India is the No I spot for global ER&D (engineering research & development) spenders looking to establish centres of excellence outside their home countries, says Amita Goyal, partner and head of GCC (global capability centre) practice at management consulting firm Zinnov. ER&D includes the process that go into creating a product or service

Amita and her team have just completed a comprehensive study of global ER&D destinations. It’s the third time that this study has been done, and each time India has been No.1.

“India is very strong,” Amita says. There’s a large volume of talent, and high quality talent. There is senior talent across the breadth of requirements. If a company wants to build a full team- including a software engineer, architect , product manager , a UX/UI person , a business analyst- India is where they can most easily do that , because every kind of talent Is available They wouldn’t have to split their teams. If a 1,000 people need to be hired in a year, India Is about the only place where this can be done. The vast number of startups, the presence of the biggest IT outsourcers, the highest number of STEM graduates in the world, one of the highest ratios of females in graduates, are other huge advantages. All of this together, Amita says, puts India on the top consistently

Zinnov says it is getting more requests than ever to set up GCCs-from traditional companies, from digital natives. “Teams may be shrinking overseas, but there is hiring and investment in India. A lot of non-digital native companies will hire in India, those in pharma, life sciences, retail, an industrial engineering,” Amita says.

The Zinnov report on CoE ( centres of excellence) hotspots compared 17 countries . Following India were Canada, China, Poland, Mexico, and Brazil, in that order.

Canada has the advantage of proximity to the US, which particularly helps in regulated industries like aerospace. The country’s Universities, it’s encouragement of immigration and startup investment are seen as other advantages.

China has traditionally been very strong in manufacturing, especially hardware manufacturing, and that continues as its local market expands. That’s great for manufacturing CoEs.

Poland is strong in global business services, especially in the finance industry “It is one of the most advanced eastern European countries. It’s part of the EU, it’s GDPR compliant, and so it’s good for European countries to think of. But because of the Ukraine war, security in Poland has become a concern. Also, you cannot scale in Poland like you can in India,” Amita says.

Mexico, like Canada, provides the near-shore advantage to the North American companies. Some recent agreements between the US and Mexico, Amita says, are fuelling investment especially in manufacturing and automotive.