Likewise, R&D is also directly related to the business of a company. "A strong interaction between R&D activities and business fosters the generation of innovation. There is huge amount of competition in the market and customers are spoilt for choices. If we have to retain our position as market leaders and maintain the trust of the buyers, it is important to adopt new technologies, techniques and approaches and create a distinguished brand identity. Innovation could be any new, unique idea or an approach that could create value for a customer, for employees or any other stake holder. Innovation does not only means matching the growing needs and demands but also considering futuristic aspects well in advance." Phatak explained.
R&D in India
Though R&D is a backbone of innovation, Indian manufacturing industry seem to have a blind eye on it. "As R&D is a fixed cost and one that typically may not have an immediate impact on sales or profitably. It is one of the first cost heads to be axed in the pursuit of meeting immediate profit objectives," noted Verma. However, Looking at the brighter side, Sambasivam said, "Companies are now realising importance of R&D and have started allocating huge budgets for R&D and encourage lot of innovative ideas."
Super Auto Forge has invested close to Rs5 crore in R&D apart from investing in new technologies. Going forward the company intends to invest a considerable amount in R&D and continue the same trend.
Speaking about National Engineering Ltd's (NEI) investment in R&D, Taparia said, "For 2015-16, close to 1.5 percent of the turnover was invested in R&D, the turnover being Rs1,700 crore. The focus areas for R&D expenditure is new product development, tribology, advance material research, testing & validation.
The vision of NEI is to invest 3 percent of the revenue per year in R&D. We are moving towards our vision gradually." Schneider Electric invests close to 5 percent of its revenues in R&D. With 1000+ employees working on product development and resource enhancement, GTCI's gamuts of activities include research in the fields of electro mechanical design, electronics and software development.
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