We were having long discussions on R&D strategy today. Which companies in the world are very good at it, why Indian companies in general (except perhaps Healthcare Industry) are miserable in it. One of my colleagues posed a very interesting question today. He said in general for any industry in India, what should be the R&D strategy? Within one minute lot of thoughts went through my mind. Although I didn't have any learned opinion on this subject, one thing that was clear on my mind that all the innovations and R&D results from India should be people oriented. What I mean is we must take into account that for India as a country our biggest strength is people. The global trend of R&D being dominated by US and Europe is normally technology to replace people, we must not do that. We must create Innovations and technology that enables more and more people to work and be competent to do work at most places. As one of my colleagues later articulated what I said, whatever R&D coming out of India would benefit not just India but the entire world, so we must take care that we have distinct advantage over others from our R&D and innovations.

Just my two cents worth after a long time...