UNLOCKING KEY ENABLERS

Often, we hear of a critical inflection point, but if ever there was one in Indian manufacturing and industry, it is now. Faced with a gilt-edged opportunity to cash in on global companies' efforts to build factories outside China as part of the ‘China Plus One’ strategy, India has a strategic window of opportunity spanning three-to-five years to attract investments to the country en masse. Thus far, India's growth has been cushioned by domestic consumption in the face of a global slowdown, but this strategic shift could usher in as big a chance as the opening up of the Indian economy did in the early ‘90s, allowing India’s manufacturers to emerge from the shadow of the country’s services sector and seize more of the global market.

As per the Chief Economic Advisor V. Anantha Nageswaran, India needs to focus on the manufacturing sector to achieve sustained growth of 7-7.5% until 2030. India's comparative advantage in terms of skilled labour, improved physical infrastructure, a well-established industrial ecosystem and large domestic market should prove to be key enablers to realising this vision. In time, this could help create up to 90 million domestic jobs by 2030. Capturing this opportunity will require India’s manufacturers to improve productivity of labour and capital dramatically, and create a workplace conducive to operating at world-class levels. A few leading manufacturers are doing precisely this, offering lessons for other Indian manufacturers and global product makers considering opportunities in India.