“India becoming major hub for design, production outsourcing”

[VelMurugan]

India becoming major hub for design, production outsourcing

CHENNAI: India is becoming a major hub for design and production outsourcing for Western companies, panellists at a special plenary session at Connect 2008 noted. However, the culture of innovation needs to be built up by addressing major challenges to achieve its potential, they said.

In his address at the session, Martin Kraus, vice president, Airbus, said that India was a "top topic in strategic considerations" for Airbus and "Let's go East" was the slogan being adopted in many organisations. To ensure that India captured the major share of the outsourcing market, he said that Indian companies should look at being "risk-share partners" and invest in education and skills building.

Sunit Tyagi, Director-Technology, Intel India, said that the Indian semiconductor technology industry was estimated to grow at 20 per cent over the next decade.

Although India was a leader in software outsourcing, he said that the trend in the industry was towards full chip design and listed chips including Infineon's single-chip cell phone that were designed completely in India.

However, there were weaknesses in infrastructure, lack of sufficient educational institutions and the absence of comprehensive long-term policies, which needed to be addressed before India could achieve its potential.

Innovation would flow when there was freedom to think, he said, and noted that the culture of innovation among a huge population of young people could drive India's growth up the value chain.

Kota Harinarayana, Raja Ramanna fellow, National Aerospace Laboratories, noted that technological innovation was not possible without organisational innovation. He said that the development of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) had forced a flexible management structure on the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and this had helped create a support system for innovation and knowledge generation.

Although studies showed that small and medium enterprises tended to possess a culture of innovation, he said that larger companies could also benefit by leveraging small clusters of people to create an atmosphere of innovation within the company.

Source : Hindu

[sajiv]

CHENNAI: India is becoming a major hub for design and production outsourcing for Western companies, panellists at a special plenary session at Connect 2008 noted. However, the culture of innovation needs to be built up by addressing major challenges to achieve its potential, they said.In his address at the session, Martin Kraus, vice president, Airbus, said that India was a "top topic in strategic considerations" for Airbus and "Let's go East" was the slogan being adopted in many organisations. To ensure that India captured the major share of the outsourcing market, he said that Indian companies should look at being "risk-share partners" and invest in education and skills building.

Sunit Tyagi, Director-Technology, Intel India, said that the Indian semiconductor technology industry was estimated to grow at 20 per cent over the next decade.Although India was a leader in software outsourcing, he said that the trend in the industry was towards full chip design and listed chips including Infineon's single-chip cell phone that were designed completely in India.However, there were weaknesses in infrastructure, lack of sufficient educational institutions and the absence of comprehensive long-term policies, which needed to be addressed before India could achieve its potential.Innovation would flow when there was freedom to think, he said, and noted that the culture of innovation among a huge population of young people could drive India's growth up the value chain.

Kota Harinarayana, Raja Ramanna fellow, National Aerospace Laboratories, noted that technological innovation was not possible without organisational innovation. He said that the development of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) had forced a flexible management structure on the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and this had helped create a support system for innovation and knowledge generation.

Although studies showed that small and medium enterprises tended to possess a culture of innovation, he said that larger companies could also benefit by leveraging small clusters of people to create an atmosphere of innovation within the company.