Despite Trump move, India biz to remain innovation hub for Adobe

American software giant Adobe on Wednesday said 30 per cent of its research and development personnel work in India, making a fundamental contribution to each of its product, and hinted the country would continue to be the innovation hub for it.

“A lot of our intellectual property gets created out of India. We have over 30 per cent of our R&D staff sitting out of India. We also have got the global services delivery centre in this country,” Adobe India country head Kulmeet Bawa told reporters here.

The company employs 4,200 people across three centres in Noida and Bengaluru, which together employ a fourth of its global workforce.

“Virtually, every single product that we deliver, there is some fundamental work that is being done here in India,” global chairman and chief executive Shantanu Narayen said.

“We have always said we are going to do very fundamental and deep-rooted technology work and it continues to be there,” Narayen added in the comments that come amid increased concern on the rising protectionist tendencies in the US under after Donald Trump’s election as President.

The Mumbai-born global head of Adobe also said India is taking a leap in various products and leading the way for the world.

Bawa said the company was looking at India more as an innovation hub, rather than as a market for its product.

From a business perspective, where there’s a perception of its products being very expensive, Bawa said Adobe works with all the top companies.

Narayen acknowledged that there was “absolute piracy” in the Indian market which it had been combating and added that there was sizeable traction on the creative side as well.

He said globally, Adobe looks at ‘experience cloud’ which is targeted at companies undergoing a digital transformation as the biggest growth engine, going ahead.

Bawa said for the company, the focus would be on serving retail segment, where the line between offline and online blurs, with the arrival of omnichannels and financial institutions, and where newer entities like the payments banks and small finance banks are driven digitally.

Footprint in India

• The company employs 4,200 people across three centres in Noida and Bengaluru
• These three together employ a fourth of its global workforce
• The global head of Adobe also said India is taking a leap in various products and leading the way for the world
• Adobe is looking at ‘experience cloud’ which is targeted at companies undergoing a digital transformation as the biggest growth engine, going ahead