Industry needs to push R&D and innovation, says N Chandrasekaran

Focus on innovation, access to services, aspirational thrust and “extraordinary” ideas are the key areas that Indian industry should focus to achieve excellence, Tata Sons Chairman, N Chandrasekaran has said.

He was speaking at the AIMA-JRD Tata corporate leadership award function here on Tuesday evening.

“If you want to do extraordinary things, you need to believe in the power of aspiration,” Chandrasekaran said.

The chairman of India’s salt-to-software conglomerate put his bet on “aspirational” excellence for success and said that India needs to solve the problem of “access” to services.

“Our problem is access,” he said. “We have to find innovative models which are accessible to every nook and corner of the country”.

He said that the industry needs to “focus on access-based innovation” while pushing for investment in research and development (R&D).

India’s vice president, Hamid Ansari, who conferred the leadership award to Tata Sons Ltd’s chairman also emphasised that the corporate sector needs to invest heavily in R&D and innovation.

Chandrasekaran said that innovation and R&D was not only about doing research but to create innovative models.

“(By investing in access-based R&D) we will suddenly create several hundreds of millions of people, who have, not just financial inclusion, but inclusion in every sense,” he said.

He said that to “improve access to specialists”, industry “should be able to create jobs”.

“We are not going to solve the jobs problem by saying that we have created more jobs,” Chandrasekaran said adding that industry could solve the problem by “creating leaders who will aspire”.

He said that such leaders will create businesses that will generate employment.