India's R&D landscape upbeat, outlook promising: study
Country has an R&D talent pool base of over 200,000 engineers growing at an average of 9% a year for last 5 years
The research and development (R&D) landscape in India witnessed decent salary hike and rapid growth in the year gone by and the industry expects a steady outlook for this year as well, says a study.
According to market research firm Zinnov, 2011 witnessed strong revival of R&D investments in India and worldwide, signalling the optimism in world economy which earlier reported a drop in R&D investments in 2010.
India currently has an installed R&D talent pool base of over 200,000 engineers growing at an average of 9% a year for the last five years.
The R&D segment witnessed a salary hike of 13%, and there was also a focused approach on career enhancement by ensuring increased ownership, better work profile, and competitive pay to retain talent, the study noted.
Consequently, after a steep increase in 2010, R&D centres have managed to control attrition levels at 17.4%. Moreover, best-in-class companies have been able to keep their attrition rate well below the industry average.
"The industry expects the salary increments this year to be very similar to 2011. MNC R&D centres in India are expected to continue to focus on various other key enablers as well for higher value generation," Zinnov Director-Market Expansion Praveen Bhadada said.
Zinnov noted though nearly half of the world's largest R&D spenders have their centres in India, China is giving tough competition and emerging as a R&D hotspot in specific areas/verticals.
"China continues to give us tough competition, but we are confident that the innovative business approach and renewed focus of these R&D centres will hold us in good stead going forward," he added.
Interestingly, many non-US companies have started looking at the country as a viable R&D investment option and planning to set up R&D centres in this lucrative market.
At present, about 28% companies with HQ in Japan, EU and APAC have their centres in India and this is likely to increase going forward, which is a very healthy indicator for India as it continues its 'battle of dominance' with China.
Besides, there is also a rapid evolution of a multi-city R&D ecosystem in the country which was earlier concentrated in few tier-I cities, the study noted.