Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in association with National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) is organizing the symposium, on the theme "Indian Manufacturing Industry - Sustaining Growth in Turbulent Times" on the 17th of November, 2009 at ITC The Sonar, Kolkata. Shri S.K. Roongta, Chairman, SAIL has consented to be the chief guest for the event.
Mr. Saugata Mitra is the Chief People Officer & Group Head Human Resource at Mother Dairy, India’s second largest Dairy & Food Company with 4000 crore turnover and over 6000 employees. His responsibilities range from preparing HR strategy to improving productivity by various innovative HR practices to developing organization culture to looking after the Sr. management’s compensation system.
With two post graduate degrees in Sociology from University of Pune and MBA from SIBM and with the “Valmiki Rolling Trophy for Scholastic Performance of High Order” award he started his career with Anerican Trans national, Union carbide. In a career spanning over 20 years he has been associated with various Fortune 500 companies.
Mr. Mitra is the recipient of various national and international awards. Some of them which are: 1. Sony Asia Pacific Award, Singapore for being judged as “The Regional High Potential” in 2000. 2.Sony Chairman’s award Tokyo for being judged as “International High Potential” in 2004. 3. Global Leadership Award at the World HR Congress-2008 4. Exemplary Leader Award at the 3rd Employer Branding Awards-2008 5. Pride of the Industry Award in 2009.
In the year 2008 Mr. Mitra published his book “18 Management Competencies Business Professionals Cannot Ignore!” which met with huge success both nationally and internationally. The book sold 4000 copies and was the No. 1 Business book at the Gazelle Book Services, London for more than 60 days. Mr. Mitra is also a member of various HR organization and Management Institutes.
Nihar Ghosh, is the Sr. Vice President – Human Resource for the Retail Sector of RPG Group, with responsibility for Spencer’s Retail Limited, Music World Retail (Books & Beyond & Mera World) and Au Bon Pain Café India Ltd. He graduated with a Master’s Degree in Social Works from Indore School of Social Work in 1985.
Mr. Ghosh is a seasoned HR professional with over two decades of rich and diverse background in Multinational Corporation, Family Managed Conglomerates, Federal Agency and Academic Institution in India, Middle East & Asia Pacific Region. His critical management and consulting assignments span FMCG, Food Processing, Petrochemical, Retailing, Knowledge Management and Health Care industry.
Mr. Ghosh held HR leadership roles in Johnson & Johnson Medical India & Asia Pacific, Alghanim Industries and Human Soft Limited in Kuwait and at Profiles International in Dubai. In the early part of his career, he has also worked at IIM Ahmedabad, National Dairy Development Board, Reliance Industries. Mr. Ghosh is chiefly interested in Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, Organization Development and Performance Management. He is also an active trainer and process facilitator.
Mr. Rahul Ghatak is the Vice President & Head Human Resources at CEAT LIMITED. Mr. Ghatak has been at the forefront of driving change and restructuring the Organization through reinforcement of Critical Culture Pillars, Self Managed Teams and Quality Based Management at CEAT.
Having done his graduation in Political Science from University of Calcutta he did his Masters in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University and Personnel Management & Industrial Relations from TISS. He is also Certified in Occupational Testing Techniques & OPQ by SHL. He is also a Certified Facilitator by DDI.
He has over 15 years of experience in leading organizations such as ITC, HSBC, Pepsico and CEAT (RPG). He is an expert in the field of HR Management / Talent Management / Change Management / Performance Management / Employee Relations. He was the recipient of the Global Chairman’s Award at Pepsico and the NCPEDP-Shell Helen Keller Award.
Mr. Ram Poddar is the Chief Executive of Godfrey Phillips India Limited, a leading cigarette manufacturer in India having participating business association with Philip Morris of USA and Modi Group of Industries since the past 24 years. He has been the Chief Mentor of Modi Group of companies including Godfrey Phillips India Limited. Mr. Poddar has had several years of work experience across diverse sectors such as automobile, textile and tobacco.
Mr. Poddar has contributed greatly to0 many professional institutions across India both as a member and a dispenser of authority. Mr. Poddar is the Chairman of the Tobacco Institute of India and Indirect Taxes Committee of PHD Chamber of Commerce. He is the Vice President of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, New Delhi. Mr.Poddar is a distinguished member as well as past Chairman of The Advertising Standards Council of India.He is a member of the Governing Body of The Indian Council of Arbitration, Executive Committee of International Chamber of Commerce and various other committees including those of Industry and Consumer Products of Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Confederation of Indian Industry and Assocham. Mr. Poddar is the founder trustee of “Divine Care”.
