Nasscom Booz Esr Report 2010
Nasscom Booz Esr Report 2010
Nasscom Booz Esr Report 2010
Executive Summary
Introduction
The IT-BPO industry has enjoyed rapid growth in just one decade, India has invented, transformed
and reinvented the global sourcing industry several times over, staying ahead of all trends. The industry
has moved up the value chain, continuously growing the overall global sourcing pie and its share
in it. This industry has built a unique service-led export-oriented model away from the traditional
product-based play. However, we are now entering a period in which it is clear that the current model will
drive limited growth and to progress further, tomorrows global companies need to expand their view of
success and redene it in terms of lasting positive impact for business, society and the environment.
The recent economic downturn signaled the start of a new world order and a paradigm shift in the
way the world thinks and operates. Conglomerates viewed this crisis as an opportunity rather than a
threat and hence, there was limited impact on the global ER&D spend as companies earmarked ER&D
budgets to innovate so that they could drive growth in times of economic recovery.
In order to achieve innovation-led growth, the industry is targeting new growth engines, driving
globalisation of the ER&D structure across verticals and gaining a foothold in ER&D services offshoring.
The Indian ER&D services offshoring industry has grown dramatically since 2005-06 due to the
shift in the sourcing strategy of customers. Revenues have more than tripled in the last few years
and the industry is poised for further growth due to global interdependencies and linkages that is
impacting purchasing and investment activity across the globe. As the Indian supply base becomes
more global and entrenches itself deeply within the customer value chain and plays an integral role
in customer strategies, it is required to augment its existing capabilities to engage in end-to-end
product development initiatives develop their capabilities as ODMs, enhance their domain/vertical
and product/process specialisations, develop end-to-end networks across the entire product chain
(research labs-manufacturers-testing facilities-local market), establish global best practices, etc.
The current economic recession has had varying impact on different sectors. Consumer-related sectors
such as Automotive, Telecom, Computing Systems and Consumer Electronics, and Infrastructurerelated sectors such as Industrial Automation, Energy, and Construction/Heavy Machinery, were heavily
impacted as consumers reduced spending and corporates cut back on new expenditures/investments.
These sectors are expected to rebound over 2012 and 2013. However, Aerospace, due to long lead times,
and government ER&D and Medical Devices, due to a robust and growing healthcare industry, saw
minimum impact of the recession on ER&D spend.
Emerging markets have evolved to being the prominent players in the recent years and will become
increasingly dominant in the future. This trend is reected in the Asian ER&D spend, which has increased
from 1 per cent in 1990 to ~7 per cent in 2009 and is expected to contribute ~11 per cent of the global
ER&D spend by 2020. Indias ER&D spend in 2009, at about USD 12-15 billion has been growing at a
CAGR of 24 per cent over the last 4-5 years with Automotive, Commodities, Energy & Utilities and
Pharmaceutical industries accounting for a major share. In contrast to global ER&D spend ratio, the
government accounts for 60-65 per cent of the total ER&D spend in India and corporates comprise the
balance. Going forward, the Indian Government is expected to provide a boost to ER&D in India through
its investments in Infrastructure and Energy, amounting to over USD 350 billion by 2012.
High complexity services like product development and middleware development will account for
~25 per cent by 2020. This proportion will be even higher in Hi-tech verticals like Telecom, Semiconductors,
Consumer Electronics, Computing Systems and Medical Devices.
ER&D services sourcing is now a global industry with the emergence of several new low-cost destinations
in addition to India. China has a large presence of captives driven by its manufacturing capabilities,
followed by Central and Eastern Europe, ASEAN, Brazil, South Africa and North Africa, among others.
While these locations are building up ER&D capabilities, India has the unique advantage of a strong
and diverse service provider pool with capabilities across verticals and a range of business models to
suit the diverse requirements of global corporations.
Indian domestic companies have typically retained ER&D in-house. It is estimated that less than
5 per cent of the companies utilised ER&D service providers in 2005-06 and the number grew to
~10 per cent by 2009-10. However, as Indian companies move from manufacturing products for the local
market to catering to the global market, the complexity and amount of ER&D workload will increase. As
a result, outsourcing will in all likelihood become more prevalent. However, within the Indian market,
drivers for outsourcing are quite different from global drivers of offshoring. Indian customers will
outsource to gain access to exible ER&D capacity to reduce time-to-market, new technologies and
global industry best practices.
