"India Inc Will Strongly Support Skilling, Internship Plans "

In an interview with BW Businessworld's Rohit Chintapali, ASHISH MODI, President, Honeywell India, discusses the company's India-based R&D efforts, prospects in energy transition and aviation, and the government's skilling and internship initiatives announced in budget 2024. Excerpts

- Rohit Chintapali

India is quite important for Honeywell in terms of research and development (R&D). Tell us how it is leading the company’s global efforts.

We have a very large facility of R&D in India, which we call Honeywell Technology Solutions Lab. It is the largest R&D facility for Honeywell outside of US which hosts about 5,500 engineers. This centre started about 30 years ago, and we have come a long way because we started off just like any other company coming to India – a back office – there used to be parts of work that would come and get done here in the outsourced model. From there, we have graduated to a point where we are developing core technologies out of India to serve the India market and also serve the globe. We are very proud to have made this transition. I think not all companies can boast of that. R&D is a huge focus for us because we fundamentally believe that in order for us to drive organic growth, original R&D, new product introduction is absolutely key. A large part of that happens out of India for us now.

What specific areas is Honeywell focusing its R&D spend on?