Power List 2020

India needs to invest in programmes that help co-develop and co-create products and solutions for the local market, enabling the country to own Intellectual Property (IP). This, in turn, will boost manufacturing, jobs and export capability, so believes the chief of Rolls-Royce.
The company thinks that in terms of security of the country, India needs to be co-developing products, co-creating solutions; that is the space that Rolls-Royce really wants to build on for the future. It is working very closely with defence organisations — MoD, DRDO, NAL, HAL — on how to co-create products and solutions for the Indian market, because at the end of the day, the future is going to be about India owning the IP. Joint IPs between countries are the way to go.

The ‘Make in India’ initiative, the struggling flagship initiative of the NDA government that seeks to make manufacturing a core part of the GDP and create more jobs, are the “right things” from an India perspective.

To drive that, what’s required was a market that was doling out big orders or that was going to be the supply chain capital. Or, a government that will invest in programmes where companies will participate.

The Singapore government invests a lot of money in programmes, so the way the other countries have been doing it is to invest in programmes, which create IP. IP creates manufacturing and the jobs and the export capability.
The best way, he thinks, to reach the desired growth is “to create programmes where the government gives funding”.