Benzs Bangalore Centre Geared To Globalise Tech

The fourth international research centre that Daimler-Benz will open in Bangalore satisfies the two main criteria that the largest German manufacturing company has set for itself while globalising research: the needs of market-driven internationalisation and the compulsion of presence at the hot spots of world technology development.

This was stated in New Delhi yesterday by Klaus-Dieter Vohringer, member of the companys board of management for research and training. He was delivering the third Bose-Einstein lecture on science, technology and environment, organised by the German embassy and the Federation of Indo German Societies in India.

The first international research centre of Daimler-Benz was set up in 1994 at Paulo Alto in California so as to be close to the technology hot spot of the Silicon Valley and detect new technology, social trends and products. The second was set up in 1995 in Shanghai in China to be both near the market and also with a view to collaborating with the Shanghai Institute of Metallurgy for development of micro technology and electronic packaging. The third was set up last year in Oregon in the United States near the companys commercial vehicles subsidiary to ensure that conditions of the American market are noted in the earliest stages of development.

 

The Bangalore centre proposes to cooperate with leading Indian centres of research and software development, offer sabbaticals to Indian scientists, establish contacts with centres of high-quality work, and also offer pre-dissertation facilities to students.

Outlining the backdrop against which the global research policy of Daimler-Benz developed, Vohrin -ger said globalisation was taking place at both the macro and the enterprise levels. Today, technology is available worldwide and this makes for rapid growth. The leadership of the United States, Japan and the European Union was still there but this was being challenged by the newly industrialising countries of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

In this situation, the value added chain of companies had to be globally oriented. It was no longer possible to make one product in one place and supply it to the rest of the world.

Daimler-Benz has the best international sales and servicing network to begin with. It began internationalisation of production first with commercial vehicles and the collaboration with the Tatas thus took place in the 1960s. It now produces every one of its commercial vehicle outside Germany.

To tap the new global growth segments the company has adopted the credo of made by Daimler-Benz, instead of made in Germany, and so the A class, V class and N class cars are now being produced in Brazil, Spain and Alabama, US, respectively. The two-seater Smart car for congested inner cities will be produced in France from next year.

Internationalisation of research began in the early 1980s with adaptive development to local requirements. But after the uncontrolled growth in global research of companies in the 1980s led to duplication and demarcation disputes, there has been some consolidation. Now companies mostly have only one centre of research for one product group. But still, global research is being accepted by large sections with resignation, as an unavoidable nightmare and more of a marketing gimmick. Vohringer also offered a word of caution.

For international research to reduce geographical and cultural distances, it had to develop a multicultural ethos. For this Daimler-Benz was supporting its research with personnel measures like exchange of teams and setting up international teams.

The gain from such research could be maximised only when it used the opportunities of information technology, encompassing the entire product development processes. Today, with the help of data, video and audio transmission, parallel development of models was taking place in different places. Properly conducted international research benefits not just R&D but the whole company.