Nestle believes it will be stronger, better and faster with R&D deployment in India. “We will be quicker to market once the R&D centre comes up,” said Mr Patrice Bula, global head of sales and marketing, Nestle during his recent visit to India.

According to him, Nestle's upcoming Rs 230 crore R&D centre at Manesar will become operational by last quarter of 2012.

Mr Bula said by bringing R&D closer to the consumer, it would help the company develop more relevant products for India. “If our customer wants Bhuna Masala, by getting closer, we can offer it faster,” he said.

He hinted that just like Nestle's R&D centre in China uses knowhow from Chinese medicine, the Manesar centre here in India could be using local knowhow from Indian Ayurveda traditions. R&D would be around basic food science, nutrition, and agriculture developments. It would also focus on developing affordable fortified popularly positioned products (PPPs) such as calcium enriched Maggi noodles.

Nestle SA will directly control the R&D centre in India, and is looking at a team of about 100 people.

This will be Nestle's 30{+t}{+h} R&D centre worldwide. Interestingly, Nestle which is only 25 years old in China has already got R&D going there, while it has taken the company hundred years of presence in India to set up a research centre here.

Mr Bula, who has been market head for China earlier, pointed out that both the countries offer a combination of scale and high growth for Nestle. But, he said, “Managing organisations through high growth environment is a challenge.”

He also pointed out that increasingly in both countries, Nestle is meeting new competition — the local player, who understands the consumer well. “And that is a new paradigm. Because of the size, the local companies are also getting very big.” But we embrace this challenge, he said. “Competition is good. It makes you come up with new ideas.”

Related Topics