Harvard to Introduce the ‘Jaipur Foot’ as Business Model: MBA News

By QS Contributor Updated Aug 27, 2019

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Introduction
Business Model Produced as Part of India Research Program

Harvard to Introduce the ‘Jaipur Foot’ as Business Model: MBA News main image

The Jaipur Foot is to be the subject of a new business model designed by Harvard Business School to inform MBA students about the possibilities of sustaining a business even when it features a low-cost product.

The artificial limb costs only about US$40 to produce and is given to underprivileged and low-income patients for free. It is estimated that roughly 25,000 people have the limb fitted each year which by now means that as many as 1.3 million people have benefited from the Jaipur Foot in total.

It is manufactured by the world’s largest NGO for the disabled, Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS), which has been providing aids and appliances to physically challenged people in India, as well as in parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America, since 1975.

Devendra Raj Mehta is chief patron of the organization. In a release to the Press Trust of India (PTI), he said, “In the study by the business school, areas like creation of the model and its system, its sustainability, patient centric management, technology and financial management have been covered.”

Business Model Produced as Part of India Research Program

The study which has led to the production of this MBA case study was conducted by Srikant M. Datar. Datar is an Indian-American faculty member at Harvard Business School, holding the title of Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Accounting. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and holds a PhD from Stanford University.

As a qualified Chartered Accountant, Datar has a particular interest in cost management and management control areas, which makes it easy to see why he has been attracted to the Jaipur Foot as an interesting business model of study for MBA students.

Datar is also a co-author of Rethinking the MBA: business education at a crossroads. The book argues that leading business schools need to improve the cultural awareness and global perspectives they impart onto their MBA students, or they will risk falling behind the times. This issue therefore provides a further strong reason for taking a successful business model from an emerging market as a case study for Harvard’s incoming intake.

Learn more about Harvard Business School ›

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