Creating innovation is a multidisciplinary approach that involves designing (research, creativity, pilots), engineering (hardware, software, and development), prototyping (3D Prints and CNC), and manufacturing (Consultation and support). Abhishek Reddy Gujjala says this is how Criador Labs manifest clients’ vision into reality. Abhishek adds that Criador Labs is a multidisciplinary product design and innovation firm that brings revolutionary ideas to life, helping clients through the difficulties and challenges of innovation and delivering efficient, effective, and long-lasting success.
Abhishek and Hitesh Devara started the company in 2016 in Bangalore. It began as an Industrial Design Studio offering Industrial Design and Mechanical Design services only. From its inception, Criador Labs has utilized the best new-age technologies for its clients, completing over 100+ client projects, producing over 50+ prototypes, and 10+ product manufacturings.
Criador Labs serves ambitious start-ups to Fortune 500 clients in the healthcare, consumer, and commercial industries, delivering innovation through multi-functional expertise in research, technology, design, engineering, and manufacturing.
Abhishek shares, “Some of our clients liked our work and requested to help them with other services to complete their product development. Given the Industrial Revolution 4.0, the world is moving towards smart/IoT products. So, we listened to our clients, started adding other services, and eventually became a one-stop shop by 2019. Besides, in 2019, we ventured into medical device development as we saw a huge potential there. These timely and early strategic decisions helped us venture into niche areas and excel.”
Abhishek spoke in an exclusive interview with CIOLOOK INDIA, where he elaborated on many design-related things and Criador Labs’ revolutionary product design and development approach. The highlights of the discussion are given herein.
Please brief our audience about your firm, its USPs, and how you are currently positioned as one of the best Product Design and Development Companies.
Criador Labs is an award-winning product design and innovation firm offering comprehensive multidisciplinary services to help clients succeed in their innovation projects. Criador Labs is committed to utilizing the latest technologies and providing efficient and effective solutions for its clients. The firm serves a wide range of clients, including ambitious start-ups and Fortune 500 companies across healthcare, consumer, and commercial industries, offering a range of services that include research, technology, design, engineering, and manufacturing.
Our USP is that we offer end-to-end services from idea to hardware IoT (Internet of Things) product manufacturing. It is possible due to our multidisciplinary in-house teams that cover the entire breadth of design and engineering teams needed to develop a full-fledged IoT product. Besides, this approach helps us to cut the development time by following agile methodologies. It also helps us innovate better as different teams come together. It helps us position ourselves as the best Product Design and Development companies.
Tell us more about your firm’s offering and what makes it stand out in the cutthroat competition.
Our Services include:
*Design
- a) Industrial Design
- b) UI/UX Design
- c) Packaging Design
- d) Brand Identity Design
*Engineering
- a) Mechanical Engineering
- b) Electrical Engineering
- c) Electronics Engineering
- d) Software development
*Prototyping and Manufacturing
- a) Rapid prototyping
- b) Batch Production
- c) Mass Production
These full-fledged offerings, from ideas to manufacturing hardware IoT (Internet of Things) products, make us stand out from the competition as clients don’t need to worry about working with 4-5 different vendors to develop a product.
What inspired you to venture into the industry as a Product Design & Development Company?
Being Mechanical Engineers, we both founders were passionate about hardware products. Hitesh was a creative and artistic guy. Meanwhile, I am a tech enthusiast. One day at a pub, we explored different ideas and eventually decided to start this venture as it would help us work on different hardware products every day. This way, we get the enjoy our work. So we just followed our passion.
As an experienced leader, share your opinion on how adopting modern technologies like AI and ML impacts the Product Design and Development solution space and how your company adapts to the change.
AI/ML dramatically impacts the product design and development space on multiple fronts. The IoT products generate data, which is sent to the cloud. AI/ML processes this data in the cloud and converts it into actionable insights. It helps clients make better business decisions and grow their businesses profitably.
Besides, edge computing is picking up where the AI/ML algorithms are running on the devices directly, and they can process the data then and there (on-device processing) and make decisions accordingly, making it even better. It is making AI/ML a part of the product directly.
We currently offer AI/ML solutions to our customers. We expect to see more and more projects of this nature and are prepared to scale up our teams accordingly.
From another angle, OpenAI is revolutionizing the product design solution space. Now, our Design team can do a lot of creative ideations using Dall E. Our software team can leverage ChatGPT to increase efficiency in coding. These tools are re-aligning the development process for us, and we expect to see more of this in the future.
Considering the current industry scenario, what challenges do you face, and how do you drive your firm to overcome them?
As mentioned previously, AI is revolutionizing the way people work. It might replace the workforce completely in a few areas. Hence, we must adapt to these technologies and be prepared for the future. Furthermore, we must re-orient our services to better suit our clients’ changing requirements. On that note, we try to stay one step ahead to gauge the client’s future needs and requirements and plan to foray into that early.
What would you advise budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the Product Design & Development solution space?
There are only a handful of companies in India’s Product Design and Development solution space. On that note, there is always a potential to start a business. And more Indian companies are venturing into the Hardware space. Hence there will be a need for solution firms catering to the outsourcing needs of these companies. Given the Industrial Revolution 4.0, it is evident that there will be huge future demand. Hence starting now will give the early mover advantage.
How do you envision scaling your firm’s operations and offerings in the future?
Currently, we are operating majorly in India. We plan to increase our operations in the USA in the near future and eventually venture into other developed countries as well.
We want to increase our offerings in AI/ML, AR/VR/XR.
