A look into Future Factory with Mr Jashish Kambli

A company that is in the business of making the future, that’s a short description of Future Factory, right from the horse’s mouth. We caught up with Jashish Kambli, the founder of Future Factory, a Mumbai-based design and consulting company that helps brands engineer innovative products through the integration of design and technology.

What is Future Factory all about? And how true is Future Factory to its name?

Future Factory is a prominent global design and consulting firm that specialises in assisting brands in creating innovative products by seamlessly blending design and technology. As a highly acclaimed full-service studio, Future Factory takes a comprehensive approach, guiding projects from concept to delivery, with a strong commitment to user-centric design principles.

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When the company was initially started in the mid-90s, the landscape of Indian manufacturing was rather isolated and not closely aligned with global best practices.

To this day Future Factory continues to adhere to its original vision of delivering products and services that utilise the latest technologies to align with the changing needs of users and aspirations and demands. The company achieves this by thoroughly understanding the end user, harmonising their needs with client capabilities, and ensuring feasibility at market-driven price points. Future Factory’s extensive portfolio of groundbreaking and category-defining products attests to our dedication to living up to our name.

What led to the genesis of Future Factory? 

The inception of Future Factory can be attributed to our primary objective to elevate the standards of design expectations in India. In 1996, recognizing that great design is the outcome of teamwork which is in itself an outcome of culture, Future Factory was established as an innovation and design firm focused on advising brands regarding what to make and how best to design these products. 

Over the course of a decade, we have expanded our influence by enhancing our capabilities. This includes the development of deep engineering expertise, the setting up of CBR, our inhouse  Centre for Behavioural Research, the creation of cutting-edge prototyping facilities and a large and diverse manufacturing ecosystem to support our innovations all the way to market.

Future Factory has evolved into a collaborative community encompassing a diverse range of exceptionally skilled and dedicated professionals. This collective includes design researchers, strategists, product designers, engineers, brand specialists, UX/UI designers, developers, craftsmen, and more. Together, we form a wellspring of creativity and expertise, driven by a shared mission to produce world-class products tailored for developing markets.

Which are the common household products that we see around that have some connection to Future Factory?

When we started out it was a dream to touch the lives of a billion people. Future Factory has a remarkable history of revolutionary products spanning a wide spectrum from everyday items like toothbrushes to AI driven machines and water treatment plants for schools and communities. Our track record includes the successful design and engineering of more than 500 products for prominent brands across various industries. 

Our project portfolio is diverse and includes products such as refrigerators, water purifiers, inverters, insulin pens, and medical devices, to name a few. In each of these endeavours, Future Factory has played a pivotal role. We meticulously identify user needs and employ design thinking principles to conceive and rigorously test product ideas. Our aim is to address user problems in a manner that is not only elegant in design but also economically viable, considering factors such as cost, materials, supplier networks, and distribution channels. Ultimately, our objective is to deliver products that not only exhibit aesthetic appeal but also outperform the competition in terms of functionality, setting new benchmarks in the market.

We take immense pride in our world-class user research practices, which enable us to assist brands in revitalising, relaunching, and reimagining their products.

What problem is the company trying to solve?

The challenge that Future Factory aims to address are very client and context specific. It may entail a client grappling with intense competitive pressures, facing the threat of obsolescence due to disruptive startups or a scenario where a client, despite being a leader in their category, finds themselves at a plateau with limited avenues for growth. Additionally, we also engage with established players looking to expand into adjacent categories as well as clients who possess advanced technology but lack the clarity on how to effectively apply it in a manner that resonates with the market.

What is the process? A brand comes to you for creating a product or solving a problem?

To put it simply, our process stems from our core philosophy of “user backward”. 

That being said, we believe our greatest strength is our expertise in the innovation process itself. Every client, each problem is different, and a one size fits all approach is completely out of sync in today’s world. All new projects are treated on merit, and choosing from a vast toolkit of methods we have used and perfected over the years  we decide the best way to go about solving the problem at hand. 

We follow a rigorous design process that involves the understanding of the brand’s ecosystem, a study of consumer behaviour, identifying the point of play, prototyping and validation to develop cutting edge products. This methodical user backward approach ensures that each design aligns with the brand’s objectives, meets market demands, and exceeds user expectations. From ‘Thinking’ to ‘Doing’, Future Factory ensures the implementation of ideas and handholds brands across the final output.

Future Factory’s Center for Behavioural Research (CBR) has developed proprietary methodologies and techniques that infuse unparalleled capabilities to offer quick turn around and exceptional pricing. Our research-intensive approach involves ‘user backward thinking’– gaining insights at every touch point, right from the factory floor and suppliers to distribution channel and retail, to the consumer’s post purchase interaction with the product/service. Brands approach us for various concerns right from reimagining, relaunching to redevelopment of products.

