2009 - The year of "prudence" in journey of Global engineering
The year gone by was greeted by "financial crisis" and the CXOs across industries were strategizing to deal with this unprecedented challenge at the beginning of the year - focus was on financial prudence and achieving operational efficiency.
...But as we end the year, the mood has changed, there is greater hope and some early signs of turnaround...the conversations again are shifting to view this downturn as an opportunity and capitalize on impending growth, prepare to launch new products, adopt more agile and lean business models...
The impact of recession was more in the developed economies. India and China as markets continued to register good growth. In fact this year auto sales in India were defying the economic crisis and bloodbath faced by Detroit, sales have been rising through February this year and recorded 61% growth in November. This all only went to prove that companies will always find new opportunities in this globalized economy.
"Global engineering" concept gained further ground in the recessionary times. I choose to call this year,a year of "prudence" in journey of global engineering, as it put to test the claims and helped to reign unrealistic expectations.
This downturn provided an opportunity to test the "global engineering" paradigm and it is only clear that the companies that leveraged globalization in R&D realized the benefits during the downturn, when the R&D budgets came under axe. Many a companies did debate what is core to their survival and success - while many embraced globalization of engineering some got an opportunity to rationalize their roadmap and bring back into their fold engineering dimensions what they believed were important to their success, as is the case with some auto OEMs.
The advantages are visible - expanding R&D bandwidth flexibily, sharing reasonable risks and taking advantage of reduced cost structure. Companies were seen exploring opportunities to leverage partner to penetrate the new market. The year also marked the importance of frugal engineering and better asset utilization. Various companies in Retail, Pharma were taking on initiatives to improve manufacturing efficiency and were ably supported by their partners in improving shop floor efficiency. The product portfolio and product lifecycle were also under scanner - Companies in consumer goods and manufacturing did leverage PLM systems to not only stream line the NPD process but also determine the profitability of product line, spread of portfolio, prioritize new programs and evaluate cannibalization impact of new launches. The companies in China continued to drive down the manufacturing costs, though product ideas were borrowed in many a cases.
The year also brought to fore the importance of engineering value chain. Boeing's global development of Dreamliner did exemplify the delay in time to market (against the expectation at he outset of program) due to issues in value chain. This brought into focus the growing role of the eco-system and need to fix challenges of collaboration and distributed design and manufacturing. The copy designs in China continued to raise IP concerns.
The innovation and technology knew no boundaries - Success of "Nano" a $2500 car by Tata in India. “LoCosto ULC” single-chip platform from Texas Instruments, "Flypp" mobile application platform from Infosys, hybrid technologies, mobility solutions impacted life of millions. The efforts for sustainability and message from Copenhagen continue to remind us of our interdependence...
This year "Global engineering" has gained more roots in the engineering strategy of the organizations and will continue to drive inclusive growth....
With these thoughts, I signoff 2009. Seasons Greetings! and a great year ahead.....
