Catholic healthcare organization, Ascension Health Alliance runs the largest American faith-based nonprofit medical care system. In an unusual partnership, it is helping set up a 140-bed multi-specialty hospital on Grand Cayman Island, which will provide services such as open-heart/bypass surgery, angioplasty, heart-valve replacement, cancer treatment, bone-marrow transplant, nuclear medicine, organ transplant and orthopedics.

The partner is India’s Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals (NH) led by Chairman and Managing Director Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, a cardiovascular surgeon with extensive experience in providing high-quality/low-cost healthcare at medical facilities in India. NH was rated among the 50 Most Innovative by Fast Company Magazine in a global survey. Narayana Hrudayalaya’s operations, include the world’s most prolific cardiac hospital, where the average open-heart surgery runs less than $2,000, a third or less what it costs elsewhere in India and a fraction of what it costs in the United States. The organization also offers eye, trauma, and cancer care across 14 cities in India. Shetty was honored by India’s President with the Padma Bhushan, among the top awards a civilian can receive.

“Ascension Health has been working with Dr. Shetty for two years to explore ways to adapt his success at providing high-quality healthcare at low cost,” said Anthony R. Tersigni, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ascension Health Alliance. This hospital is part of Cayman Health City, a $2 billion project vision to be built in phases over 15 years on a 200-acre site, and will include a tertiary-care hospital, an educational facility, a biotech park and an assisted living community.

While the officials are not making this claim, many expect that patients from the United States may choose to travel to the Cayman Islands to take advantage of the low cost and high quality  service offered by this hospital

What this means

Innovation from India is lapping at American shores soon.  Smart American companies and executives are already reaching out to India to accelerate their own success in this aspect of frugal innovation and global engineering.

Last Wednesday Dr. Navin Kunde of the Clorox Company and I spoke at  the Annual Meeting of of the Industrial Research Institute with over 300 global executives in attendance. The material include examples of small and large R&D initiatives in India/China by some of most reputed companies in Europe and America. I’ve received dozens of emails from attendees with more questions and requests for our slides.

Here is how the President of the IRI captured some of the key takeaways from our talk:

Gunjan Bagla, Amritt & Dr. Navin Kunde, Clorox, Global Innovation/Corporate Transformation

• 60/40 superiority test (60% consumer preference in blind testing) is a powerful tool to assess product design (This is Clorox’s practice).
• Use process, people and perception reviews for any technology organization assessment
• About half of India & China R&D efforts are being conducted for companies from outside these countries.

If you wish to receive a copy of the slides, please email usa at amritt dot com with your country, business email and include your title. (Webmail and ISP mail requests will receive a response if you also include your work email and phone number).

Mercedes Benz now has 650 engineers working at its Bangalore development center. The facility is dedicated to passenger cars, and it currently works in conjunction with Daimler’s German unit in many areas, including development of powertrains, according India General Manager (Product Homologation) Prakash Vermali. The company hired 250 tech staff in the last year and the center serves a global market.

Decades ago, the company had a collaboration with Tata Motors (then called Telco) to build trucks in Pune. In that city, Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India Pvt. Ltd. (MBRDI), a 100% captive unit of Daimler AG, was established as a research institute with eight employees in 1996 and currently has a capacity of 367 employees. MBRDI is the largest Research and Development center of Daimler AG outside Germany and contributes in the areas of Computer Simulation (CAE), Design (CAD), Electrical/Electronics and IT-Services. Research and development engineers at MBRDI assess the performance and reliability of various sub-systems and contribute to product development in all the stages of the life-cycle.

Takeaway:   Neither language barriers, nor quality concerns hold back the best global companies, if they are determined and patient, from benefiting from India’s engineering talent.

Outsourcing engineering services or product development to India need not be a frustrating task with uncertain outcomes. My colleagues at Amritt present a structured approach to investigating and establishing effective outsourcing R&D services to India in a forthcoming webinar.

You will learn:

• Whether your organization is ready to effectively outsource R&D to India; as well as  what kinds of R&D work should you send to India in 2011.
• What are the primary engagement models and relative costs?
• How long does it take to engage with R&D resource suppliers from India?
Using case studies, from Amritt’s extensive experience  your will learn how clients outsource  product development to India-based R&D service providers.

Thursday, March 10, 2011  9:00 AM – 9:45 AM PST

Space is limited and advance registration is required. Register now to learn from the comfort of your office:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/120555473

Many large foreign companies have chosen Chennai over other locations for their engineering staff.  Visteon, Caterpillar,  Nissan-Renault, Vestas, Kone, FLSmidth, Nokia, Ericsson, Flextronics, Alcatel, Tessolve, Sanmina-SCI corporation have R&D or product development centers in and around Chennai.

For example Visteon India MD, A Viswanathan said that the  Visteon technical and services centre was set up in 1998 with just 10 people. It has grown into a 110,000 sq ft center with 500 engineers plus 250 employees. They are focused on developing embedded software and hardware engineering.

What it means
Chennai is a serious contender for many Western companies seeking to tap technical talent in India. Take a close look at Chennai if you are willing to consider locations beyond Bangalore.

The slower pace compared to Mumbai and Delhi, the somewhat lower costs and a friendly provincial government, make up for the humidity and heat. It’s airport is undergoing serious upgrades. A huge nuclear power plant in Kudankulam is going to start pumping gigawatts into Chennai’s power starved companies soon.

Chennai is not right for everyone and we often recommend other cities including Hyderabad, Pune, Baroda, Ahmedabad, Mysore for some of my clients. For some Banglaore, Delhi or Mumbai are still the best choice. And this is not the complete list.