Big firms love being Bangalored

Big firms love being Bangalored
City Is Leader For R&D Offshoring By MNCs
Shivani Mody | TNN

Bangalore: Bangalore continues to be the innovation hub of India. The city is a clear leader for R&D offshoring by MNCs, both for captive units and outsourced product development.
According to research firm Zinnov Management Consulting, out of the 780 MNC R&D centres currently active in India, nearly 50% are based out of Bangalore.
Consider the aviation sector. Many big global players like BaE Systems, EADS, Pratt & Whitney, Boeing, Rolls Royce, Honeywell and Spirit AeroSystems are doing some level of R&D in the city. “Bangalore has end-to-end solutions for the aviation industry,” Marcel Hungerbuehler, CEO of Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) said at the second day of CII’s India Innovation Summit 2009. “Many aviation companies have plans to expand their operations here and provide opportunity for designing and engineering outsourcing.”
For Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, over two million man hours of work has been done out of India to create embedded software, as well as software to test the aircraft on the ground. The aircraft maker’s new research & technology centre in the city will also do critical research and development work in creating low-cost titanium and aluminium alloys for the construction of various facets of an aircraft, to make it lighter and less expensive.
T Parabrahman, chairman of CII, Karnataka, said the city has access to the best engineering talent due to the growing number of engineering colleges in the city. “This has helped us become a hub for innovation in machine tools, cutting tools, garment and IT industry,” he said, and added, “With expertise in the core sciences and IISc, our defence industry and related research is also progressing well.”
SCIENCE CITY City boasts of end-to-end R&D solutions Engineering talent attracts aviation Other sectors: machine and cutting tools, garments, IT, defence Boeing has software base here Other companies: Bosch, BaE, Rolls Royce City’s main draw: talent pool
Bangalore: Bangalore’s talent pool continues to attract global players for their research and technology units. Sectors which have set up software arms in Bangalore include Boeing, Rolls Royce, BaE, Honeywell, Pratt and Whitney and others. Besides, the access to the best engineering talent stands the city in good stead, say market observers.
Bosch in Bangalore has developed electronic control units (ECU) for diesel and gasoline fuel injection systems for low-price vehicles. These ECUs integrate all the required functions of an engine control into a single unit/compact chipset. Bosch now plans to take such low-price vehicle technology to China and emerging markets. S Sadagopan, founder of IIIT, Bangalore, says the city has many incubation centres in higher educational institutions that are developing next generation products. These centres are also working with major IT companies for global products. “Universities file for few patents, around 10 per year. But the R&D centres file around several dozen a year,” said Sadagopan.
“The R&D and innovation ecosystem is well developed here,” says C S Chandramouli, director at Zinnov. A number of semiconductor design firms are today based in Bangalore. “Many low-cost chips are now being developed by Bangalore R&D teams. We are also home to many start-ups who are actively filing patents,” says Chandramouli.
S Bhaskaran, senior director in Philips Electronics India, said the company has started discussions with villagers to design products in agriculture and water management.