Co-developing IP is the key to drive ‘Make in India’: Rolls-Royce

India needs to invest in programmes that help co-develop and co-create products and solutions for the local market, enabling the country to own Intellectual Property (IP). This, in turn, will boost manufacturing, jobs and export capability, said Kishore Jayaraman, President, South Asia, Rolls-Royce Plc.

“...In terms of security of the country, we need to be co-developing products, co-creating solutions; that is the space that Rolls-Royce really wants to build on for the future. We are working very closely with defence organisations — MoD, DRDO, NAL, HAL — on how to co-create products and solutions for the Indian market, because at the end of the day, the future is going to be about India owning the IP. Joint IPs between countries are the way to go,” Jayaraman said during an interaction organised by the UK India Business Council in Mumbai on Thursday.

Referring to the ‘Make in India’ initiative, the struggling flagship initiative of the NDA government that seeks to make manufacturing a core part of the GDP and create more jobs, Jayaram said that these were the “right things” from an India perspective.

“But, to drive that (‘Make in India’) what’s required was a market that was doling out big orders or that was going to be the supply chain capital. Or, a government that will invest in programmes where companies will participate. So, barring all this, to say that companies should come here and invest money in a factory was a struggle,” he said.

As this realisation hit, the government tried to move the needle in a direction that encourages companies to invest in India in their bid to capture the country’s market, he added.

“So, there is a cost-arbitrage equation and a value-equation that are pertinent to this market, but then... the question was why do it here? Thailand, Vietnam, Turkey are all doing it; they are all pushing,” Jayaraman said.

Government funding

“The Singapore government invests a lot of money in programmes, so the way the other countries have been doing it is to invest in programmes, which create IP. IP creates manufacturing and the jobs and the export capability,” he added.

The best way, he said, to reach the desired growth is “to create programmes where the government gives funding”.

“For example, in defence, you co-create an aircraft technology, then you have the IP for that. It can be a joint IP between governments, then you manufacture here or somewhere else. But India owns part of that IP, that crown jewel (through) which MNCs own technologies; that will have to go hand in hand with the Make in India vision,” he added.

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