India has strong engineering base, yet has no innovators: Nohria
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 20 August 2010, 15:30 IST   |    46 Comments
Printer Print Email Email
India has strong engineering base, yet has no innovators: Nohria
Bangalore: Indian companies have always had very strong engineering base, but no major global product yet identified as being developed in India, said Nitin Nohria, the first India-born dean of the Harvard Business School. Having globally competitive innovative capacity, Indian companies must aim to compete and win the battle for global innovations to build on the remarkable successes of the last two decades, he added. It was the underexploited engineering culture that drove the efficiency movement of the 1990s in India, but the people who drove this first transformation were largely industrial engineers who focused on process and systems. According to Nohria, it may take a different kind of engineering culture to drive innovation, but Indian companies still don't have a great track record for world-beating innovation. While Bharti has not yet dominate global markets with its cellular telephony, the Tata Ace, which is a fabulous product for India, has yet to become a global product, said Nohria. Commenting on Indian IT industry, Nohria said, "Our IT industry has done a fabulous job of providing globally competitive services, but are they aiming to give the world the next Google, Facebook, or Twitter?" Answering to a question whether there is an opportunity for Indian companies to do something remarkable in the way of innovating and developing truly global products, Nohria mentioned about pharmaceuticals and entertainment and fashion industries that can offer possibilities for India to develop new products not just for domestic consumers but also for global markets.

siliconindia