| B T A N N I V E R S A R Y I S S U E |
|
          |
T R E N D S India's 10 Competitive Industries Forget moving up the value chain, India's next source of comp- advantage could well be your kitchen-garden, says Ranju Sarkar.
For those of you who think that is something which can be dismissed with a casual shrug of shoulders, think again. Global competitiveness is a big deal. Strategy seer Michael E. Porter, in the course of a 1994-visit to India, hinted that bicycles, gems and jewellery, and software were the industries where India could hope to be globally competitive. Seven years later, at a time when Porter's theory of competitiveness is universally acknowledged to be die-hard old economy, things are different. Still, India does boast some factor-advantages (already mentioned in the recipe for the cocktail at the beginning of this composition). From these, to a listing of 10 industries where India can hope to be globally competitive in the future, is a small exercise in conjecture. Agriculture And Agri-Products Oops...thin ice. In a country obsessed with food security, even talking about exporting food is blasphemy. But with one bumper crop after another of staple foodgrain, the country is literally bursting at the seams with grain. And with countries like Brazil, which have traditionally been significant contributors to the global trade in fruits and agri-products, forsaking these in favour of more 'industrial' trade, there's an opportunity waiting to be tapped. Choke-points like the unavailability of cold-storages and poor logistics could nip this opportunity in the bud, but with a huge surplus of labour in agriculture, becoming a global player in the trade of foodstuffs seems to be the only way for India to go. Bio-Infomatics
Thank diversity. With its varied flora and fauna (and even races), India has a smorgasbord of genes. And with software hotshops mushrooming in every spare garage, we certainly boast enough it skills to map these genes (after all, it's just another exercise in coding). What We Wear Fine, government involvement has rendered the textile and garment industry anaemic, but with the easy availability of cotton and man-made fibres and textile machinery, coupled with a huge domestic market, India has what it takes to be a textile superpower. True, our middling design-capabilities could restrict this pole status to mid-value items, but who says that's a bad thing. Drug Development Pharma is one industry with strong fundamentals in India: a large domestic market, an attractive export market, enough technical manpower, and a large pool of research scientists. These will come in handy while procuring the USFDA (the US Federal Drug Administration) approval for new drugs-a process that involves lengthy documentation and strict quality control. Once India recognises product patents (Year 2005), the country will become an attractive destination for global pharma majors that wish to outsource bulk-drug development. What We See And Hear Four things will make the Indian entertainment biz globally competitive: an assembly line churning out beauty queens, a growing Indian diaspora, hungry for home-made stuff, a global audience increasingly open to Asian entertainment (witness the international success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and a huge domestic market for anything from Bhangra-rap to Indian jazz. IT Services Yup, India's competitiveness in this area isn't likely to wane. Competition from countries like Vietnam and Philippines, and declining it-spends in the US (spends grew by 8 per cent in 2001) are unlikely to have a long-term impact on the industry. Spends are likely to grow by 15 per cent in 2002 in the US, and Indian software biggies will try and establish beach-heads-some have already done so-in Japan and Europe. Still, unlike the US, Europe is a multi-cultural market; worse, it doesn't boast any large customers like the US does. Ergo, the going could be a trifle rough. Healthcare As a country, India enjoys tremendous advantages in the area of healthcare: from a surfeit of good doctors to the low-cost of surgery. First-world dwellers paranoid about infection could turn their noses up at Indian hospitals at first, but over time, costs will win out: the Delhi-based Indraprastha Apollo Hospital conducts a normal by-pass surgery for Rs 1,34,505 ($2,862). The cost of a similar operation in the US would be as high as $12,000. Aluminium Accepted, it isn't really a glam-industry, but with aluminium in the running for the material of the millennium honour, India, with its huge reserves of bauxite could be sitting on a gold, er... sorry, aluminium, mine. Most Indian companies operating in this domain have integrated their operations: from the mining of bauxite to the smelting of aluminium. Hindalco, for instance, is among the lowest-cost producers of aluminium in the world. Forging Before you accuse us of scraping the barrel to come up with an industry where India can be competitive, run your eye through the facts. The manufacture of forgings and castings is labour-intensive; environmental concerns are forcing forge shops in the first world to down their shutters; and India does have a track-record of sorts in the business. GED. Dairy Products This is a dark horse. The co-operative model has worked well in the dairy business in India, making it perhaps the most organised among all food businesses in the country. Dairy products from India compete with those from Europe and Australia in the Middle East markets. With a little more aggression on the marketing front and some innovation in product development, companies operating in this area could well create a niche for themselves in the global market.
|
|
Issue Contents Write to us Subscriptions Syndication INDIA TODAY | INDIA TODAY PLUS | COMPUTERS TODAY © Living Media India Ltd |
 |
 |
Take one
measure of cheap labour and a handful of knowledge workers. Shake with a
dash of low-cost raw materials. Serve chilled with a slice of a large
domestic market. The result, for those who need to imbibe a cocktail to
know what's in it, is a list of industries where India can aspire to be
globally competitive.