From Being SRI-B's First Designer to Becoming a Thought Leader

Samsung R&D Institute India - Bangalore (SRI-B) is house to thousands of brilliant minds that come together to create delightful consumer experiences. But have you ever wondered, what is the driving force behind their disruptive innovation and breakthroughs?

Hear from the very first member of the user experience (UX) group in SRI-B, Debayan Mukherjee: “My journey with SRI-B began in 2009 and since then, every day has been exhilarating. In the initial years, UX was merely a service provided to engineering teams. Not many understood the value of Experience Design and Consumer Experiences (CX) back then, but gradually, this perception changed. Teams started inculcating CX into engineering and product development processes, and today CX is everything. All of R&D now speaks in terms of ‘CX first’, and the triad – UX, Product Management and Engineering teams work in tandem to create breakthroughs.”

Debayan is reminded of his early days when one of his mentors invited him on his first business trip to Korea. They worked closely to develop ideas together and he got first-hand experience of interacting with many global colleagues.

Talking about how Samsung is invested in enriching consumer’s lives, Debayan recalls the time when he worked on a rural India project. His team went touring around some of the remotest parts of the country to research on local lifestyle and understand how they communicate and use phones. Debayan said, “Design is a culmination of research, empathizing with users’ problems, deriving insights, mapping them with technology and trends to develop innovative solutions. I love my work as it makes consumers’ lives easier by helping them do things with simplicity and delight.”

14 years is a long time, but Debayan says he has never had a dull moment in SRI-B, owing to the quality of projects he gets to work on, innovation culture and an array of learning and growth prospects. In 2012, he got the unique opportunity of learning Design Thinking at Frog Design in Munich, along with members from over 15 Samsung global subsidiaries.

In 2019, Debayan was chosen to work in Seoul R&D Center for over a year as a part of the Global Mobility Program (GMP). He counts the experience as a class apart. “While Samsung is a reputed global brand, its grandeur strikes even more when you visit South Korea. The Global Mobility Program is one of the best things that has happened to me in Samsung. It was an invaluable experience that helped me expand my horizon, network and build robust relationships. While on GMP, I worked on the inception of Single Take Camera with SRI-B and HQ colleagues. Design leaders in Seoul R&D Center were inclusive and strongly believed in my team’s competency. During this period, I also carved out a workshop opportunity for a few Headquarter leaders in SRI-B to acquaint them with the breakthrough innovation culture here.”

In 2022, Debayan was nominated for SRI-B’s flagship leadership program ‘Thought Leadership’, which nurtures leaders to advance from being domain-leaders in SRI-B to global-leaders in the world. When asked about how SRI-B is different from competitors, Debayan said, “Products and experiences that we design and develop here are amongst the best in the world. It is indeed a thrilling experience to see our creations in consumers’ hands all over the world.”

A significant part of Debayan’s day with his team goes in building upon each other's ideas through discussions and feedback, and a lot of it happens over good food, a beer or a cup of coffee. Debayan takes pride in his diverse team and believes that their passion, creativity and insightfulness have helped in creating exceptional experiences.

He attributes his success to the ‘continuous learning’ culture of SRI-B, which constantly expands his potential and keeps work interesting. “When I get back home, I am charged enough to spend quality time with family and play with my daughter. At the end of a hard day's work, I feel quite satisfied with what I have learnt and problems I have solved. And the next morning, I am raring to go and redefine the future again.”

Read more such stories about "Life at SRI-B" on https://research.samsung.com/sri-b

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