Meera Sampath, Director, Xerox Research Centre, India, asserts that Xerox would like to work on ‘locally inspired, yet globally relevant’ innovations
B&E: How important is the Xerox India Innovation Centre to the company’s emerging market strategy?
Meera Sampath (MS): All our research centres support Xerox’s innovation needs across its different lines of businesses – be it our traditional documentation technologies-related research, which would be research related to our design and development of our devices, the works/ applications connected with that, et al as well as associated services in our existing lines of business, like management of large imaging centres, taking over and running infrastructure of large enterprises as well as SMEs and creation of customer communication material. Other lines of business that have recently been added to Xerox post the acquisition of ACS, have been innovation that supports the IT outsourcing (ITO) business and innovation in support of the BPO business. Two things were very clear from the outset when we set up the R&D centre here. The first was that the centre had to support innovation for expanding and rapidly growing Xerox’s businesses in emerging markets. The second was that given India’s unique set of skills and competencies and given Xerox’s need to expand its services over and beyond emerging markets, this research centre would endeavour to leverage the talent in India to significantly contribute to accelerating innovation in services delivery for our global customers.
B&E: How important is the Xerox India Innovation Centre to the company’s emerging market strategy?
Meera Sampath (MS): All our research centres support Xerox’s innovation needs across its different lines of businesses – be it our traditional documentation technologies-related research, which would be research related to our design and development of our devices, the works/ applications connected with that, et al as well as associated services in our existing lines of business, like management of large imaging centres, taking over and running infrastructure of large enterprises as well as SMEs and creation of customer communication material. Other lines of business that have recently been added to Xerox post the acquisition of ACS, have been innovation that supports the IT outsourcing (ITO) business and innovation in support of the BPO business. Two things were very clear from the outset when we set up the R&D centre here. The first was that the centre had to support innovation for expanding and rapidly growing Xerox’s businesses in emerging markets. The second was that given India’s unique set of skills and competencies and given Xerox’s need to expand its services over and beyond emerging markets, this research centre would endeavour to leverage the talent in India to significantly contribute to accelerating innovation in services delivery for our global customers.
B&E: In your experience, how are needs for developed and developing markets different?
MS: It depends on the vertical or market segment we are looking at. In terms of large enterprises, the needs and pain points may not be so significantly different as compared to developed markets. But in other segments, we may be significantly different. For instance, we are developing a smart banking solution to significantly improve costs and operational efficiencies and turnaround times for the banking industry. This leverages unique expertise in terms of the capabilities of our devices, document management or smarter document technologies and our capabilities in imaging, et al. This is a solution that we found – locally inspired but globally relevant. Interestingly, we have found takers for it in Brazil, Canada, Mexico and even US. We at our research lab consider that as the typical space we would like to play in. We develop fundamental technologies, fundamental concepts and solve research problems, which can be applied in multiple offerings, contexts and geographies.
B&E: How do you tackle the critical talent shortage issue in India?
MS: It becomes important for us to form the right partnerships, rather than competing for talent. We work with partners to ensure that they become part of the Xerox research family and the Xerox research group without becoming ‘employees’ of Xerox. Every researcher has a mandate to not only work on internal research projects, but to also actively participate in open research projects in partnership with universities.
B&E: How do you tackle the critical talent shortage issue in India?
MS: It becomes important for us to form the right partnerships, rather than competing for talent. We work with partners to ensure that they become part of the Xerox research family and the Xerox research group without becoming ‘employees’ of Xerox. Every researcher has a mandate to not only work on internal research projects, but to also actively participate in open research projects in partnership with universities.
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