India hotspot for high-end design tasks

NEW DELHI: From designing complex industrial products to specialised engineering products, India has emerged as a hot destination for MNCs outsourcing high-end design tasks leveraging on low-cost knowledge workers.
There is lot of action in this space as foreign secretary Shyam Saran has indicated possibility of setting up "design and research bureaux" in India for US contractors engaged in defence products.
"The element of design is emerging as the biggest driver for companies to improve competitiveness," said N Srinivasan, D-G, CII. "We are seeing a new wave with top-line companies moving into dedicated design departments." Moreover, designers are viewed as chief emotional officers — an acronym for the new CEO — who now plays a vital role in improving the bottomline of the company whether it sells ultrasound machines or capital goods machinery.
For example, Ranbaxy is working on shapes and colours of capsules and tablets coming from its lab, targeting specific markets for matching people’s preferences. The success of Samsung’s global foray is attributed to the company reinventing its product design with some of its cool gadgets. Moreover, global CEO of Samsung, G S Choi, was once design head of the Korean giant.
"We will now see more and more CEOs from the design stable," said a senior head hunting consultant.
Global giants like GE, Caterpillar, IBM, Texas Instruments, Philips Innovation, Nokia are doing high-end R&D and design projects in India.
"Indian design professionals are high on radar of global companies. This has brought in a new mindset to Indian firms," said Satish Gokhale, director in an industrial design firm offshoring work for global and domestic companies. "Awareness stage of design in India is over. I foresee a different India in 2 years," said D O Koshy, ED, NID.
However, India will not be successful unless products are created for masses warns Suresh Sethi, associate professor at IIT Mumbai’s Industrial Design Centre. "There is huge potential in design for domestic consumption which no one has cared for," said Sethi.