Integrating creativity into engineering

Nitin Pai, general manager - marketing, Tata Elxsi Ltd in conversation with Sudhakaran of CyberMedia News

Could you give a brief idea about Tata Elxsi's philosophy of bringing about a balance between engineering and creativity?

Seamlessly integrating precision and ingenuity, Tata Elxsi's abilities stem from our creative leadership in hardcore technology and strength in design. Augmenting these capabilities is our expertise across our practice areas to provide point services and end-to-end solutions across the product lifecycle.

Coming to engineering creativity with the best of breed technology, we strive to deliver solutions high on innovation, all the time conscious of quality, time and cost and most of all designed according to the needs of our customers.

We have a mixed bag of creativity and engineering across divisions. For example, VCL (Visual Computing Labs) is the division which is in tune with creative aspect of not just movie making but also logo design, ad film making and lot more. Similarly IDE also is full of creatively shaping product designs with the right mix of ergonomics and modern design concepts that are relevant with the markets.

Product Design Engineering and Systems Engineering are involved in some really high-tech engineering work but this also has its own element of creativity involved, as we work closely with design labs of our clients in conceptualizing new products.

The balance here is how we are able to seamlessly integrate creativity into engineering and vise-versa.

How this philosophy is being translated into grooming young talent within the organization?

The Tata Elxsi dictum is to "Aspire, Act and Achieve". Giving meaning to the words, are the people behind Tata Elxsi. Aspiring to greater heights, acting efficiently and responsibly and achieving success.

We believe in encouraging our employees to build individual successes. To constantly learn, on a personal level and a professional one, thus grow from knowledge to knowledge.

We engage fresh recruits and take them through rigorous on-the-job training. This is measured at different levels, and based on their level of interest and performance; they are aligned to teams to work. Project managers are receptive of their ideas during brainstorming sessions. It so happens that these project managers have gone through the same process, hence they are aware, what ideas can be worked out and what cannot.

We also have a reward system in place which is duly recognized, even at the client level. In this manner, talent is given the appropriate direction to grow with a right mix of encouragement and grooming.

How does this help the company in providing customized design solutions to the clients?

Technology and design is being driven in both directions – globalization and localization. Costs and complexity demand that products be engineered to suit global markets, while keeping in mind usage requirements and operating constraints of specific markets or segments of users, demand customization and localization.

We have built competencies and design processes to address product design requirements for both – we have multi-functional and multi-disciplinary teams that help design products to suit global requirements. We have also set up design centers and studios such as the one recently announced in the UK, from where we can drive design sensitivity to local markets and consumers.

Our consumer (not customer) facing teams work on identifying product features and usability that directly impact consumer satisfaction and ease-of-use. This helps us finetune product aspects that can ensure its adoption and market success.

What are Tata Elxsi’s future plans in product design and embedded space?

We are one of the key players in the 4G / Broadband wireless space, with significant stakes in technologies such as WiMAX and LTE. We see significant opportunities for us in this market, and are making investments in developing our IPR to address this space.

We see solution accelerators and innovation as key drivers of value creation for customers, and will focus on these areas.

For example, our investments into WiMAX have paid off very well, positioning us as a world leader for mobile WiMAX protocol stacks and solutions.

Multimedia and broadcast has been a key growth sector, and continues to grow for us.

Defence and aerospace is another sunrise sector, and we see ourselves well-positioned to address requirements in avionics, communications and homeland security.

Being an Indian organization with a global footprint, how is Tata Elxsi contributing to the development of rural India, especially in the technological front?

We work on technologies that eventually benefit everyone in India and globally. At Tata Elxsi our CSR activities are framed in a way which helps us to reach out to the rural areas across the country. This is more aligned with the Tata vision.

Many of the technology projects we have executed, and are working on, directly impact rural India, helping transform the quality of life of the people that these products touch.

We have also been working on projects in the medical equipment and telecom space, where the focus has been to make technology simple and affordable, allowing rural India to benefit.

You have a diversified area of interest ranging from automotive, storage, consumer electronics, to semi conductors, networking and communication. And nowadays, the recession bug has bitten almost all industrial segments. What is Tata Elxsi's strategy to cope with the slowdown, especially when you focus on too many areas?

We do not undertake mainstream IT work – we specialize in product design and engineering, and do not have any exposure to the BFSI sector. Therefore, the impact has been much lesser than it is for many other IT companies.

As you said, the multiple industry segments we address have helped cushion the impact of recession in some specific segments. Also, we have seen positive benefits of recession in some sectors through increased focus on cost saving and offshoring by customers. We have engaged pro-actively with all customers, to identify how we can increase value, and also developing solution accelerators and IPR that can help customers reduce time-to-market.

How do you evaluate the product R&D outsourcing market in India?

India has a sizable potential in R&D outsourcing. Customers are now engaging us in turnkey product development, with Tata Elxsi taking responsibility for the complete system, including hardware and software, and from concept to manufacturing release.

This demands multi-disciplinary teams, with specialists in various domains including architecture, hardware development, ASIC design and software development. This also represents a move up the value chain, from being responsible for only specific areas of outsourced R&D, to partnering with customers in their full lifecycle.

India’s base of engineering colleges and academic institutions is helping provide the talent pool we need to address this business, in quantitative terms.

We run specialized internal training programs for fresh engineers joining us, for 3-6 months, before they can work on real time projects. We have actively started collaborating with engineering colleges to impart the required industry specific training and domain orientation, before the students graduate, so we can minimize the period of training.

This collaboration focuses on building a strong foundation for product engineering, and easing the transition from academics to projects and customer delivery.