We're like a smaller speedboat now, more nimble: Versuni global CEO Henk de Jong
Research & development has been an area of focus for Philips (and Versuni) over the years. How’s the R&D facility in Chennai doing? The plan is to capitalise on the growing opportunities in the Indian market. The R&D centre in Chennai continues to innovate and helps us grow.
Most of our investments are in R&D and that’s hovering around 4-5% of our revenue in India. Globally, our R&D team is 600-people strong. India has 4-5% of that team.
But they are all working together. We do a number of consumer insight studies and then come up with new ideas. We are continually training people and have reduced the bureaucracy.
Now there are less people managing R&D and more people working in R&D! We have modernised the IT landscape and have adopted cloud solutions. We are applying AI in our manufacturing, devices, marketing and are launching more digital campaigns. The whole focus is on helping the consumer and the way to do that is to have a digital-first approach.
Some of the trends are unique but some are the same the world over. Cleaning floors, air purifying etc are areas where the trends are the same globally. But Indian kitchens are different.
The mixer grinder or the pressure cooker are areas where we have excellent products in India and we continuously innovate. The new pressure cooker under the Preeti brand is where my R&D team in India worked on and came up with something very innovative. Usually, pressure cookers can spill over and it takes a lot of time cleaning up the kitchen counter.
Now, we have ensured it doesn’t spill over and the retailers are seeing this as a remarkable innovation. For the consumer, there’s no change (Philip and Preeti will be the product names). Yes, some people were a little afraid of what would
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