An exclusive inside-view of the $1-billion GE India, and its strategy to reach a turnover of $2.5 billion by the year 2005. It's secret weapon: globalisation.

By R. Sukumar

If you were to pass M.N. Kumar on the road in Bangalore, the city where he lives and works, you wouldn't spare him a second glance. ''Just another techie in a city filled with them,'' you'd probably tell yourself and get on with doing what you set out to. Only, Dr M.N. Kumar is a design engineer who works out of GE Transportation Systems' office in the city's newest International Technology Park (in a building ambitiously named 'Innovator', if that's relevant). And he is part of a team working on the design of GE's next-generation locomotives. To put that in the correct perspective: GE is the world's largest manufacturer of locomotives; by 2005, all locomotives sold in the US will have to meet certain emission norms; and Bangalore is where these locomotives are being designed up to the solid modelling stage.

More than a 1,500 miles away, in Gurgaon, NV 'Tiger' Tyagarajan, the Chief Executive Officer of GE Capital International Services (GECIS) is busy overseeing the creation of what he terms e-swat teams, groups that'll help other GE businesses across the world implement their e-biz plans (e-biz, for those who came in late, is Jack Welch's newest growth mantra after globalisation, services, and Six Sigma). But isn't GECIS the call centre business? Tiger (everyone calls him that) laughs: ''Call centres account for just 25 per cent of our work; the rest is really high-end stuff.'' The treasury operations of all of GE's European businesses, for instance, are managed out of Gurgaon.

If you were to take the trouble you'd find more stories like these across GE's businesses in India. Like how they midwife around $40 million to $50 million (Rs 184 crore to Rs 230 crore) worth of exports by Indian suppliers to their parents, and to their peers in other countries on an annualised basis. Like how GE Industrial Systems is the largest exporter of appliance motors from India. Like how GE Medical Systems' (GEMS) Indian operations will soon be the only GEMS business producing C-arms (used in scanners and the like) from a facility in Pune. Like how entire websites for GE's European and American businesses have been created in India. And like how GE's Global Development Centres in India will export software worth $250 million (Rs 1,150 crore) in 2000, making the company the largest software exporter in India. So if Jack Welch's ref