Large FMCG brands have in-house R&D, Design and Manufacturing departments, why would they come to Future Factory?

Most of the large companies we work with have large inhouse design and engineering teams. However what we bring to the table is unique. We are literally one of the few companies in the world, equally capable of both thinking and doing, and that makes us very special. 

Most inhouse teams are great at routine exercises that form part of the regular portfolio of products but lack the width of capabilities to think wide and yet build practical solutions. Future Factory’s unique collection of diverse talent from different disciplines, from behavioural researchers and social scientists to designers, engineers & skilled craftsmen, enables our clients to think outside the box and deliver breakthrough solutions while cutting risk. 

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Even when companies have these capabilities, it is often necessary for them to bring in a fresh perspective. We are able to scour the market for competitors, ideate without bias, and then find suppliers for materials, technologies outside the contact sphere of the organisation to make innovation possible. 

How do you see AI helping Future Factory design and build products for the future?

AI is changing the way things are done and design is no different. AI provides great tools to add to our large tool kit. It helps speed up processes and free up talent to apply to higher pursuits.

In research AI has proved invaluable to interpret and codify research data. We have built a research platform that has grown at a phenomenal pace and spun off into an incubated startup – Humanify. 

Even in Design, AI helps cut the time for early visualisation, allowing our teams to ideate quicker giving us more possible solutions to choose from.

Creating products for emerging markets calls for products that are not only effective but also cost efficient, how does Future Factory tackle that?

Despite its size India is far from an easy market. Our consumers are known to demand global standards at local prices– but this is not a new or a bad thing. A cheaper product very often means less material and therefore lesser environmental impact – a super strategy given the world we are in today.

But lower prices don’t only mean lower manufacturing costs or BOM but also development costs (and therefore time) which are a fraction of what they are in most developed countries putting enormous pressure on design and R&D teams. This is where our expertise on the innovation process comes in handy, allowing us to quickly appraise key risks and building lean yet efficient processes that are aligned to these risks.

At Future Factory, we take costs very seriously but we focus on user value.  Special research methods allow us to understand what users find most meaningful. Our design teams then use these insights to appropriate costs correctly so we can deliver delight at super competitive price points. 

You mentioned Future Factory has in-house research capabilities, can you tell us more about that?

Certainly, at Future Factory, our commitment to research is integral to our design process, enabling us to create cutting-edge products. Our research capabilities are robust and multifaceted. We undertake an exhaustive design journey that begins with a comprehensive understanding of the brand’s ecosystem. This involves a deep dive into consumer behaviour, pinpointing the critical juncture where innovation can thrive, and the rigorous phases of prototyping and validation.

Over the years, we’ve not only incorporated global best practices into our research methodologies but have also crafted our own proprietary methods and techniques. These are meticulously tailored to thrive within the Indian context, respecting our unique cultural sensitivities. Our approach combines technology and methodology, allowing us to gain profound insights into user interactions with products and services in their specific environments.

Future Factory’s Center for Behavioural Research (CBR) serves as the epicentre of our research excellence. We have developed exclusive methodologies and techniques that empower us to offer swift turnarounds and competitive pricing. Our research-intensive approach revolves around “user backward thinking,” which means we seek insights at every touchpoint along the journey. This includes everything from the factory floor and supplier networks to distribution channels, retail experiences, and even the post-purchase interactions consumers have with the product or service.

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Our meticulous research and design practices have earned us numerous prestigious awards, such as the Red Dot Award in 2018, the International Design Excellence Award, the India Design Mark, A’ Design Award, Good Design Award, Design Excellence Awards, Lexus Design Award, Golden Peacock Award, and many more. These accolades underscore our unwavering commitment to research-driven innovation and design excellence.

How does Make in India and promoting entrepreneurship relate to Future Factory?

In India we have an abundance of human capital and Make in India is a big step in making us globally competitive. As this comes of age, it means a huge opportunity for Indian manufacturing and design to prove to the world that we can be a capable and trusted partner and an engine for the future.

The world has always seen India as a services provider. We already are the back office of the world. In the post covid world – India is being called upon to bring her vast human capital to bear on providing manufacturing capabilities to not only its vast internal market but the world, at large. 

Future Factory sees itself playing an ushering role in imbibing design quality into Indian manufacturing so that in the next decade ‘Made in India’ is looked at as a badge of honour.

If Digit has an idea and concept for a product, can Future Factory help develop a prototype for it?

We are always eager to work with new ideas. Digit has been around for decades; I remember it from our early years as a window into everything that was new in computers and technology. If there are any cool new ideas and concepts floating around the Digit office, we would love to engage on bringing them to life.