Groupon’s Chennai R&D center to be hub for Asia-Pacific research

Chennai:

Chicago-based firm Groupon is planning to convert its research and development center in Chennai to a research hub for its operations in Asia Pacific.

The chief operating officer of  Groupon Inc Kal Raman told reporters here that the research and development centre in Chennai, the fifth in the world for Groupon is operating from a 25,000 square feet facility in Ramapuram. It would focus more on building mobile applications and cater to the needs of 13 countries in the Asia Pacific. He said the office will soon be expanded.

“We want it to be the biggest research and development center in the world,” said Kal Raman alias Kalyana Raman Srinivas, a native of Tirunelveli who migrated to the United States. Currently, the focus of Groupon is not about profits but about growth in India.

He said the focus on Chennai was due to the ability to retain talent besides the city is home to 30,000 engineer graduates.

Interestingly, Kal Raman, who joined Groupon , which is a deal-of-the-day website and has sales and operations in 48 cities, feels India is a fantastic market and there is a need to create awareness about Groupon. And the target is to lure 300 million middle class customers to Groupon. Kal Raman is concentrating on mobile applications to woo this customer base.

He says the retail business in India is unorganized and Groupon is focusing on helping small businesses.

Currently, Groupon has tie-up with 15,000 merchants. Interestingly, Kal Raman does feel India is totally a different market from the ones abroad and the man from Mannarkoil in Tirunelveli district is ready to face the challenge.