Mr. Poddar isa Chartered Accountant and holds degrees in Advanced Management Programs of Harvard Business School and University of Southern California.
Shri Rakesh Makhija is the managing director of SKF India, a leading manufacturer of bearing and related products. He completed his graduation in Chemical Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and moved to Kinetic Technology International, BV where he worked for over 8 years.
He had a long stint with Tata Honeywell and Honeywell International, a global Industrial and Aerospace company, where he held senior management positions. In 1997, he was nominated to the Tata Honeywell Board of Directors and soon afterwards promoted to Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. In April 2000 he was appointed as Country Manager and Managing Director of Honeywell International, with responsibilities for driving the company's growth in Asia.
At SKF, under his leadership the company has tripled its sales revenue and is poised to transform itself into a knowledge engineering company. Besides work, Shri Makhija is an avid reader and a keen golf and squash enthusiast.
Shri R. Maitra had joined the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) on 16 Nov 1981, as Deputy Director (Accounts). Being a professionally qualified Chartered Accountant and having prior audit experience in various audit firms, Shri Maitra’s advent to EEPC as above was quite justifiable. With the passage of time, it was an important milestone in his career, as it marked the beginning of 26 years of professional excellence that eventually led him to crown the highest Executive Post as the Executive Director of EEPC. Of course, his elevation had not come in a day and certainly not easily. He earned it by way of his dedication and devotion to the organization and given his supreme dedication and analytical mind, both the Committee of Administration and the Working Committee have bestowed the post of the Executive Director to a person of immense ability.
In his professional journey, in EEPC, Shri Maitra not only handled accounts but was later made the Secretary and the Joint Director (Administration). Subsequently, he was elevated to the post of the Addl. Executive Director. Shri Maitra has been instrumental in organising various promotional events in India and abroad and the present flagship event INDEEs which are being held twice in every year in different parts of the globe has created a new dimension in popularizing brand image of the country. He played a pivotal role in Council’s achieving accreditation of ISO 9001-2000 Certification for its specialization in organizing exclusive engineering exhibition. Shri Maitra, during his tenure, faced a lot of challenges both from the Government and the employees of EEPC, as he witnessed first hand the impact of liberalization on India and on the foreign trade, itself - a turbulent phase in the history of trade in India.
However in spite of all odds, Shri Maitra have managed to keep abreast with the changing times and this had been possible because of his drive and ability to draw the best out of his colleagues.
He has widely traveled to countries like Brazil, South Africa, various African countries, Bangladesh, Cairo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, U.K., USA, Germany, Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, China, Malaysia etc. EEPC still has the highest membership and is a highest foreign exchange earner that possibly a Council can boast of.
Shri Sushil Kumar Roongta is the Chief Guest for the event. Mr Roongta is currently the Chairman of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). Prior to this, he was Director (Commercial) holding additional charge of Chairman, SAIL ever since his predecessor Mr V.S. Jain superannuated on 31 July 2006.
An engineering graduate from BITS, Pilani with post-graduation in International Trade from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi, Mr Roongta started his career in SAIL in 1972 as Sales Executive in its marketing set-up and held different positions in the company during the last 34 years. He was elevated as a member of the SAIL Board in February 2004. Known for his indepth knowledge of the steel industry, analytical skill and strategic thinking, Mr Roongta spearheaded various key marketing initiatives for the company.
As Director (Personnel) he also oversaw important areas such as Raw Materials and Corporate Planning. In the short period, Mr Roongta headed these functions; he spearheaded formulation of HR policies, formation of strategic alliances/joint ventures & strategic planning for future raw material requirement of SAIL. Mr Roongta also had firsthand experience in managing a steel pant with additional charge as Managing Director of Durgapur Steel Plant.
The enormity of this Financial Crisis is unparalleled post World War II. Despite Fiscal and Monetary Keynesian activism, spreads in Funding markets and Foreign Exchange markets remain dangerously volatile, aggravating the uncertainty. In fact IMF projects narrowing of World GDP growth to a miniscule 0.5% measured in terms of PPP for 2008-2009.
The Indian Manufacturing Sector has not escaped the heat either. Though India has targeted a GDP growth rate of 9 - 10% and a 12-14% growth in particular for Manufacturing Sector, the Central Statistical Organization (CSO) pegged India’s GDP growth for the year ending March 2009 at 7.1%, and manufacturing sector growth at 4.1% .
Therefore a massive investment funded primarily by the financial institutions has to be encouraged for the industry to weather the crisis. However a task committee set up by Prime Minister to look into issues facing manufacturing sector has identified a lack of confidence in financial institutions to lend to the sector on account of unrealistic valuations propelled by overheating of the economy prior to 2008.
