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India, which has a presence of 228 of the top 500 firms globally, has the opportunity of creating 200,000 jobs in the research and development (R&D) space in the next five years, global advisory and management consulting firm Zinnov said in a report.
According to the report, Crossing the Value Chasm, China is the leading destination for R&D investments with a total of 385 G500 companies having a presence there as compared to 228 global 500 companies in India and 220 firms in the Bay Area in the US.
"In keeping with the historic trend that companies with a higher R&D spend find India more attractive for investments, there is a clear opportunity to create additional 200,000 R&D jobs in India by global 500 companies in the next 5 years," the report added.
The top 500 R&D spenders contributed over $577 billion, with the top 100 R&D spenders alone contributing 66% to the global R&D spend, it said.
Of the total global R&D spend, 40% of the overall is from organisations headquartered in North America, followed by 34% from Europe, 18% from Japan and 7% from Asia-Pacific, Zinnov said in the report.
"In 2012, 26 firms increased their global R&D spend by at least 20% and contributed over $19 billion. Fourteen of these companies have a presence in India and have increased their global R&D spend by $14 billion, of this only $129 million was invested in India," the report said.
At present, close to 50% of the global 500 firms present have over 10% of the global R&D head count in India.
While software/Internet companies tend to achieve the milestone of locating 10-20% of their R&D headcount in India faster than others, fee companies seem to have reached a ceiling at a minimal 1-4% of the global head count.
"A factor is that many of the India centres lack strong leadership and global stakeholder buy-in. Currently, only 11% of the companies with centres in India have global roles in engineering, product management and support functions," it said.
Only 15% of the India leaders are proactive, influential and have a global impact, indicating a need to grow strong a leadership pipeline, the report added. PTI RNK RAH
