By, Tasleem Arif
In recent times, a lot of global brands have set up their research and development (R&D) centres in India. With technology advancing at a rapid pace, tech brands need to keep innovating to sync with their consumer’s demands. And these innovations can be made by understanding and identifying consumer behaviour and trends in the right sense. Hence the need for R&D centres based out of India with teams that will aim to build innovations that are centric and relevant to Indian consumers. Insights derived by these R&D centres help these tech brands in planning offerings for the Indian market better.
However, this is just the beginning and more such efforts need to be put in to make India the hub of R&D for major technology brands. As per the Economic Survey 2018, while India’s investments in science, which is measured in terms of gross expenditure on R&D, has tripled in the last decade, India’s spending on R&D in terms of percentage of GDP has been stagnant in the last two decades and is much lower than the US, China, South Korea and Israel.
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As per the survey, the country needs to redouble its efforts to make improvements in science and R&D. Such efforts will help recognise the changing needs of the consumer where there is a constant need to upgrade and adapt and ultimately enable offering of niche technological solutions like Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, analytics, mobile technologies, cloud and more.
Currently, a lot of smartphone brands are investing resources in building teams and R&D centres in India under their ‘Make in India’ initiative. Being closer to the home ground helps them understand the needs of the Indian consumer. As the pinnacle of consumer technology products, a smartphone serves a plethora of needs and is not just limited to communicating.
A lot goes behind making a smartphone a person’s be-all and end-all gadget—advanced camera technology that takes equally crisp images at night, safe and reliable yet fast charging technology, a full screen display by smartly compacting sensors and speakers and more. To offer such efficient solutions, it is important to invest in R&D in the smartphone space and this trend is expected to become stronger in the coming months.
Such investments by brands along with government support are also paving a path for India’s growth. With these R&D centres more job opportunities are being generated, ultimately leading to prosperity of local communities. Hence the need of the hour is to stress on innovation for innovation’s sake and position India as a top destination for R&D globally.
The writer is vice president and head – R&D, Oppo India
