Photoshop-maker Adobe has a third of its global innovations happening out of India   

A third of Adobe’s global innovations, including those on key products such as Acrobat and Illustrator, are happening out of India as the country has grown as a critical strategic focus area for the Photoshop-maker, according to Adobe India MD Prativa Mohapatra.

“In terms of innovation, Adobe India contributes about a third to Adobe. So, our engineering and product development teams become very relevant for the global strategy. Most of them are based out of Bangalore and Noida,” Mohapatra told Business Today recently. Besides, the India team is the second largest globally after the US, with around 7,000 employees. Adobe has more than 26,000 employees worldwide. The firm reported $15.79 billion in revenue as of the fiscal year ended December 3, 2021.

Apart from its Creative Cloud, which includes softwares such as Photoshop and Illustrator, Adobe India is also going big on providing customer journey management, data analytics, content personalization, commerce, and marketing workflows to businesses under its Adobe Experience Cloud as enterprises are digitising, especially post-pandemic.

The firm counts among its clients' well-known brands across verticals such as travel & hospitality (Vistara, SpiceJet, Indigo, Taj Hotels), Telecom (Airtel, Vodafone-Idea), e-commerce and retail (Flipkart, ABFRL, Myntra-Jabong, MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Tata CLiQ, Nykaa), BFSI (HDFC Bank, BFL, Tata Capital, HDFC Life, IDFC Bank, Reliance General Insurance).

But apart from consumer-driven sectors such as airlines, hospitality, banks, and retail chains, traditional B2B is the new category going in for digitisation, Mohapatra said. “Companies manufacturing steel and cement never thought they would need digital portals. But the trend now is to have marketplaces. For instance, a steel company maybe making steel rods and sheets, but they are selling the house design and not just their product to the end customer. Cement firms are using the experience of building a house as the experience strategy rather than selling cement,” she said, adding that B2B firms are also targeting the end customer rather than the godown.

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