Globalization and Offshoring of R & D
Though ‘Moving up the value chain’ is the Holy Grail of offshoring, it is a phrase most gurus and IT leaders are hard pressed to elaborate. This said, offshoring of Research & Development, and some of the high-end work is already happening.
It a topic of personal and professional interest to me as I was managing aspects of Infosys’ research collaboration with Microsoft [at SETLabs] in my avatar prior to the current North American Technology Consulting gig.
During my stint at SETLabs in Bangalore, I was fascinated by practical implications of globalization of research. I authored the paper, published in Research-Technology Management: (July-August 2004) exploring how Global Innovation Exchanges were extending R&D and innovation into the virtual world allows harnessing the problem-solving expertise of the worldwide scientific community.
The recently published report “Globalization and Offshoring of Software” from ACM’s Job Migration Task Force has dedicated an entire section on “Globalization of IT Research.” Though the section focuses primarily on number of publications in CS and IT journals as a yardstick, it throws light on researcher migration and researcher job migration.
Similarly, Knowledge @ Wharton ’s section on “What's Driving India's Rise as an R&D Hub?” makes for interesting reading. The report begins by stating "the country is fast emerging as a major center for cutting-edge research and development (R&D) projects for global multinationals such as Microsoft and Motorola as well as Indian firms. More and more companies in industries ranging from IT and telecommunications through pharmaceuticals and biotech are setting up ambitious R&D projects, in part to serve the Indian market, but also with an eye to delivering new generations of products faster to the global market."
