The objective of the study is to Help MNCs identify the optimal locations in India to set up their R&D centers.This study also provides insight on how the Indian R&D landscape would look in 2015.

In the recent past the product development process has evolved from a traditional waterfall model to an agile/scrum based product development methodology. This evolution has resulted in significant process changes and many MNC R&D Centers are faced with challenges when adopting such process frameworks in a global delivery mode. This report will assess the nature of challenges and include the best practices adopted by MNC R&D Centers to make these processes more suited for distributed product development.

Note: There is no separate summary for this report

This report benchmarks 4 main F&A Processes - Accounts Payable, Budgeting & Forecasting , Fixed Assets and Payroll across  Indian MNC R&D Subsidiaries. It analyzes the key performance indicators under 4 Buckets ,namely Cost Effectiveness, Staff Productivity, Process Efficiency and Cycle Time, to gauge operational performance relative to  both external  and internal benchmarks. The report also explores the global best practices that are followed across these process to help organizations better understand latest trends and tackle operational gaps, if any

The focus for this study is predominantly on MNC R&D centers, it looks at multiple components to analyze the operating cost of running the R&D centers in India including payroll & payroll related benefits, infrastructure (including communication), travel (to and from headquarters), professional services, & government & regulatory costs. This year’s study has analyzed data from over 40 MNC R&D centers in India

This study brings to light the quantitative analysis of the R&D cost over the last few years, current trends and best practices, unmet needs of the R&D centers in India as well as future outlook towards the R&D cost. The study also provides strategic recommendations to the R&D centers to look beyond cost control and move up the maturity/ leadership value chain

Zinnov’s annual C&B Overview which is conducted exclusively for Software Product Development, Semiconductor and Embedded companies provides an in-depth analysis of the prevailing C&B trends in addition to value added services such as Attrition, Retention Strategies ,Talent Pool analysis etc.The report apart from providing a retrospective viewpoint also predicts, based on participant feedback and extrapolation of past data, a future outlook as well. 

Captive centers across verticals are increasing their breadth of operations to showcase additional value. There is a growing trend of offshoring F&A processes as a shared service to the captive centers. F&A offshoring is second only to IT offshoring in terms of maturity, market size and growth rate. The report presents an overview of the global and Indian FAO landscape, including recent trends and drivers for growth. This deliverable contains case studies that chart out the evolution, and highlight the salient features of players who have successfully implemented captive F&A offshoring. Finally, the challenges and best practices in F&A offshoring have been discussed.

Note: This report is part of both the Operational Efficiency and Shared Services Modules

The concept of ‘Matrix Structures’ was initially developed to help companies improve their delivery capabilities and optimize on resources. Matrix Structures are indeed required to effectively manage teams located in different parts of the world and is important to clearly segregate the reporting for primary activities (such as R&D ) and other aspects (such as HR). It is also the most flexible structure within which one can easily move around work without disturbing the structure of the teams in other locations.

During the global recession, many technology companies in India were forced to rationalize their operations in order to survive. As a part of the rationalization process numerous employees were/are being retrenched .This report focuses on the legalities involved in retrenchment as per the India Law and provides best practices followed by companies

Dwelling into details of some of the trends of compensation across Software Product Development companies in Bangalore, Pune and Chennai, this report highlights that the year 2009 has seen a plateauing of salary with over 27% of the participating organizations announcing a salary freeze across the board. This percentage is further expected to increase in the coming months. The average increment for 2009 as announced by few of the participating organizations ranges from 5% to 12%.

The study brings to light a detailed assessment of cost of running a product engineering captive in India based on a survey conducted amongst 25 R&D centres spread across locations such as Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune, which happen to be the key locations for R&D Offshoring in India. The study highlights that in the year 2008, the cost of running an R&D centre in India has come down by at least 6 per cent when compared to 2007 in absolute dollar terms. It promptly also underlines that with the current manner in which these captives are taking proactive measures for optimizing their cost points, coupled with the declining trend of Rupee against dollar, can work in their favour and help them reduce the cost by about 10-12 percent over the next 12 months.