Saurabh Gupta — HFS Research[00:21]
Hello, everyone, and welcome to today’s edition of HFS Unfiltered. We’re going to talk about Global Capability Centers, or GCCs, the topic that’s dominating the narrative of Indian IT-enabled services. I’m delighted to have a super special guest with me today, Pradeep Kumar. He’s the head of the R&D center for Hyundai Mobis. So welcome to the show, Pradeep.
Pradeep Kumar Kondabattini — Head of R&D Center, Hyundai Mobis[00:36]
Thank you, Saurabh.
Saurabh Gupta — HFS Research[00:36]
Pradeep, as we get started, why don’t you share your journey and tell us about the top two or three moments that have stood out for you as your personal achievements over your career?
Pradeep Kumar Kondabattini — Head of R&D Center, Hyundai Mobis[00:36]
Yeah, sure. Thank you. So we have established a GCC in India, with our GCC located in Hyderabad at the moment. Over the past few years — I came to India before, but I was in Germany, so I had vast experience with the automotive industry earlier in Germany, for more than a decade. Then I came back to India. I wanted to settle down, and started working with this Hyundai Group company called Mobis, which is one of the topmost companies in the world for automotive component suppliers, working globally with all the major OEMs. We are a captive company of the Hyundai Group, and our major revenue comes from the Hyundai Group. Coming to the GCC part, I started working with the Hyundai Group here at the GCC, which began around, I think, 2007, and we were one of the early comers to India, especially in automotive, and they have been doing pretty good. So we are not like IT companies where there are a huge number of headcounts; we have grown slowly. From the early journey, we started with about 50 headcount or so, and currently we are operating at about 1,000+. And yeah, that’s the GCC growth perspective so far. When I started with this company, we were working very much focused on the headquarter needs and functions, working very closely on the headquarter operating requirements, releasing products globally, and supporting global product launches.
Saurabh Gupta — HFS Research[02:54]
So Pradeep, why India for an R&D center for the automotive industry? What sort of made you choose India over some other geographies or countries?
Pradeep Kumar Kondabattini — Head of R&D Center, Hyundai Mobis[02:54]
So I think, for automotive, India is a great market. We are standing fourth in the world as a market, and we are at about the 4 million mark in the volume of sales that we are doing. That is one of the achievements as an industry recently, in 2023, and we are steadily growing more than 8%. So we will be one of the biggest markets in the world. And not only from a market perspective, but also from the perspective of the knowledge base — we have competencies available in the local market, and slowly we are evolving as a manufacturing hub. So it’s very important from the group’s point of view that we operate out of here and then slowly expand, not only catering to the Indian market, which is growing every day, but also catering to the global market. We are also focused on exporting from here, and we are steadily doing that from the inception. From the group’s point of view, Hyundai entered more than 25 years ago — we celebrated that already — and it is part of the Hyundai Group, which is one of the largest OEMs in India after Maruti Suzuki. So we have good growth prospects in India and a lot of talent available, especially from the automotive point of view. We have a legacy of the largest OEMs’ presence in India. For example, you have local companies like Maruti, Mahindra, and Tata, which are already operating in the passenger vehicle markets. Also, the commercial vehicle market is already matured. We have our own brands, so it’s very important for anybody to be present here.
Saurabh Gupta — HFS Research[04:50]
That’s great. So India is a big market for you, and you already talked about it — you’ve grown from 50 people to almost 1,000 in R&D, which is fantastic. But tell me about the future. I think there’s no conversation today that we can have without talking about AI. So are you excited or nervous about AI, a bit of both? How is AI going to impact your operations?
Pradeep Kumar Kondabattini — Head of R&D Center, Hyundai Mobis[05:21]
So I think, from the industry perspective overall, AI has to be adopted across functions and across industries, from IT to automotive to any other sector. AI will be there. So automotive is also adapting, but we are not that aggressive in adopting AI into our regular operations or R&D. We are slowly adapting, and we are experimenting. We would like to use the ability of AI to increase our overall efficiency and productivity, and we would like to reduce the product launch time. So if there is a possibility with AI, we would like to use it. Why not?
Saurabh Gupta — HFS Research[06:18]
What are some other technologies that sort of excite you, Pradeep, as you look at the automotive industry R&D within your space, besides AI? What are some of the other technologies that are exciting you?
Pradeep Kumar Kondabattini — Head of R&D Center, Hyundai Mobis[06:34]
So we are slowly adapting — not only from a technology point of view, but also the processes that are established in other industries. For example, very traditionally we were operating waterfall models in our in-house software development. We are slowly moving to Agile, which is already established in the IT industry. We’re slowly adapting our culture towards proven processes and technologies. For example, we are also using cloud technologies in our day-to-day operations. These kinds of technologies are very important. We are also trying to integrate technologies like continuous integration, continuous development, and test-driven methodologies. So these kinds of things we are trying to adopt.
Saurabh Gupta — HFS Research[07:25]
Fantastic. And talk about talent. As I look at it — I also grew up in India, Pradeep — the GCC and GBS industry was up and coming at that point in time. But now I look at my nieces and nephews, and they all want to join a startup or a technology provider. How do we excite our talent to come to some of these industries, the GCC world? What are you doing to attract the best and brightest of the Indian talent?
Pradeep Kumar Kondabattini — Head of R&D Center, Hyundai Mobis[08:06]
I think for a beginner, a startup excites, but as you grow in your career, you need to have a stable company that can offer you more growth. And I think the pandemic has taught us that lesson really well, because startups saw a lot of trouble during this time. They lost their investors and many companies shut down, but the companies that are stable offered a stable career path and growth even in the pandemic period. And especially the Indian market has grown tremendously after the pandemic due to the availability of talent. There was a time when, in the Indian market during the pandemic, everybody was trying to invest in digital technologies. They wanted to adopt new cloud technology and so on. That has given an opportunity for Indian youth to get more and more jobs. At the same time, the GCCs have also adopted this dynamic culture. They have introduced hybrid working styles. So we also adapted to the changing environment, and we are trying to offer more stable jobs and career paths. So for youth who are looking for a long-term stable career, I would suggest joining a GCC, but I don’t deny that startups offer them the excitement of new technology. So we have to work together. GCCs have to work together to adapt new technologies, and startups, as they grow, need to look into these aspects — how they can operate stably, how these processes are adopted — so they have to grow also, right? Startups cannot be startups forever. They have to grow. They have to adopt the operations that are already stabilized. They have to look at the big brothers.
Saurabh Gupta — HFS Research[10:04]
Yeah, Pradeep, look, this was a great conversation, but before I let you go, if there was one wish that could come true for you, what would that be?
Pradeep Kumar Kondabattini — Head of R&D Center, Hyundai Mobis[10:15]
I think over the period we have played more of a support role, and slowly we are changing from the GCC point of view, trying to adapt to the changing environment and introduce new products. So we want to also grow in the local market, introduce more products, and cater to local customers — that we are trying to do. So my wish is that GCCs will have to develop their own capability in the local market and own the products, not only support the product development, and then they have to create their own P&L and drive the growth.
Saurabh Gupta — HFS Research[10:59]
Oh, that’s fantastic. So a GCC shouldn’t be just a supporting role, but they need to own the innovation agenda, not just execute on it. So on that note, Pradeep, thanks for taking the time and sharing some of your wisdom with us.
Pradeep Kumar Kondabattini — Head of R&D Center, Hyundai Mobis[11:14]
Thank you.
