SAN FRANCISCO, USA:  The $ 1.8 billion Autodesk, a global digital design software company, is planning to shift some of its R & D work to India in the near future as part of its strategy to leverage design talent globally.  No firm date has been set for this move.

" The company had earlier tried to outsource part of the research work to Indian companies but it didn't work out. Now we are considering the off-shoring model on our own,” said Autodesk's Chief Marketing Officer, Chris Bradshaw, in an interview with CyberMedia News during the company's second Autodesk Press Day event to showcase its latest technologies to the world here.

Autodesk has systematically increased its presence in India's leading engineering and design institutions in recent years by setting up Centers of Design Excellence at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs) in Kanpur and Chennai.

"We are in talks with other IITs and the network of National Institutes of Technologies (NITs) to extend these facilities to these institutions too, " Bradshaw revealed.

The search for global talent is what is driving companies like Autodesk to the Asian region.  In the developed economies of the world, the current crop of designers are all set to retire in the next 5 to 10 years. In the emerging economies where there is a growing demand for design talent, there is a shortage, said Autodesk's Vice-President (market development), Jon H Pitman.

" This is because the education sector works in silos with very little integration with other disciplines, mainly in engineering institutions," Pitman said. " The engineering education system has to overcome the talent crunch by moving away from individual performance assessment models to project –based team performance."