Focussing on Defence R&D: An Insight into DRDO

Introduction The Defence Research and Defence Organisation (DRDO) is the premier R&D organisation under the Ministry of Defence (MoD). R&D organisations are normally esoteric and their management processes are considered challenging and complex.2 DRDO’s research is primarily for the benefit of the three defence services who also fall under the umbrella of MoD. This creates a unique and unusual situation in which the customers (viz. the three services) are fundamentally, similarly placed departments, like the R&D organisation, under the same ministry. Many literary excerpts on the subject point towards a feeling amongst the services that DRDO does not give the users (‘user’ is DRDO’s term for customers) requirements, a competitively equal importance on a similar level as a private player would have given, in such a competitive environment3 . It has been felt that there is a lack of mutual understanding and appreciation of the constraints faced by the services and DRDO. This feeling is only heightened by the fact that many important DRDO projects overshoot the budget and project timelines