North America has been the traditional stronghold of the Indian ER&D service market. It continues
to remain the largest market. Its share though, in terms of contribution to total revenues is expected
to decline from 62 per cent in 2009 to 45 per cent in 2020. In terms of incremental growth of the
market from 2009 to 2020, North Americas share will be ~40 per cent. The European market
is opening up and is expected to contribute another 30 per cent while new opportunities from
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Global ER&D: Accelerating Innovation with Indian Engineering
the Japanese market (driven by focused investments of the Indian supply base in surmounting
cross-cultural and language barriers) and the rest of the world will contribute 30 per cent. Suzuki,
Hyundai, Philips, Siemens and LG are examples of some of the major captives in India that have
been set up by East Asian and European companies
In 2020, Automotive, Telecom and Consumer Electronics are expected to remain the highest revenue
generating verticals. Consumer Electronics would exhibit signicant potential if the Indian supply
base invests to compete with ODMs from China, Taiwan and South Asian countries
The offshorable opportunity of USD 35-40 billion is spread across all service offerings. Increased
use of electronics and embedded components could contribute almost USD 16 billion in offshoring
revenues (both software and hardware chip design), accounting for about 40 per cent of the total
market size in 2020. High value-added activities like prototype building, testing, verication and
validation, core product development and design are expected to add another USD 11 billion to the
Indian ER&D revenues
The Indian domestic market is expected to contribute almost 10-15 per cent of the ER&D services
market in 2020. Three major sources of revenues have been identied for this market supporting
growth of domestic market/companies, meeting offset requirements in the Aerospace sector, planned
investments in Infrastructure (roads, highways, ports, bridges, etc.) and Energy & Utilities infrastructure
(power plants, T&D, etc.) by both the Indian Government and corporates. Indian service providers have
strong process and product capabilities that can be leveraged to support this growing market.
period of time, higher number of experienced professionals in the workforce, and investments by Indian
service providers in research and IP development has resulted in increased customer condence.
Manufacturing-focused verticals such as Automotive and Construction/Heavy Machinery were some
of the rst industries to engage in ER&D offshoring and now have a mature supply base in India.
Indian ESPs have since expanded their capabilities across new verticals namely, Medical Devices,
Consumer Electronics and Aerospace due to the need for low-cost solutions, critical time-to-market
and easy transferability of skills respectively. Within verticals, capabilities vary across sub verticals,
some exhibiting greater maturity than others. At the product development level, high level capabilities
exist in the areas of Automotive interiors and exteriors, aerostructures and propulsion in Aerospace,
access networks, core networks, devices in Telecom and development of small-medium size products
in the Construction/Heavy Machinery vertical.
A large engineering base, with an estimated installed base of ~1 million engineers, remains one of
Indias key strengths. The majority of this workforce has been employed by large Indian conglomerates.
Less than 15 per cent of the installed base works in the ER&D offshoring industry, either for captives
or service providers; however, the number of engineers employed in the Indian ER&D services market
is ahead of China and has grown at 40 per cent CAGR since 2006. In 2009, 35-45 per cent of the
English-speaking engineers graduating from Indian engineering institutions were in high-demand
disciplines, such as, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering and Electronics, which was also in
proportion to the demand from the global customers. However, India still faces major challenges with
respect to productivity of an engineering graduate and domain expertise.
Indian service providers have invested in expanding their global footprint to service geographically
distributed customers. They have established sales teams in North America and Europe, and delivery
centres in China and Japan, for closer interaction with customers in the former and to coordinate efforts
with existing manufacturing facilities in the latter. Within India, companies have begun to move to
Tier-II cities to take advantage of lower costs of operations and to access a large graduating pool
of engineers.
Currently, India is the only country that offers a exible business model for customers. There are over
300 captive ER&D facilities in India employing about 85,000 engineers. The leading 20 independent
service providers that serve multiple verticals employ over 60,000 engineers. Though the overall market
in India (USD 8.3 billion) is roughly evenly split between service providers and captives, 60 per cent of
captives serve Hi-tech verticals, i.e., Semiconductors, Telecom, Consumer Electronics and Computing
Systems. Infrastructure and Industrial Automation are almost completely dominated by captives
whereas industries such as Aerospace and Medical Devices are seeing greater involvement of ESPs.
