Outsourcing of jobs to India, which started off with call centers and back office jobs like accounting, has started spreading
to high end product design work and even packaging and graphic designs.
In a small basement office in south Delhi, some 20
designers are busy sketching the outlines of new product lines for global giants the likes of Whirlpool and Reckitt Benckiser and, in the process, redesigning the face of outsourcing in India.
As manufacturers look at reducing costs and product development cycles, India is fast emerging as the new-age design board for Multi-National
Companies (MNCs). MNCs like Whirlpool, GE, LG, Philips and Bosch are setting up research and design centres in India. And some others like Reckitt are offshoring design work to Indian design houses.
A product is today conceived in the US, designed in India, manufactured in China and sold in markets across the globe. Consumer electronics manufacturers and FMCG firms lead the pack in outsourcing design work to India.
The expertise of Indian designers in 3D modeling and plant engineering in sectors like aerospace, automotive and industrial design has already caught the attention of leading companies from both Europe and America. The only stumbling block is the low number of skilled industrial and product designers in the country today. As compared to the UK which boasts of over 150,000 designers or China and Taiwan, which have a population of over 1 lakh designers each, India still has only around 1,500-2,000 skilled designers.
The benefits of shifting product design to India include an assured 24x7 work-day for MNCs. The high level of engineering skills in India also helps companies face the growing competitive pressure to create new products and bring them to market faster, or add new features and functionality to existing ones.
Even the cost benefits are enormous as designers in India don't charge by the time as opposed to the charge-by-the-hour system in the developed world. The cost of automotive design in Europe, for instance, ranges as high as $800 per hour, and is even higher in the US.
In comparison, costs (when put on an hourly basis) are as low as $60 per hour in India for equivalent quality. No wonder then global auto makers are increasingly steering into India for sourcing a wide range of needs that even include designing models meant only for global markets.