"The exercise has not just been about formulating the strategy but also about building capabilities - a) Technical b) Marketing and also investments to meet the strategic objectives. We have set an ambitious target of Rs1,000 crore revenue from Defence and Aerospace by 2020 (from Rs150 crore presently)," Pillai explains. And WIL is keeping its options open in terms of technological tie-ups. "We are not averse to joint ventures as well," he adds.

At the same time, WIL also wants to evolve a business model for equipment manufacturing which is regular in nature and gives consistent revenue.  Besides the DNA segment, Pillai also sees lot of opportunities in railways, renewable energy, general fabrication and process equipment fabrication segments.

Patriotic industrialisation
The founder of this Group Seth Walchand Hirachand was described by Sardar Patel as a ‘Patriotic industrialist'. Pillai believes that this description will always remain to the core of WIL. "Our founder was a visionary who established institutions like HAL and Hindustan Shipyard. To think of something like this at that time required great vision. In fact, WIL itself was established with the objective of ‘Make in India'. We are only carrying forward that tradition with us with a renewed vigour and focus."

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