Onio turned 14 on 14th July 2011. Three testing business cycles in the
last fourteen years tested everything from our views on the core of
innovation to our resolve to our business processes to our very approach
to business. In the fast evolving economy bubbling with increasingly
aware consumers, India-centric innovation is just about taking shape.
I remember the very first years of Onio where we were struggling to find
product design assignments and were actually forced to take up
graphic-design assignments for sheer survival. For some time, we had
almost become a dotcom portal design company.
The beginning of design-led innovation renaissance in India started only
in the last 5-6 years. It has happened not because home-grown companies
developed a love for design and innovation; but because the foreign
companies started feeling the need to differentiate their products in
the emerging economies. Everyone is a winner in the scene that is unfolding now.
Innovation frontiers are getting pushed for the better. Keener and deeper
understanding of emerging users is becoming a de facto method for new product
development. Statistics, though being the backbone of any decision, has now
found a competent partner in qualitative research methods. This rapidly
changing scenario affected Onio in many ways. In the world of modern design
and innovation which has luminaries starting from Leonardo da Vinci,
fourteen years are really nothing.
Each day, new start-ups are being born out of new energy and confidence
of emerging India and stories of ‘stay hungry, stay foolish’ are polishing
new beautiful minds. Onio is a small flicker in this illumined new world
of innovation. This small flicker is the marching light for tomorrow.
We believe in this and strive together with all our clients, suppliers,
partners, remote well-wishers and the families who support us day in and day out.
Manoj Kothari
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