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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