We provide the world’s number one brand at affordable costs

July 3, 2021 5:28 pm

We will see a sea change in Indian automotive component manufacturing, before the end of this decade.

India is still largely dependent on imported automobile components and auto parts. How is industry planning to reduce the same to accommodate localised manufacturing?

Pre-Covid auto component import figures are in the region of USD 17.5 Billion, which according to some leading analysts is a little shy of 20 percentage of the automobile market size in the country. This shows that the imports are certainly on the higher side and there is a lot of room for localisation. Most high-end passenger cars are still brought in as a CKD kit. Furthermore, nearly a third of the automobile components imported, comes from China. With whatever interactions we have had with policy committees and industry leaders; it is our learning that the Government and the industry are working together to reduce the quantum of imports and encouraging local manufacturing. There are various schemes launched by the GoI – including the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme under the Make in India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat Programme, which are already making a difference to the MSMEs in the country. Furthermore, Skill Development initiatives are in full swing to provide support to the manufacturing industry on the HR front.

We need to understand that this is a joint effort by every stakeholder in the manufacturing ecosystem. On our part, we have been providing preferential purchase rates to MSMEs, extended technical support and hand-holding as well as networking opportunities with our customers and partners worldwide. We will see a sea change in Indian automotive component manufacturing, before the end of this decade.

Indian automobile industry has been experiencing a slowdown for almost a decade. How is it impacting your businesses?

I wouldn’t necessarily call it a slowdown, as much as a market correction. Purchase patterns of millennials are far different from Gen X and Y – the automotive industry seems to have addressed this with a tweak in their Go-to-market strategy. Having said that, we have been hedging our risks for a long time now. While automotive market still is a significant contributor to our revenue, it doesn’t hold centre stage.

We have other major contributors, such as medical, aerospace & defence, white goods & appliances, electronics, energy, oil & gas and heavy engineering. Of course, this has helped us upsell some of our advanced manufacturing modules to the automotive industry, as they seek to become more and more competitive in their manufacturing. This is a trend which will continue for quite some time in the near future.

What kind of regulatory, policy and financial assistance have you been expecting from the government to realign market’s confidence?

The recent pandemic has shown that over dependence on one single source for critical automotive components has such a cascading and devastating effect. The industry therefore needs to work with the policy makers to de-risk themselves from such situation in the future. Regulatory changes to allow simplification and ease of doing business, reduction in energy costs, availability of working capital at reasonable interest rates, sops on technology investments and job creation etc., are some of the areas that the Government can work with the industry to have a win-win situation. Lack of manufacturing expertise in certain high precision: value components must be addressed by setting up special Centres of Excellence & Research centres, in automotive manufacturing hubs across the country. Higher learning institutes must be regulated by the UGC to ensure technology scholars invest significant time with these CoE & Research centres, to add value to both parties.

What measures are you planning to increase the demand for locally produced parts and components for the automobile industry?

As both – beneficiaries and contributors to the automotive component industry, we work with our customers and partners to ease the manufacturing process. We provide cutting edge CAD/CAM technology to end users in tandem with Machine tool & Cutting tool manufacturers to ensure that our customers are producing parts precisely as well as efficiently.

Especially, for MSMEs in the country, we provide the world’s number one brand at significantly lower costs along with a very high level of niche technical support. We are also deeply entrenched with academia with the sole purpose of increasing the skill potential of tomorrows manufacturing engineers and technicians.