India has all to become manufacturing hub

Setting aside the current debate as to whether India should collaborate or compete with China in its growth strategy, speakers at the special session on whether India can become a global manufacturing hub at the global logistics summit here on Wednesday felt that the country had its own strengths to become a part of global manufacturing network irrespective of China's lead in this sector.

Especially the presentation, which caught the imagination of many a participants of the session, given by Subu D Subramanian, director & senior vice president, manufacturing & automotives of Satyam Computer Services, brought IT capabilities of the country into sharp focus in giving the Indian manufacturing industry the most competitive edge even compared with China.

Mallika Srinivasan, director, Tractors & Farm Equipment Limited (Tafe), who chaired the session, was upbeat over the success of her own company stating that Tafe was now on its way to beat even Brazil and Turkey in tractor manufacturing, said $ 2 billion export projections from Indian plant by Hyundai and a $3 billion investment commitments in last three months just in and around Sriperumbudur were examples of country's potential in manufacturing sector.

She, however, pointed out that clusters of manufacturing success were yet to evolve into a wave of sorts.

"We see global manufacturing networks competing with other similar networks. India has to become a part of these global networks," she said.

Subramanian said IT capabilities of Indian software companies can be effectively leveraged to improve productivity and quality of Indian manufacturing industry irrespective of their size to mark its presence in global market.

Going forward from productivity improvement level, he also said that IT itself would become a significant component and part of manufacturing.

"With intelligent and communicative automobiles coming into picture 20-30 per cent of the product itself would comprise of IT," he said stating that Indian manufacturing industry should be able to utilise the IT capabilities available in India.

According to him, Satyam is already working on several such projects, one with General Motors, where the GPS system could track the functions of various components of a vehicle and alert beforehand if there is going to be any possible breakdown.

Arun Maira, chairman of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), while citing the example of Tata motors indigenously developing below 6 tonne LCV in the 80's, said economies of skill and scope, not the scale, is going to create competition.

He said India could become a global manufacturing hub if it focused on innovation and new business ideas. He also supported the idea of distributive manufacturing by bringing the SMEs into the fold of bigger players in manufacturing industry.

Vineet Agarwal, executive director of TCI, said infrastructure development is essential to develop manufacturing industry at globally competitive levels.