The availability of a skilled talent pool with strong communication skills and English language capabilities
is another reason for Indias attractiveness. Over the last ve years, Indias graduate engineering
pool has more than doubled over 350,000 engineers were added to the engineering talent pool in
2009. India has the worlds second-largest English-speaking population, at 72 million people and the
second-largest number of engineering graduates, after the US. While India scores low on tertiary
enrolment and usage of internet in schools, the quality of its educational system outperforms the BRIC
average and the quality of mathematics and science education is considered better than the US.
The government has played a signicant role in developing India as an offshoring destination. For over
a decade, the government has provided the industry with dedicated export zones (STPIs and SEZs)
and an investor-friendly tax policy.
India has a well-established public R&D infrastructure with about 300 national laboratories, about
300 R&D institutions in the public sector and nearly 400 universities. However, the country lacks a formal
innovation policy to guide public and private R&D and there is minimal interaction and coordination
between institutions. Though overall Indian policy lags compared to peers in protecting investors,
IP protection standards offered by the outsourcing industry to their customers rank as among the
best in the world.
India is expected to remain a leader in 2020 though strong competition will emerge from China, Eastern
Europe, Brazil and Taiwan. While Indias competition varies based on the verticals, China and Eastern
Europe still remain the ercest competitors.
In order to reach the USD 40-45 billion market size by 2020 and maintain its edge over emerging
competition, Indias ER&D services sector will need to adopt a four-pronged strategy:
Enter new markets: Invest in building capabilities in new markets such as Europe and Japan, while
simultaneously deepening penetration across existing markets. A unique set of investments
and value propositions are required to capture the domestic Indian outsourcing market. Since
cost is no longer an advantage, service providers must have strong technical capabilities, exible
capacity, know-how about how global ER&D networks are organised and so on to build a compelling
value proposition
Enter new industries: Invest in new, fast growing verticals in the market like Infrastructure and
Energy. Though the ER&D services market will be dominated by Telecom, Automotive and Consumer
Electronics, faster growth is expected from the newer verticals
Enter new service offerings: Invest in building end-to-end ER&D capabilities in select verticals. As
service providers mature, the focus should be on building vertical-centric capabilities as opposed to
service-offering-centric capabilities. For some verticals like Consumer Electronics and Computing
Systems, integrating design and manufacturing capabilities can produce signicant benets to
service providers
Strengthen existing business: Build collaborative infrastructure and ecosystems through a network
of partnerships and alliances. These include testing facilities, prototyping facilities, laboratories,
design houses, centres of excellence, training facilities and academic institutions (the last two
specically to maintain, refresh and build domain capabilities)
Across most verticals, India and China are the leading destinations for offshoring due to their strong
capabilities, cost arbitrage, manufacturing base, local demand, and large talent pool. Other emerging
destinations include Taiwan (Computing Systems), Ireland (Medical Devices), Poland and Brazil
(Construction/Heavy Machinery), etc.
In line with these emerging opportunities, Indian ESPs are continually moving up the value chain by
offering high-complexity services across verticals. In the Aerospace industry, capabilities have evolved
from basic CAD/CAM, software development, homologation, etc. to composite design, tolerance
analysis, and digital prototype assembly. Further, capabilities are being developed in high-complexity
areas of core/advanced R&D (e.g. materials, that involve fundamental research), bio-fuel-based engine
development (environmental compliance), crash simulation, etc. Indian ESPs are providing high-end
design work like aircraft engine design for companies like Airbus and Boeing. In the Automotive sector,
current capabilities, mainly of medium complexity, include middleware and application development,
sub-assembly design, digital manufacturing and technical and plant simulation. Indian ESPs are
expected to move up the value chain to offer services around design automation, integrated system
design, hardware and chip design, etc. Within Telecom, over the last few years, Indian ESPs have
moved up from CAD, conversion services, embedded software design, etc. to high-end services such
as system level capabilities, customised control software and product conceptualisation, etc. Large
service providers have been providing design services for telecom products like mobile phones, xed
phones, set top boxes, RFID devices, WiFi devices, switches, routers, cables, etc.
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Global ER&D: Accelerating Innovation with Indian Engineering
Until early 2000, Semiconductor service providers were offering low-end services like system
integration, testing of PCB design and verication of VLSI design. However, in the last 4-5 years,
Indian ESPs have begun offering services such as digital/analog IP, embedded solutions, post-silicon/
pre-silicon validation services. Indian ESPs are not only helping Semiconductor companies reduce their
design services costs but are also supporting them in areas like power reduction and performance
improvements on next-generation chips. The Indian supply base in Computing Systems is currently
most competent in communications, networking, servers and storage they are expected to make
maximum traction in advanced computing and servers and storage through 2020. In the last few years
Indian engineers have started supporting high-end ER&D activities such as product conceptualisation
and end-to-end product development. With increasing supply capabilities, service providers are also
getting an opportunity to work on complete product ownership models.
