s nothing new in India.

Some of the world’s best-known businesses are picking up on this change and looking at what they can learn from developing nations, where products are often engineered by first looking at the needs of price-conscious consumers and then working backwards. GE’s boss, Jeff Immelt, has termed this “reverse innovation” while others call it “frugal” or “constraint-based innovation”.

Far from being second-rate, many of these products incorporate the latest technologies but are simply sparing in their use of raw materials and impact on the environment. Tata companies have had decades of experience of this in the Indian market, culminating in perhaps the most well-known ‘frugal innovation’ – the Tata Nano. With this car, Tata achieved what other manufacturers had thought impossible. When it was launched to worldwide acclaim with the equivalent price tag of £1,300, it suggested that there was a market for efficient, low cost motoring, with many other automotive manufacturers now aggressively developing smaller and cheaper cars.

With these principles in mind, Tata’s latest innovation is a water filter called the Tata Swach, developed by Tata Consultancy Services and Tata Chemicals. It uses rice husks (which are among the country’s most common waste product) to purify water. It is not only robust and portable but cheap, giving a large family an abundant supply of bacteria-free water for an initial investment of about £15 and a recurring expense of £2.50 for a new filter every few months. We plan to produce a million of these devices in the next year and hope for an eventual market of 100 million.

In both instances, Tata has not only proved that this business model is commercially viable and good for the environment, but also of enormous social benefit. The Swach and Nano are providing clean drinking water and safer mobility to millions of people who simply couldn’t afford the status quo. While we don’t face such severe societal problems in this country, there is no reason why we shouldn’t adopt these more efficient, sustainable and “frugal” principles to satisfy a rising UK demand.

I hope you enjoy reading about some of the Tata companies’ recent activities and achievements in the UK.

Anwar Hasan
Head of Tata Limited
www.tata.co.uk

For more information on Tata Swach, please visit: http://www.tataswach.com/