PR, Global Innovation Index, and India’s quest for a top slot

Now, anyone can destroy a brand in this social media age. But it takes an imaginative approach to construct a brand and sustain a business model. And what is imagination? It is an amalgamation of innovative ideas at every turn of process of birth and growth.

India has been elevated to the top 50 Global Innovation Index 2020. It is classified as regional leader in the GII report released this week.

The top of the GII 2020 ranking is still dominated by developed economies. India is catching up by creating an enabling environment to nurture innovation. The Government of India has launched initiatives for propelling innovation, such as the Start-up India, Accelerating Growth of New India’s Innovations (AGNIi), Atal Tinkering Labs, new intellectual property rights (IPR) policy, Smart City Mission, Uchchatar Avishkaar Yojana, and other promotional policies at state levels.

Various fiscal incentives are offered by the government for R&D activities that lead to innovations. Before the government stepped in, India has seen growth of the private and foreign-owned private equity/venture capital industry.

However, many brilliant and innovative ideas do not see light due to their inability in many areas, especially in accessing the level of funding required to keep innovation flowing.

This where we come to our opening paragraph on imaginative approach to brand building. India’s innovation has been left at the bottom of the heap because of absence of proper PR (public relations) or ignoring the role of PR in the life of an aspiring company. In this era of globalization, hand holding by a PR professional is imperative as innovators go through a robust technology screening and funding mechanism to make their product take a leap from concept to commercialization.

The need for innovation happens in a consumer driven society as innovation changes people’s lives. A competent PR professional creates a smooth path right from making a high risk innovation seem like a strong business potential to presentation of real product to the market with all the expectations of consumers. PR is the link between the public and a company’s life of innovation.

A PR helps the innovator sell the concept to the funding agency at various stages of resource collection. After that with various digital tools the PR professional collects feedback of the consumer to give a shape to the innovation as a product by incorporating consumer opinion into the ideation and validation stages. PR should represent valuable input to the innovation process.

Through a proper PR process an innovative idea is accepted at the doorstep of the consumer as a tangible product because of the PR loop. PR makes the innovators understand the needs of their customers and what would make a difference to them.

PR uses digital channels while leveraging data to develop three-way conversation and beneficial relationships between innovators, funding agencies and the consumer.

Thus, PR is vital to the business of innovation in a consumer society.