The forums conducted by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) work with the industry to devise strategies that will drive the engineering, research and design (ER&D) sector, enabling it to emerge as a hub of global innovation.
In India, Chennai is fast becoming a strong hub for manufacturing with focus on automotive, hi-tech and heavy industries. To enable the growth of these industries, a very strong R&D and engineering foundation is needed. This engineering and R&D capability needs to be nurtured and grown through interactions and strong collaborations amongst all the manufacturers.
With these ideas in mind, NASSCOM conducted a conference on Engineering Research and Development (ER&D) in Chennai on August 7 with its theme ‘Accelerating growth through collaborative innovation’. Innovation is the key for sustained growth and for addressing the ever-changing needs of customers.
Mr. Ranganath N. Krishna, Managing Director, Grundfos, in his keynote address, said: “Innovation is very vital and has become essential for the very survival of a business. Needs and expectations change from person to person and between generations. Today’s youth have a very short span of attention and they want to do things differently. Their expectations keep changing. Thus companies should be built for continuous improvement rather than discontinuous innovation.”
Earlier, in his welcome speech, Mr. Regu Ayyaswamy, Vice President & Global Head, Engineering and Industrial Services, TCS, said: “Today emerging countries have a unique set of needs to cater to the local market which needs to be customized and localised in countries like India. In many industries like heavy engineering, medical, healthcare, etc., there is demand for engineering and designing with focus on macro-economics. Today the challenge faced by our engineers is to bring in modernisation with customisation.”