Tata Group to spend more on R&D

The Group has been pioneer in innovation; Ratan Tata has been credited for launching world's cheapest car Nano in 2009

With Tata group chairman Cyrus Mistry wanting to increase customer focus for all the group companies, India’s largest business house today said it would increase its research and development (R&D) spend in the coming years.

“The group spent about two per cent of its revenue on R&D in the last financial year, which is about the same spent a year before,” said Mukund Govind Rajan, brand custodian and group ethics officer at the group’s holding company, Tata Sons. “We hope to increase this spend in the coming years,” he said, alluding to the new chairman’s vision, while announcing the winners for the group’s innovation award, Tata Innovista.

Tata Group crossed $100-billion (Rs 5,50,000 crore) turnover in FY13.

The year also saw Mistry becoming the group’s chairman after Ratan Tata retired on 28 December. Tata Group has been pioneer in innovation and Ratan Tata has been credited for launching world’s cheapest car Nano in 2009.

His vision for innovation from group companies brought Tata Innovista in 2007, which set a benchmark with providing recognition even to the failed attempts for encouraging culture for innovation. The group, which has over 100 operating companies spread across the globe, received a record 1,305 entries of innovations in the year.

The group’s beverage company Tata Global Beverages and chemical firm Rallis India got the product innovation award for the year. Tata Global has done a packaging innovation with designing a cap that can help to make a health drink instantly. It has launched an instant health drink brand, Activate, in the US based on this innovation. Activate has vitamin C kept in the cap of the bottle and one can rotate it to make an instant drink. A similar product innovation has also come from Rallis India, which innovated to produce herbicide Pedemethalin in flakes instead of solid form that required heating. The company hopes to get large orders based on the innovation as it met the customer demand. However, it did not wish to quantify the incremental gain in revenue.

“The trends observed in the 2013 edition signify a growing culture of innovation in the group with elements of technology orientation, cross pollination and risk taking ability,” said Sunil Sinha, chief, group quality management service, Tata Sons. “We have observed that over 70 per cent of the participants are in the age brackets of 20-30 and 30-40 years, indicating that the innovation ecosystem in the group is encouraging and empowering young managers to think out of the ordinary,” he said.

Apart from the product category, the company had innovations in service, core process and support process categories. While Tata Consultancy was recognised for service sector innovation, Tata Power and Jaguar Land Rover were awarded for core process and support process categories, respectively.