Feature: India's sharp design edge

• Features

• 25/04/2025

India’s greatest strength has always been its people. With one of the youngest populations in the world, India has long reaped the rewards of this demographic edge. Its skilled workforce is not only spearheading changes in the technological front, but also in the field of design.

This notion holds true in the AV world as well. Every year the Inavate APAC 40 under 40 highlights a range of rising stars in the region, and a significant proportion of entries hail from India. This is a clear testament to the quality of talent that Indians have to offer to not just its home market, but to the world. Manoj Kumar Choudhury, director of AV business and operations at Online Instruments, agrees: “Talentwise, India has always been blessed. And when it comes to design, especially technologyrelated design, India has always had a competitive edge.”

Kuldip Kamat, managing director at Allwave-AV Systems, echoes these sentiments but provides a nuanced perspective: “The state of talent is good and it’s obviously available because we’re talking about India. But I would say it’s not fully ready yet and we need to put in a lot of effort into making the talent we have ready for the future. If we were to look into just design talent, I’d say it’s definitely there and growing.”

Making use of talent

The baseline is that there is a large talent pool in India, some of which is already qualified and some of which is ready to be upskilled. Given the abundance of talent in India, numerous integrators — with the means and capital — outside of India have adopted the approach of outsourcing their non-client facing design tasks to Indian professionals. This approach might take the form of establishing dedicated Indian teams focused solely on design or by engaging with local integrators who already offer managed design services.

Regardless of whether global integrators choose to establish a physical presence in the country, the point still stands: India’s design talent is attracting eyes from all over the world. Mradul Sharma, managing director at 3CDN Technologies, shares his thoughts on this business approach: “The concept is essentially about having an extended team based in India that supplements or complements skills that aren’t available at scale elsewhere. Design, programming, and service support are already being delivered from India, particularly from global capability centres (GCCs) of AVSIs. There are a few global integrators with triple digit headcounts who have started to leverage their India-based teams to deliver design work for their global clients. Their US offices, for example, assign design and programming tasks to India while continuing other operations, like the execution and integration, locally. The Indian-based teams primarily support these integrators with their captive requirements.”

Similarly, Indian integrators with partner firms from around the world are also offering global services, with design being a part of that offering. Kuldip notes: “At AllWave, we have a variety of global services that we provide to global integrators outside of India, not just restricted to CAD. There is a demand for these services amongst both AV and IT integrators globally. At the moment, our team is split into 50-50, where half of the team focuses on our internal work while the other half delivers on global services.”

It is undeniable that cost benefits play a primary role in outsourcing design work to India, as much of India’s talent runs on lower labour costs. Mradul details: “The goal of any business is to make money and there are definitely business opportunities in this segment. Some integrators and consultants have jumped on this approach to increase profitability. In the US, for example, labour costs can reach up to USD15 per hour, while clients typically want to pay around USD10 per hour. In India, the same work can be performed for approximately USD5 to USD7.50 per hour. Some integrators and consultants have jumped on this approach.

Outsourcing design services

The concept of design-as-a-service has emerged as a promising extension of outsourcing design services to integrators abroad. Mradul explains how design-as-a-service could work: “There are independent companies across India offering services to AV integrators outside of India. These companies usually provide design, programming, and technical support. This allows global companies to keep their design work running 24/7. For example, if an integrator in the US sends over a document to the Indian designer, the design work in India can still be done while the US is asleep. The turnaround time would be much faster and there’s no doubt that India’s talent can support these operations.”

However, Mradul notes the obstacles that Indian integrators may face when planning to venture into the design-as-aservice model. He reflects: “For independent firms with the ability to focus on just design, and who have the ability to scale up their headcount, I don’t see why such a model wouldn’t work. The challenge is that this may not be compelling enough for local players as there is massive domestic demand in the Indian region. Any new business model, such as this, may not be viable at this stage.”

As a PSNI partner with global clients, Manoj details how Online Instruments navigates these challenges: “Two years ago, we realised that design-as-a-service, or even CAD-as-a-service, could be an industry of its own. In India, there are quite a few companies who generally provide CAD support, or project management support to companies in the US. We also thought why not jump on that opportunity and get into that line of business. However, as our business is growing 40% to 45% annually, it just isn’t a viable option right now as we wouldn’t be able to concentrate on our core business.”

He continues: “We are building a team and growing our headcount to meet the requirements of both our internal projects and partner projects, but we do have a commitment to our own internal projects and clients. So, we’re not able to focus on outsourcing CAD design to other integrators because our own clientele base is increasing.”

Despite the attractive economics of outsourcing, managing an integration business is not as straightforward as it may appear. Although expanding one’s portfolio to offer design services internationally is appealing, Kuldip highlights the must-knows for anyone looking to adopt such a business model: “Number one, they should already know the physical nature of our industry. It’s not just theoretical CAD. They should know how to do large projects or mid-size projects for global integrators first. Otherwise, they will quickly see that they’re out of depth because CAD is not as simple as it appears. There’s a lot of construction mechanics to it, and a lot of design expertise is required. Design or CAD in particular isn’t very theoretical, so anyone looking to venture out and start providing backend design services to international integrators should first ensure that they are able to live up to the task of doing high-quality design work. If integrators are outsourcing just for the sake of doing so, they may not be able to pull it off.”

Kuldip adds: “There are a lot of elements to design and CAD is just one, it may not be profitable or high-value if integrators were to only outsource CAD services. There are companies out there that basically charge per hour for CAD work. For an integrator, this model is tricky because if you land a large project, you’ll have to decide whether to prioritise your own project or another integrator’s project. Integration itself is a tough business; it involves designing, procurement, storage, logistics, programming, handling RMAs, support. So for Indian integrators to adopt this model requires a lot of discipline and strategic thinking.”

Can India be the global design powerhouse?

Returning back to the topic of talent – there is no doubt that talent in India exists. But in a niche field like AV, where formal education is limited and many rely on transferrable skills, the question of the quality of available talent comes into the picture. And AV design is a niche within a niche, which makes it especially challenging to source for high-quality design talent. Kuldip observes: “CAD in India isn’t geared towards AV CAD at all; it’s focused on construction or civil CAD. There isn’t any formal education for AV CAD, and nothing really for AV engineers either. Generally, designers pick these skills up at the integrator’s office. This means that there are gaps, hence we need to work with institutions to fill in those missing pieces.”

While India does have the requisite talent, there is a risk of compromising quality if these gaps persist. Mradul adds: “For a long time, we’ve been talking about how India’s market has been seeing a war for talent. The supply/demand imbalance continues. Many of the young designers or engineers are mostly fresh graduates who may not be ready for global assignments. The talent that we have now is gradually getting there, but not quite yet.”

Reflecting on the current state of design talent, India holds immense potential to be a design powerhouse for the world. However, to do so, certain concerns have to be addressed. Manoj concludes: “The AV industry in India is currently valued at more than USD300 billion, and can go up to more than $400 billion in three to four years. There will be huge requirements for Indian integrators. So you definitely need good talent, not just any sort of talent. An institution should come up with a university for AV, which would solve a lot of the problems we have with talent today.”

Image credit: Shutterstock.com/Sudarsan Thobias