Chipping in with innovation mantra

BANGALORE: A never-ending proclivity to passionately showcase India’s prowess in the semiconductor scenario around the world, Dr. Biswadeep (Bobby) Mitra, managing director at Texas Instruments (TI) India, exemplifies a supreme blend colossal prudence that compliments new-age astuteness.

Seated at the head honcho’s chair of the country’s one of the leading corporations, Bobby’s composed poise could catch you off guard, similar to the innovations introduced by TI.

While speaking on the company’s sojourn in the Indian markets for the last 22 years—Bobby remarks the mantra—“There has been a huge focus on design innovation at all levels and thanks to that—we have been acknowledged as the most innovative company in India. Our company has the highest number of US patents filed by an Indian company—innovation has been the mantra.”

After finishing his B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) in the Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering stream, Bobby went on to acquire his doctoral degree (Ph.D) from the same institute before proceeding to the University of Texas in Austin to get armed with an Executive MBA degree. He served in the capacity of Director at TI Dallas and looked after the Wireless Communication Product Development before returning to head the Indian operations of TI.

When TI made its debut in India way back in 1985 and soon set up its Research and Development center, it become one of the first multinational entities to do so. As the top official in India, Dr. Mitra’s role is to captain the activities of the company across myriad product spheres. In addition to this, he heads the leadership execution for products that are vital.

The swiftly changing electronics market has witnessed a lot of innovations from TI’s stable. Talking about the contributions of TI to promote innovation in the semiconductor domain, Dr Mitra reminisces—“In August 2005, we brought an innovative offering with LoCosto and when TI’s Chairman made the first call to the world in the mobile on LoCosto—it combined multiple chips that were used to go into a cell phone. That product was targeted at the emerging economy that was price sensitive and high on features.”

LoCosto provided a supremely integrated offering by combining baseband processing with radio thereby negating consumption of power, cost of the device, cutting down on the components—making wireless handsets as miniature as the match boxes.

He adds—“There are several other innovations that we have come up and video is also another area where we have focused majorly at TI India as it’s a multiple applications and has a lot of applications. There are a lot of video applications in the electronics world.”

The aforementioned contributions have gone a long way in providing TI the ideal platform to caricature the IT (Information Technology) ecology in the country.

The topic of discussion shifts to the decreasing timelines of design and Dr Mitra avers—“The compression of design timeline is an offshoot with people wanting newer features and the replacement market and the appetite for feature rich appliances is driving it. That has a cascading effect and design timelines have really shrunk and the key to that is to address is to have a platform approach and not have a single point product.”

He further states—“If you have a scalable platform, then you can battle the shrinking timelines.”

Under a scenario where procuring and managing the right talent has been the mantra for every company’s success—how does TI manage its vast pool of talent?

“I would say that it’s a combination of a few things,” states Dr Mitra. “First, we have a rich university program over the last decade or more and during this time we have partnered with over 650 universities across India and what we do is—really work with faculty, researchers in areas such as analog and partnered with universities pretty intimately. We are also working with faculty of these universities and training in the latest technology and product design. If you do this systematically, it allows us to build a deep relationship with the universities and students.”

Dr Mitra’s baritone resounds when he talks about the semiconductor market in India. “We have been excited about the R&D focus and in the last couple of years, the thrust has been on India as a semiconductor market and we believe that there is a huge opportunity ahead for us in TI not only from R&D but India as a market for us which is growing at over 36 per cent. The reason I am bullish about is that the local OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and MNC OEMS have banked innovation in a major manner, which is very impressive. How do I get the right products for the right markets has been the mantra!” admits Dr Mitra.

According to him, TI’s main focus would be, “world class R&D center and India as a market.”

Throwing light on his leadership mantra, Dr Mitra elucidates—“There are a few things that I firmly believe in. First is leadership courage. In this world where things are changing rapidly, a leader must have the guts to take tough calls in the interest of the company. Hard calls to make sure that we are doing the right things for the right people! Second, consistency of behavior and consistency of action is important—when one is leading a large organization, he must not say something today and something else tomorrow. It’s important that in different forums—we are consistent in our approach…if things change, we must communicate it clearly. Third is communication. Communication is really important and at all levels. We often underestimate it and a strong communication at across all levels has a huge effect on communicating on where we are heading.”

As a leader he admires the work of Mahatma Gandhi, who in Dr Mitra’s words—“Led the country in a simple and powerful manner and the way he galvanized the country to a cause is commendable.”

Despite his busy schedules, Dr Mitra takes time to spend with his family.

“I play chess with my son and not just face-to-face but on the Internet too…it’s a lot of fun to play with unknown people and get your ratings high,” chuckles Dr Mitra.

His firm belief in impacting the lives of hundreds and millions of people through the semiconductor technology remains unquestioned and as CyberMedia News concludes its interaction with him, it is certain that his dreams and visions have already begun bearing fruit and there is no stopping from here on.