To beat this creeping slowdown most of the global firms have already initiated massive cost cutting measures, including Trimming Headcount, Cutting Work Hours, Reduced Expenditure on Skills Development . Therefore human resource management becomes all the more critical. Enhancement in competitiveness will be the mantra for success and sustainability in the coming times.
Manufacturing, with a contribution of 29.4%, is the second largest contributor to GDP after services sector. Needless to mention, it thus, carries a major burden of increasing the employment opportunities in the coming decades directly or indirectly. Services Sector especially in areas like Traditional Trading, Financial Services, and Transport are strongly dependent on manufacturing.
The success and sustainability of Indian Economy is thus hugely dependent of the core manufacturing sector growth.
Session 1: Maintaining Firm Level Competitiveness
'Competitiveness (should) be understood as the ability of companies, industries, regions, nations and supranational regions to generate, while being and remaining exposed to international competition, relatively high factor income and factor employment levels on a sustainable basis.'
Manufacturing is crucial to any economy. The end product of development in manufacturing sector goes far beyond the goods provided by it. Manufacturing sells goods to other sectors and in turn buys materials and services from them for its growth and development. Manufacturing spurs demand for everything from raw materials to intermediate components. Unfortunately the share of manufacturing has been stagnant at a low level of 17% of GDP for over two decades.
The move towards competitive advantage is to a great degree dependent on the firm’s ability to bring about qualitative improvement in the various factors of production, particularly the knowledge resources.
India’s Asian counterparts like China and other South Asian economies seem to be gathering focus of the developed world due to lower costs of production.
Achieving economies of scale by inorganic growth could be one option. But only a few companies are cash-rich and thus most would end up acquiring very small companies that might not add value. Another alternative could be innovation and adoption of leading technologies. However a majority of the Indian companies lag behind their global competitors in both areas due to lack of motivation and proper infrastructure.
Session 2: Talent Management: A Challenge to Manufacturing Sector
“Breakthrough innovation or exceptional growth of a firm is dependent on the leadership of the firm. In India there is an urgent need for more leaders in manufacturing industries at this juncture”
Talent is a crucial factor in implementing any strategy targeted at emerging markets. Talent management is becoming increasingly critical to manufacturers, especially because the strong demand for qualified labor is outpacing the supply. Manufacturing industries world over are shedding workers. Yet, paradoxically, they are short on talent. The companies continue to recruit skilled workers to run their sophisticated manufacturing facilities and make innovative efforts to retain skilled graduate engineers. The talent gap can pose a serious threat to the long-term competitiveness of manufacturing firms if not properly managed. Another area of concern is the retention of talent in the current scenario, where different sectors are competing fiercely for the available talent pool.
Investing in people should be a priority, starting from recruitment. Getting a team to function well is often more difficult in India than it is in some other cultures making it all the more important to choose the right people. Also, with rising attrition, it is essential that a second and third layer be in place in the event the first tier of employees leaves.
By 2025, 40 to 60 percent of workers across many of the world’s most populous nations in both developed and emerging markets will come from Generation Y and younger generations. A failure to effectively attract and engage these new workers will therefore significantly hamper manufacturers’ competitiveness in the long run.
How do manufacturing firms manage these constraints – such as lack of employability, negative image, education, job training, and retention?
Session 3: Manufacturing and Protectionism
The current Economic Crisis possibly the worst after the Great Depression has thrown major world economies into a Protectionist mode. With Decoupling Theory defunct, Protectionist trade measures have ramifications for the world especially when major producing and consuming economies are in a face off.
Free mobility of Capital and Goods has led countries with excess of production of goods , dump the goods under the garb of free trade severely crippling the domestic economies and undermining the rules of fair play. With quantitative restrictions ceasing, it becomes imperative for manufacturers to come to terms with the new economic reality.
Manufacturing currently contributes 17% of the GDP, but has been showing dismal growth for a long time. The peak custom duties have been slashed drastically from 110% in 1991 to 10% in 2007. The number of items reserved for SME has come down.
The government policies are disproportionately biased towards services though manufacturing holds the maximum potential for job creation. A brief analysis of the major manufacturing giants in Asia brings to fore the active role played by their respective Governments in protecting and promoting the domestic industry by way of restricted flow of FDI, setting up of technology up-gradation centers and skills development training institutes. The Indian government is slowly recognizing the importance of this and some new initiatives like National Strategy for Manufacturing, 2006 are steps in the right direction.
Is legislation and Protectionism only way out? Will reverse protectionist measures lead to a trade embargo crippling India's newly flourishing manufacturing industries?
