Client Challenge
The newly appointed Chief Technology Officer of a 1,900 person engineering and science team was asked by the board to expand the company’s R&D footprint into India dramatically over a three year period, starting from scratch.
Amritt–Client Process
Amritt’s team conducted in-depth interviews with the top 50 R&D managers across all business units and product lines to develop a candidate list of skills that could be successfully offshored for the most impact with the minimum risk. An aggressive three-phase plan was developed jointly with the four direct reports responsible for the Asian R&D expansion initiative.
A vigorous evaluation of in-house (captive) and outsourced engineering teams was conducted. This included thorough reviews of over 20 outsourced engineering service providers, both American and Indian. Amritt and the client also visited several India Engineering Centers run by American and European companies in non-competing businesses to bring a first-hand view of the benefits and issues with managing a captive team. In addition, Amritt prepared a short-list of two top cities in India where the engineering talent should be located.
Impact
A blended approach using two key engineering service providers for immediate impact, coupled with a strong core captive team to be built out over a two year period was recommended. Four top managers from the US and Europe were expatriated to the chosen Indian city. Amritt conducted extensive training workshops for current managers in the USA and for new hires in India. We continue to review progress on an ongoing basis. We are on track for savings on the R&D budget of over 10 percent as a result of the India initiative.
