Approach for a Pattern-Based Development of Frugal Innovations

Emerging markets have become increasingly interesting for companies from industrialized countries, but the requirements in these markets differ dramatically from those in the companies' traditional markets. New products and services are demanded - so-called frugal innovations. Since the challenges for the development of frugal innovations are often quite similar -- for example, low income of the target customer, poor infrastructure, etc. -- the hypothesis appears that the solutions will also be similar. In our earlier TIM Review article (Lehner & Gausemeier, 2016), we showed how solution patterns for frugal innovations can be derived. The article at hand summarizes those findings and supplements an innovation process for frugal innovation using the solution patterns. The validation based on the example of telemedical assistant systems shows the benefit of the pattern-based development of frugal innovations. The article addresses managers and engineers who plan to introduce frugal innovations, as well as university-based researchers interested in the development of frugal innovations.