Dr. Wilfried Aulbur

India's ‘Hero' culture
Creating a ‘Make in India' brand will require consistency and excellence of manufacturing and engineering across the value chain. It will also require the same consistency across industries.

‘Country of Origin' brands are not built by a few companies achieving world-class standards but by an ecosystem of companies that convinces local and global customers time and again of the quality, performance and value of their products and services.

India still has significant improvement potential in this area. Take the domestic machine tool industry as an example. Without a doubt, a high-performing domestic machine tool industry will be crucial for transforming India into a manufacturing hub.

The key customers of the machine tool industry (Automotive (47 percent), Non-Electric Machinery (21 percent), Electronics/Electrical Machinery (15 percent) and Aerospace & Defense (15 percent)) depend on high-quality, high-performing machines to drive their business to global levels.

India's position in terms of both consumption and production of machine tools leaves room for improvement, especially if compared to China, a country with a similar population size. While domestic production of machine tools as percentage of total market has increased from 18 percent to 41 percent during the FY09-FY14 time period, it remains woefully low in international comparisons with corresponding negative impacts on the balance of payments.

A key reason for the continued dominance of imported machine tools is the strong preference of customers in India towards imports for high value add work. Results of a recent ACMA-IMTA-Roland Berger study clearly indicate that advantages for imports stem from alignment with environmental best practices, achievement of very high tolerances, lower total cost of ownership and technology leadership.

Domestic players mainly outperform international competition regarding spares availability, service support and pricing. Flexibility to meet customer requirements is seen as another strength.

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