Apollo Tyres on Monday opened its global research and development (R&D) centre in Enschede, the Netherlands. It will serve as a hub for the development and testing of car and van tyres for all product brands — Apollo, Vredestein and Dunlop (32 countries in Africa) — of the company, it said.

Named Apollo Tyres Global R&D BV, the new centre will start operations with more than 100 people from various parts of the world, including 20 car tyre specialists from India and South Africa. It will later be scaled-up to nearly 150 people.

R&D restructuring

“The Global R&D centre is an important milestone in our journey to become a $ 6 billion tyre company by 2016,” Onkar S. Kanwar, Chairman, Apollo Tyres said.

Recently, the company restructured its R&D team, across its three key geographies, to create synergy and greater alignment to the company’s growth aspirations.

Two global hubs

In line with this strategy, the company is bringing together its R&D resources comprising almost 250 people in Africa, Europe and India to create two global R&D hubs — Enschede, the Netherlands for car and van tyres and Chennai, for commercial vehicle tyres.

Both R&D departments will be in close contact with original equipment manufacturers and replacement clients, test centres, raw material suppliers and research institutes.

“Going forward, R&D will continue to be the cornerstone of our vision, as we plan to ramp up the R&D spend to 3 per cent of our sales revenue,” Neeraj Kanwar, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Apollo Tyres said.

>ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in

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