Motorola Mobility, We have increased our focus on innovation

Motorola Solutions , which focuses on solutions for government, public safety and enterprise mobility , parted ways with its loss making sibling Motorola Mobility last year, when the latter was sold to Google for $13 billion. On a visit to Bangalore , Motorola Solutions  executive vice-president (products & business operations) Gene Delaney tells TOI that being single has helped the company focus better. 

Why do you think separation has helped you?The customer audience of Motorola Solutions and Motorola Mobility were different , and there were serious focus issues. Mobility suffered financial losses due to that. After separation we feel much more focused and energized to meet market challenges. In the last one year, Motorola Solutions' market-cap has gone up to close to $15 billion. Our branding and market standing have got better. We have increased our focus on innovation . We have expanded our product portfolio. 
Have you changed your growth strategy for India? Do you have a new revenue mandate for the country?We will not be able to talk about our financial mandate. This country is very interesting for us. We are constantly on the look out for macro-consumer trends here. We have helped the Delhi government to set up a radio network to support seamless communication between various government entities like the police , fire services, hospitals, utilities, the Delhi Transport Corporation, etc. We are providing WLAN and wireless security solutions to all international airports, ports, metro rail services and railways in the country. We also work for the forestry and postal department . We are targeting a double-digit growth in the Asia Pacific region. 

Can you talk about major R&D work done by your Bangalore centre?
Motorola has R&D centres in the US, Poland, Israel, Malaysia, China and India, and we spend $1 billion on R&D. We have 500 engineers in Bangalore. The work done out of here is extremely critical as it directly impacts our global portfolio. Bangalore works on solutions, products and devices of a rugged nature , meant for industries like retail, transportation, logistics , ports, airports, refineries , mines, railways. It develops mission critical applications and solutions to improve the productivity of mobile workforces, governments and public sector bodies . The centre works on rugged mobile computers (that can weather extreme heat/ cold/moisture conditions), RFID readers, iDEN infrastructure (push to talk over cellular), and multimedia software for radio solutions. 

You have talked about tracking macro trends. How do you do it?We have a team of over 100 people whose job is to track macro-trends across government departments and business domains. Their job is to silently learn what our customers really want. They are not engineers or techies. But they are an integral part of our R&D team. Because their inputs go into the products and solutions we make.