Movers & Shakers Interview with ABB India Managing Director

Source：Frost & Sullivan Release Date：2012-12-17 512

Metalworking

Frost & Sullivan's Arunkumar. J (Arun), Industry Manager for the Industrial Automation and Process Controls practice, spoke to Mr. Bazmi Husain (Bazmi), Country Manager and Managing Director, ABB India on the evolving imperatives in the Indian Industrial segment and the outlook for future. The transcript of the interview is as follows:

Arun: Thank you for your acceptance to talk to us. What, according to you, are key contributory factors in ABB's performance in the current year?

Bazmi: Our strategy is centered on three Ps: People, Processes, and Product. With respect to human capital, we have made significant investments in boosting local as well as recruiting global talent across the organization. After all, it is employees or resources that ultimately determine the success of any organization's strategy.

We also focused significantly on augmenting processes, improving project management, and supply chain efficiencies. Research and Development (R&D) is another area we have accelerated, this is for global as well as India-specific requirements. The program called 'In Country, By Country, and For Country', is focused on indigenization of solutions and we have considered this as a critical component of our India strategy. While indigenizing product, quality is cast in stone as part of the process, and we would not like to compromise on that. By indigenization, we are customizing the functionality, altering supply base, and design criteria where appropriate. We have our R&D center in Bangalore and we have also setup a R&D center closer to our manufacturing centers in Baroda and Nasik, because anything that is developed has to be manufactured, and there should be closed loop between design and manufacturing. All these factors have enabled us to increase our competitiveness and customer reach. Keen ability to understand Indian consumers and capability to indigenize products and solutions are key factors contributing to our performance.

Arun: What according to you are evolving imperatives that the Indian industrial community has to watch out for?

Bazmi: Based on my interaction with various stakeholders, majority of organizations are looking at long-term opportunities rather than short-term issues. Companies understand that the current market scenario is due to lack of clarity on policy directions. In short term, while there are load factor or plant utilization-related issues, these are not long-term concerns. The market is maturing and what we expect to see is focus on Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). I am sure there will be gradual shift from capacity addition to productivity enhancement and energy efficiency-related investments. Customers are investing in products andJORDAN