Many disruptions are happening around the world, especially in the way we are going to live. Forms of energy that have been around for 100 years, the way we travel, etc., everything will change. In addition to new forms of energy, India is building a lot of infrastructure. How do you see prospects in India?

The prospects are gigantic. We use virtual worlds to imagine and create better solutions. Now the focus is on making the product circular. This is what the modeling simulation (4) into the real world. We can see that with clients like L&T or projects that Reliance or life science companies or start-ups are doing. This understanding of the new possible creates a tremendous opportunity for India.

In the case of forms of energy, for example, I hope India takes a systemic approach, as opposed to a one-issue approach. It is a system that you need to connect to infrastructure with technical solutions available at some downtime. Go ahead and look at electric vehicles or e-mobility. Even drones could do a lot, as 4G did. We have more opportunities in India to showcase a new circularity approach to what I call the experience economy. For me, experiential economy means to stop thinking about how products function and see how useful it is in real life. And if you look at what is used in real life, you can simplify the offer.

You have been a regular visitor to India for over 25 years. What changes do you see here? How is the business environment developing over time?

I remember coming here very often for 15 years. But 7-10 years ago I saw a new development, maybe because we knew more and were more connected to people. For example, when we met Mr. Ratan Tata at that time, we started discussing innovation, trying different things in different ways, more economical, more suitable for the state of society, the state of the economy.

Now, in the last few years, I have seen a new approach to business that is more focused on what we can do differently and sustainably. This year in particular, it was a key issue for us. We started subcontracting activities here with our R&D laboratory in Bangalore. At the beginning we thought carefully about what to share, what to do and what not to do here. Then we discovered that the resources here were much better able to create new things. What we share with them are real customer needs, more on the product definition side than the validation side. Our R&D lab here becomes on par with our large labs around the world. So there is a way that is good for me. It’s an interesting development.