Outsourcing Innovation, Essay Example

Innovation can be evident in most developed countries but can be less so for a country such as India. Today, it is the most advanced nations such as the United States that remain as the major driving forces. However, it is expected that non-western countries may become more active over the next fifteen years. In his talk, Nirmalya Kumar emphasize that India indeed exhibits innovation but it is largely invisible and he accounts why it is so. In addition, an increasing population and rising consumer demand is taking place in developing countries thus requiring multi-national companies from advanced nations to adapt business practices and profiles from their counterparts. I therefore agree with Kumar’s position that India has the ability to innovate and the potential to achieve greater heights.

Globalization has greatly influenced several factors and setting in both the developed and developing nations and economies around the world. Nowadays, more and more businesses and global industries are continuously trying to look for profits that would yield higher returns and production site that would cost them the least. There is also a need for organizations to become innovative and more creative in order to survive, develop, keep up with competition and to become a leader in the current economy (Jung et al, 2003; Tierney et al., 1999).Globalization has greatly influenced several factors and setting in both the developed and developing nations and economies around the world. Nowadays, more and more businesses and global industries are continuously trying to look for profits that would yield higher returns and production site that would cost them the least. There is also a need for organizations to become innovative and more creative in order to survive, develop, keep up with competition and to become a leader in the current economy (Tierney et al., 1999) and innovation is a key aspect in achieving this.

­According to Kumar, there are four types of invisible innovation in India. Globally-segmented is one, which is primarily led by multi-national conglomerates that have outsourced Research and Development Centers to India. This segmentation results to a detachment from the labor completed by Indian firms to its end-users, does making it invisible as well as the fact that service providers in India cannot fully claim this innovation. However, this lack of visibility does not necessarily equate to its value. A few examples of instances such as these can be illustrated by the development products of Indian service providers for companies such as Intel and G.E. As a matter of fact, even the President of Boeing, Ian QR Thomas says that he had found the company’s needs in India, even stating that “In theory, we could place the work anywhere. We’re here because we found a level of sophistication” (Wagstyl, 2011). Another contributing factor to India’s invisible innovation is the fact that it focuses on operations. There won’t be any tags or visible markings to indicate that a product is made in India. Meanwhile, process innovations are more evident in service-related industries such as call centers through the utilization of a behavior-mapping model. Most prevailing of these types however is management innovation, though it is the least visible. This is best seen in the Global Delivery Model which has elevated industries to spread globally.

It is ironic that India is considered as a mere workshop by many, unaware of its inherent importance and innovation. A lot of people don’t realize that India ranks the 1^st in the field of Information Technology development and a number of large companies have outsourced their research and development centers in India. Furthermore, the information technology (IT) revolution aspect of globalization will most likely be irreversible due to the growing need for global interconnectedness. Applications that utilize the latest in technology will bring about dramatic improvements in areas such as health or well being and human knowledge. This includes breakthroughs in the medical field that would stretch the life span of an individual and mitigation of common diseases, wireless communication expansion, and even language translation technology that may facilitate social, commercial and political relationships for business.

Indeed, the last two decades saw the rise of globalization and the rapid pace of technological innovations and developments, radically changing the landscape in the way organizations are structured, managed and operated to effectively and efficiently respond to the needs of the times.  Correspondingly, new theories, models and paradigms of organization have emerged which supplement, improve, challenge or offer other alternative modes to traditional and currently being used theories in the workplace. Because of the increasing complexity of organizations in this time and age, emerging studies within this field have taken multiple viewpoints, methods and levels of analysis.

Works Cited

Harkins, P.J. Brown, S.M. & R. Sullivan. Shining new light on a growing trend. HR Magazine, 40(12); 1995 pp.75-7

Kumar, Nirmalaya & Phanish Puranam. India Inside. Harvard Business Review Press. 2011

Mitchie, Jonathan and John Grieve Smith. Managing the Global Economy. New York: Oxford University Press. 1995

Tierney, T. et al. What’s Your Strategy for Managing Knowledge? Harvard Business Review. 77(22) 1999.  Taylor & Francis pp. 106-116

Wagstyl, S. Indian R& D unhindered by Cost Issue. Financial Times. 2011