In Consumer Electronics, Indian ESPs have signicant coverage of the entire product development
value chain from low, mid to high-end services. ESPs have moved up from services like user interface
design and testing, design evaluation, etc. to complete development of embedded components, product
conceptualisation, chip design, etc. Some ESPs are mature enough to provide end-to-end services
including low volume production. In the Medical Devices sector, India currently has a number of ER&D/
design ESPs with capabilities ranging from design support, embedded software to hardware design.
Some of the ESPs have moved up from low-end services like specications development, electronics
engineering, analysis and simulation to high-end services like industrial design, concept exploration,
design and code reviews, test engineering, risk analysis, etc. By 2020, Indian ESPs are expected to
provide services for devices from imaging to cardiovascular technologies.
In the Energy sector, Indian ESPs have been largely providing low-end services from conversion to
process support. Very few ESPs are capable of providing services across the value chain (Upstream,
Midstream, Piping, Process). However, companies are expected to offer high-complexity services
including feasibility/conceptual studies, geospatial applications, GIS mapping, RoHS compliance, etc.
Infrastructure activities have shifted from CAD and drawing/drafting work to higher level analysis and
design. Over the next decade, services will include complex activities like architectural conceptualisation
services, welding/materials engineering, etc. Offshore services in Industrial Automation consisted
mostly of debugging, testing, and low-level mechanical design. Currently a large amount of software
development and high level embedded product development takes place. Future activities may overlap
into core ER&D and may consist of end-to-end new product development, systems engineering, model
building, algorithm evaluation/implementation, etc. In the Construction/Heavy Machinery industry,
centres in India are rapidly developing capabilities to serve both the domestic and international markets.
Some centres are already involved in activities such as application development for products, design
and development of new products to basic analysis and re-engineering of existing products. Few have
also transitioned to more advanced technologies that include electro-mechanical control systems,
electrical power technologies, imaging technologies and remote prognostics.
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Global ER&D: Accelerating Innovation with Indian Engineering
Conclusion
ER&D is strategic to India and has the potential to bring a steep change to the Indian economy. The ER&D
services market has played an important role in developing the ER&D capabilities of the country. India is
now an emerging epicentre of the global ER&D market with more companies exploiting its supply base
for future growth. It is important for major stakeholders of this industry Indian Government, trade
associations including NASSCOM and the industry to ensure the growth trajectory of the industry
and moving it to the next level of product development.
Concentrated nature of engineering sets the ER&D services market apart from the IT and BPO markets.
Globally, 400-500 customers account for 80 per cent of the ER&D spend. The degree of concentration
further varies by vertical there are fewer companies with large ER&D spend in Telecom and Aerospace
compared to Automotive, Semiconductors and Consumer Electronics. This makes it imperative for
service providers in India to focus on building engineering ecosystems to support their global customers
in specic verticals.
The success, in the space however, varies across verticals Aerospace, Telecom, Energy & Utilities, and
Infrastructure engineering have performed at par or better than expectations. However, in verticals
such as Consumer Electronics, Semiconductors, Medical Devices and Automotive, India is running
behind expectations. Verticals such as Semiconductors and Consumer Electronics are on the forefront
of globalisation, and require product and system level solutions that can be achieved through deep
domain knowledge as well as supporting ecosystem absence of such a proposition has affected
revenues in these verticals. In order for India to continue to be the preferred partner for ER&D services
across all industries, it is imperative for the Indian supply base to invest in and establish a compelling
value proposition.
Moving forward, stakeholders will have to take a focused and clear approach to sustain Indias
competitiveness in the ER&D services industry. Building innovation clusters/ecosystems for full product
development, investing in new emerging technologies in industries of strategic interest, accelerating
growth of engineering talent in the country in terms of capacity and capability, specifying policies
that mandate minimum share of ER&D services to meet offset requirements and nally branding
and showcasing Indian engineering talent, scale, scope, and delivery models are some of the priority
actions that have been identied for the market growth in the near term.
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Global ER&D: Accelerating Innovation with Indian Engineering
Global ER&D
Accelerating Innovation with
Indian Engineering