EXPLORING INNOVATIONS SHAPED FOR NON-AFFLUENT CUSTOMERS: A PERSPECTIVE OF ENTREPRENEURS WORKING IN INCUBATION CENTERS OF PAKISTAN
Keywords:
Entrepreneurs, Smart Innovation, Non-Affluent Customers, InnovationsAbstract
The underprivileged class of society faces challenges like health, energy issues, poor sanitation and water resources, education, lack of employment, and many more. There is a need to know the prevailing or pitching new innovative ideas are designed to address these issues of the penurious sector of society. For this purpose, the current study aims to explore the entrepreneurs' innovative ideas and motivation behind these ideas in the context of non-affluent customers. Their smarter innovations can be a way to address some of these issues that can satisfy the immediate needs through sustainable practices. Entrepreneurs can provide low-cost, sustainable solutions without compromising the quality of products or services. Considering this, the present study contributes to the literature by analyzing main smarter innovation features, i.e. affordable innovation, core functionalities, less technological complexity, and sustainable solutions. An extensive literature review is conducted to explore and define the characteristics of these innovations shaped for the impoverished class of economy. A qualitative research approach explores these innovations' characteristics and entrepreneurs' motivation to design such products and services. Through snow-ball non-probability sampling technique, 10 entrepreneurs affiliated with different incubation centers of Pakistan have been selected to conduct semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis showed that most entrepreneurs consider that innovation as a solution to the problem either a new or existing one. The findings also revealed that most entrepreneurs reported cost efficiency, user-friendliness, and core functionalities as central innovation features for non-affluent customers. In contrast, very few entrepreneurs included time efficiency and quality as the features of innovation designed for middle and lower-middle class.
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