Israel India | Business Guide | 2017

030 > General Content > Innovation Israel-India > Business Guide > 2017 D iplomatic relations between India and Israel began 25 years ago, back in 1992, and this gave a fillip to commercial activities between the two countries.As mutual trade rises year by year, there is still huge potential for technological collaboration, yet untapped. The compatibility between the Indian and Israeli economies is verymuch complementary: India is being perceived as a waking giant that requires new solutions for sectors in which Israel specializes. As in the rest of the world, more and more companies in Israel also allocate resources to help penetrate the Indian market. Bridging the ‘Innovation Gap’ between Israel & India Israel is a unique case."The Startup Nation", established on a tiny area (less than a half the size of Haryana) with a population equal to that of Bengaluru, has more than 6,000 Startup companies, innovative technology in various sectors, and an export-oriented business outlook.Israel’s key exports globally, among others are: IT, Renewable Energy, Water,and Agriculture technologies,all from sectors in which the Indian market is eager for innovative solutions. However,technology transfer is still a major challenge between the two countries.Even though there is growing interest among large and medium-sized Indian companies in the solutions that Israeli companies have to offer,the number of success stories is still rather small. Over our years of doing business between our two nations, we’ve identified a few key reasons for the challenges in bridging the ‘InnovationGap’ between the countries,and these should be carefully elaborated upon. 1)The risk of innovative technology: Israeli ventures usually propose high-end cutting edge technologies. Being export-oriented, Israeli solutions target the global market and not the Israeli market at all, hence the first phase of penetrating foreignmarkets usually occurs without any sales registered.In addition, in many cases the Israeli company tries to locate foreign investors to invest in the last stage of product development before initial sales are made. The Indian market, having a long-term perspective combined with characteristics of risk- avoidance,most likely when adopting foreign technologies, avoids being the“first mover” and investing in a foreign venture with no significant sales record. The Indian Helping Israeli and Indian companies build long- standing relationships Ofir Mizrahi, Yuval Susskind Israeli drip irrigation technology used widely across Indian farmlands/orchards photo: Naan-Dan Jain