Tata Motors Spends Most on Research. Mahindra 2nd & Maruti 3rd


Thread Starter #1

Nairrk

Honoured Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2016
Messages
14,746
Likes
5,280
Location
Payyanur/Kannur
The ‘Make in India’ initiative has a lot to catch up, as the global list of top 100 R&D spenders has just one Indian company – Tata Motors. Listed at 99th position globally, Tata Motors spent Rs 2,397.5 crore on R&D during FY 2017-18.

However, if Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is taken together with Tata Motors, then the combined entity stands at 13th position, with a massive R&D spending of Rs 19,444 crore. This is more than the combined R&D spending of the next 9 Indian companies featured in the list.

2018-tata-sedan-45x-render-luxury-india.jpg

Other Indian auto companies featured in the list are Mahindra & Mahindra (114th rank with R&D spending of Rs 1991.9 crore) and Maruti Suzuki (227th rank with R&D spending of Rs 831.6 crore). Other Indian non-auto companies featured in the list include Sun Pharma at 104th position; Lupin at 120th; Dr Reddy’s Labs at 121st; Reliance Industries at 122nd; Glenmark Pharma at 163rd; Cipla at 200th and Bharat Heavy Electricals at 244th position. It’s apparent that the list is dominated by Indian auto and pharma companies.

With only one Indian company featured in the top 100 list of global R&D spenders, it sends a clear message that the world is far ahead of us. It’s through R&D that some of the world’s best products and brands have been created such as Ford, General Motors, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc.

tata-mahindra-maruti-r-d-spend.jpg

If Indian companies want to compete at the global level, they will have to increase their spending on R&D. As of now, there’s hardly any Indian brand or product that can be said to be truly global.

India’s spending on R&D in proportion to its GDP is also miniscule at 0.6 – 0.7 per cent. This is significantly less as compared to R&D spends of other countries such as Israel (4.3 % of GDP); South Korea (4.2 % of GPD); United States (2.8 % of GDP); and China (2.1 % of GDP). India’s spending on R&D is low even when there’s a 150% deduction of expenditure for R&D.

Source:
 
Joined
Sep 30, 2014
Messages
277
Likes
203
Location
Bangalore
I am not surprised to see the low percentage of R&D expenditure of Maruti. They have engines from Fiat/Suzuki, platforms and designs by Suzuki. The R&D would mostly be for implementing India specific rules like the chime, testing cars and the homologation of the cars to clear ARAI tests.
Quite happy to see the numbers for Tata and Mahindra. The improvement in product quality is also quite evident with it.
One of the reason that we see lesser proportion of R&D in India, maybe because even though we have a lot of R&D Centers in India, they are mostly for foerign brands. For example, we have R&D Centers for Siemens, Schenider, SKF, Mercedes, Volvo, however, the R&D centers are not funded by the Indian branches. Usually the R&D centers are Global Technical centers, which are funded by a common share, by the company's global profits.
Due to this the contribution of the Indian branches is much lesser.
 

Akash1886

Honoured Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2014
Messages
11,936
Likes
14,774
Location
Delhi-NCR/ Mumbai
....not surprised to see the low percentage of R&D expenditure of Maruti. They have engines from Fiat/Suzuki, platforms and designs by Suzuki.
They don't have to work on creating new platforms firstly. Look at the Dzire & Swift across the generations. Look at Ritz, Wagon R & Ignis. Earlier Gen Ertiga MPV was quite close to design of the Swift except for it's stretched profile. They keep customizing their existing line up and keep bringing old wines in new bottle.

Eg: We all know, their sedan CIAZ had been competing with likes of Verna & CITY which had much bigger engines with wonderful performance. I swear by the Ivtec 1.5L. That was one superb engine and for Maruti it took 4 years from launch of CIAZ in 2014 to provide a 1.5 L Petrol Engine and even today you can see CITY, Verna and others having big and reasonably well performing diesel mills but what has Maruti got, a lame 1.3L DDIS which has so far fathered their line up of hatches, sedan and even C-SUV. Lack of enthusiastic demand for Diesel Ignis led them to discontinue it in the end.

The R&D would mostly be for implementing India specific rules like the chime, testing cars and the homologation of the cars to clear ARAI tests.
See, R&D has much more to it than just the homologation and ARAI FE tests provided if the brand has the willingness to take risk and adopt the change. Look at Mahindra, TATA, Ford & Isuzu. Tata even with so much of it's past reputation was able to succeed with the Tiago, Nexon & even Tigor. Look at their Hexa, yes, compared to competition it sells less but it was their willingness to take a 2nd go at the segment with their new design platform and Hexa has been welcomed with reasonable respect from buyers. Look at Ford, they entered compact sedan segment with Aspire and it did a reasonable job for them if not flew off the shelves along with niche cars like Mustang and their dragon mills. Look at Mahindra, they have taken a giant stride with Marazzo to compete with big daddy MPV/SUV segment and see Isuzu, a formally engine building brand came out with a hugely popular now, V-Cross which they introduced in a market like India that still is growing up towards Pick Up & Lifestyle vehicle segment. Testing & Homologation is a norm and nothing out of the box that a brand does. German brands are also made to do so. Look at Mercedes Benz & BMW. So far, in 4 years to me the only R&D that they have done which qualifies to be an actual attempt is the building up of 1.5L Petrol engine and if we compare the R&D of MSIL to others, even after having close to 51% of market share, what have their cars got over and above the others in market? Where are their big AMT(s) the 6 speed one? So, I feel, their view of R&D seems very narrow and they kind of believe that the buyers are happy with whatever they have provided and are providing so why to invest. In today's market, R&D is all about new designs, technology & products and MSIL has flawed in latter two big time in my view. It is not like, that MSIL is the only price conscious brand in India rather it is their lack of willingness to adopt change & take risk.

Quite happy to see the numbers for Tata and Mahindra. The improvement in product quality is also quite evident with it.
True.

One of the reason that we see lesser proportion of R&D in India, maybe because even though we have a lot of R&D Centers in India, they are mostly for foerign brands. For example, we have R&D Centers for Siemens, Schenider, SKF, Mercedes, Volvo, however, the R&D centers are not funded by the Indian branches. Usually the R&D centers are Global Technical centers, which are funded by a common share, by the company's global profits.
Add to that brands like Hyundai & Yamaha and if I am correct TML too has one in Pune.

Regards

Akash
 

Top Bottom