Global Leadership from India - The Time is Now: says Zinnov

With huge focus on cost savings from HQs, R&D centers in India end up investing a lot of time and effort looking  at optimization rather than innovation

Zinnov Management Consulting, a leading management consulting firm, today launched a study on ‘Global Leadership from India’, where it highlighted that while R&D globalization in India has evolved at a rapid pace over the last 10 years, the leadership teams of these centers have not seen  the commensurate  growth. It said that while they have moved up the value curve they are still not making any top-line impact despite the existence of a sizeable opportunity.

A recent survey conducted by Zinnov, showed that despite the rapid pace at which the Indian R&D industry has evolved over the years, the perception of globalization practitioner’s in the headquarters regarding the R&D system in India has not changed much from 2007. The cost scenario continues to play a significant role as a driver of globalization till date. Though there has been some improvement in terms of innovation focus, it is still not the major driving factor and in fact many of the global centers are underutilized for innovation.

According to Mr. Pari Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer, Zinnov Management Consulting, “Though India offers a significant cost arbitrage when compared with the costs in US and Europe, the R&D centers in India are losing out on certain key aspects because of excessive focus on cost. While cost control is the top priority, aspects like innovation, competency creation and leadership roles often get over looked”.

“While a few companies have been fairly successful in uplifting the maturity of the centers in India, others should also start looking beyond cost control to bring in global leadership and innovation capabilities at the center which would help them move up the value chain and become critical centers for the parent organization”, he added.

The study said that there are three key opportunities that India leadership needs to tap to transform into global leaders:

• Penetrate Domestic/Emerging Markets: Cumulative opportunity in domestic and emerging markets is indeed more than developed markets and these clusters of emerging geographies have very similar needs that can be tapped into easily.
• Solutioning through Business Model Innovation: India has a very strong legacy of exporting business models. Influence top line growth through innovative business models. 
• Global market innovation: With the vast availability of skilled workforce, R&D centers in India can derive global market innovations at a significantly lesser cost

Last but not the least, it added that the opportunities are plenty in India - across Enterprise, Government, SMB and consumer for the much desired growth. The current level of maturity of R&D related work in India for many of the centers definitely has a scope of improvement, given the strong R&D ecosystem that India has been able to build over the last 25 years. There is an urgent need for MNC R&D centers to focus beyond cost efficiency and aspire to become global strategic partners.

About Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd
Founded in 2002, Zinnov – meaning Zeal in Innovation – is a leading Globalization Advisory firm, providing services in the area of Offshore Advisory, Market Expansion and Human Capital Optimization to Fortune 1000 companies. Zinnov works collectively with clients to tackle prevailing organizational challenges by analyzing the changing dynamics, improving performance, and building institutional capability. The services delivered to its clients through advanced reasoning and analytical techniques, provides solutions that help in integrating organizational vision, business definition and processes.