Of late there have been rare instances of Indian companies vying for global attention, as in the case of Notion Ink. Also there are public/ private firms in productizing/ innovation efforts, such as Tata Motors, Praj Industries, Moser Baer, C-DAC, et al. These firms have showed that if you have vision and risk taking abilities, coupled with passion and aggression in marketplace, we too can emulate the success of our western counterparts. Sadly, Infosys's of our world havent shown the attitude nor intent to channel back their hefty earnings into research and product development. We should quit idolizing corporates who dont have long term vision to take India ahead. Manufacturing, Agriculture and Defense Technology are priority areas where we badly need research and innovation from domestic firms. Why cant we have policy formation for compulsory Public/ Private plough-back of a fixed percentage of import expenses by respective stakeholders, toward research and innovation?
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Vinod M Raveendranath, Managing Partner, AmfiOS Technologies
| 20 Mar 2010 08:40 AM +0000
I'd agree with points Makrand making here but still I'd say- 'where there is a will there is a way......' We lack it,,of course we are lacking entrepreneurship, I suppose (what % of our B school Grads are in it)' but we are spreading our wings & one day we will fly high. I believe in what our literature says & we flown high thousands of year back,,,its a matter of time again,,,,,sooner of later. Thanks Makrand for the referral.
By
ujjval jain, 'Retailer' , adidas
| 15 Mar 2010 05:34 PM +0000
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There are many IT product companies which are coming up in India...for an example, take AdventNet (Zoho I mean here) product which experts believe might challenge (and beat as well) MicroSoft for Office product and other companies for CRM applications and many more (refer www.zoho.com) ( no marketing meant here :) )....lots of innovation is happening in Networking side (Refer Tejas) and many more....actually the problem I see here is the initial investment...in case of services companies, you need to take care of operating investement for a shorter period ( untill you get the first cheque mostly, which should happen within 2-3 months for smaller projects which are awarded to early stage companies))..in case of Prodyct development and R&D, you need to keep investing till your product is ready and this might take 2-3 years for a decent product...and the investment is also high as u need high quality talent which is obviously expensive.....Now if you observe, I dont think many top business people are getting into IT afresh...the new IT companies are mostly started by professionals who belong to medium earning class...and for them to invest so much for a product becomes really difficult...IT serives is comparitively an easier route in terms of investment..... I was watching a show on a business channel a month ago where few very early stage Indian product companies were giving presentations to VCs (the single motto was to attract investment, and the top few got that as well)....Those were some brilliant product ideas across domains (For IT) including mobile... I am sure you will see a brilliant Indian Operating System shortly which might beat the toppers of the world...Just need to give India Inc some time....As India is still building and is at an early stage herself towards growth...expecting competing with US and other developed nations right away would be a little too much I think....But the signs of competition can be seen for sure presently... Thanks Makrand for the reference...a good debate really
By
Ankur Agrawal, Partner/Principal/VP, PeopleLogic Solutions
| 13 Mar 2010 06:34 AM +0000
Agreed, It is owing to lack of investments in R & D. Also, for most IT companies it makes business sense to opt for IT services and maintenance contracts for business continuity rather than take undue risk in product development followed by expending on its promotion.
By
akshaya bhatia, Program Manager (GM Projects-IT), fsl
| 13 Mar 2010 06:32 AM +0000
Thanks Makrand for referral... Well said ... We have very nominal efforts towards R&D and NPD ..can say negligible..... All IT industries in India are service based evne NPD jobs are contracted means ther is no real own theams ... TCS, Infosys, ROLTA and others big giants are working on service based and orientation is also like a service provider .... Still hope... some efforts are evident in own software development for GPS, technical software, and for disaster management ... likely in coming years they may come with their own R&D facilities .. lets hope .. Important is the budget and finance flow for R&D ... if we do the job for others we can have our own also ..
By
Nitin M Aras, Head/VP/GM-Tech. Support, Wintech Taparia Limited
| 13 Mar 2010 06:21 AM +0000
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