“We are not just making in India, but innovating here too,” maintains Akshay Dhoot, Head of Technology & Innovation, Videocon Industries.
And it is this innovation — with increasing research and development spends — that Videocon has bet on to claw back in the highly competitive consumer durables’ category. The aim is to double the turnover from the segment over a three-year-period. “There is a change of mindset. Earlier, we used to focus on cutting down the costs and embarking on price wars. Now, it is R&D and increasing the features of the product,” the 24-year-old Akshay, who spear-headed this change of mindset in the company, told BusinessLine . He is the son of Rajkumar Dhoot, founder of the $6-billion Videocon Group.
Some of Videocon’s niche products include the “liquid luminous” TV range that is set to compete with LG’s ‘OLED’ TVs. A mobile app (application) powered AC – called Wi-Fi AC – has also been rolled out.
New product features — air conditioners, refrigerators, or washing machines — that have been recently rolled out include focus on cooling in extreme conditions (for ACs); sleek designs (for washing machines), energy efficiency (for refrigerators) and so on.
For this to happen, R&D is the priority area. And, it’s evident with there being no cap on it for these years. “We have removed a cap on our R&D expenses for the next three years as this is our priority,” Akshay points out.
The wing has also been ramped-up. The headcount has been doubled to 250 in these four years. The company’s R&D units are located in India (Aurangabad and Noida), Korea (Seoul), Japan (Tokyo) and China (Shenzhen).
Manufacturing too, will be ramped up. The company has 13 manufacturing facilities. Sources maintain that ₹1,000 crore will be spent over the next three years as capex towards setting up new facilities as well as upgrading the existing ones.