An esteemed panel of judges came together to decide whom to bestow with the top honours at the Manufacturing Today Awards 2015. They give their take on the nomination process. BY MITALEE KURDEKAR
What an exciting period it’s been for the Indian manufacturing industry. The government’s project ‘Make in India’ has created quite a buzz in business circles and infused some much-needed zeal all around. And now, it’s that time of the year again! Taking stock of all that’s happened in the year gone by, Manufacturing Today, brought out by ITP Publishing India, held its 4th Annual Manufacturing Today Awards Jury Meet on August 18, 2015.
An elite panel of 14 judges, representing genres of manufacturing, graced the event, collaborating with one another to handpick a list of deserving winners to be recognised and rewarded for their excellent performance in various categories of the industry.
Manufacturing Today and the ITP group at large are solely responsible for the provision of a platform for this purpose, and had no say in selecting the winners. That was left completely to the 14-member jury team, who screened 230-plus nominations (we had received a whopping 350-plus entrees, which had to be filtered down) that came from every part of the country.
Our jury team consisted of: Pradeep Bhargava, director, Cummins India; Rajesh Nath, managing director, German Engineering Federation (VDMA); Satish Bhat, managing director, Ador Welding; Robindra Nath Som, president, Nickunj Group; Dr. Wilfried Aulbur, managing partner, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants; N Sivasubramanian, managing director, ThyssenKrupp Industries India; Sandeep Tilak, vice president, finance and corporate strategy, Bharat Bijlee; Shashank Tripathi, partner and strategy leader, PwC India; Amit Paithankar, managing director, Emerson Process Management; DH Roy, vice president, procurement and supply chain, Blue Star; Ravind Mithe, partner, management consulting, KPMG; KC Mani, managing director, BDB India; Milind Kulkarni, managing director, Seco Warwick Allied and Chandrakant Salunkhe, founder and president, Small and Medium Business Development Chamber of India (SME Chamber of India).
Bhargava gave his views on the event, saying, “Manufacturing hasn’t been a much talked about, documented or glamourous function as such. I’m very happy that the responses received from a cross-section of the industry have been positive. Some organisations have given more than one nomination, which is a very healthy trend.”
Shashank Tripathi said, “I think the nomination process is fair and rigorous and brings a lot of different points of view to the table. We’ve had some interesting discussions. I think there’s a very accurate representation of some of the manufacturing prowesses in this country.”
Following the success of last year’s event, we invited nominations for 14 awards – 11 company and three individual honours. The nominations were divided on the basis of large, and small and medium enterprise (SME), and judged solely on the basis of the turnover of the plant and not the company as a whole.
The jury was divided into teams of three, with each team given four to five categories to judge. They had to score between 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest and 0 the lowest score. Judges had the option of writing down their comments in a separate column and were also asked to refrain from judging nominations from any company that they have a vested interest in. It intrigued us to note that the judges were very vocal in voicing their opinions, and did not hesitate to shoot down, straightaway, nominations that did not meet their stringent quality parameters. At the same time, it was heartening to see that the jury appreciated the efforts taken by companies to fill out nominations and spent a great deal of their time deliberating and discussing a myriad points.
Raju Mistry, group head, leadership development, Aditya Birla Group, the primary sponsor of the event, spoke on the occasion. “I think the association with ITP has been fantastic and has gained strength, year on year. The companies that are participating have a huge amount of knowledge that is acquired through practice and experience. These kinds of platforms and forums allow people to share with a larger group of people and, I think, the kinds of benefits that are achieved are manyfold. People can actually find the relevance and practical applications back home. I think that is the biggest USP of this entire forum,” she said.
The day started with a positive announcement by Saikumar Shanmugam, deputy managing director, ITP Publishing India, who said, “We started the awards about four years back and this year we had even written to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), inviting the government to be a partner for our project, the 4th Annual Manufacturing Today Awards & Conference 2015, which are on September 11. I’m happy to share that the PMO has deputed the Honourable Minister of State for Home Affairs, Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary, to preside over the awards function. That’s a proud moment for all of us.” Following that, the nomination process was explained in detail to the jury, who then got underway with the task at hand.
Through the course of the day, amid numerous discussions, it was clear that one topic kept resurfacing. While it was on everyone’s mind, Rajesh Nath best summed up the mood surrounding the ‘Make in India’ project. “As the Honourable PM has said, ‘Make in India’ is not just a slogan, neither is it a campaign, but it is a process that has to take place in India. The positive thing is that it has huge implications for the manufacturing industry; certainly increase in GDP of the role of manufacturing, from 15% to 25%, creating more than 100 million jobs. But what would also help is the development of the local industry, as suppliers and vendors. The industry is currently going through a difficult phase, but with the initiatives being taken by the government, ease of doing business and also trying to attract foreign direct investment, all this would, in a period of time, lead to a very positive development of the Indian manufacturing industry,” he said.
Amit Paithankar reflected the positive sentiment of many, when he said, “I personally feel that India is at the cusp of something magical. So I’m extremely bullish. We have been investing in the country for a long time and believe that we are going to see a good future for the next few years. So ‘Make in India’, ‘Skill India’ and some other initiatives that we have are only going to help in building the ecosystem.”
But, about one year on, has there been any change on the ground? Robindra Nath Som doesn’t believe so. “To be honest, while there has been a lot of buzz in the media, the press and all around, the expectations were quite high to start with. But in the real sense, on the ground, we are still to see some activity increase. It’s still to take off. It just seems to be building up,” he proclaims.
There are numerous barriers that stand in the way of accelerated growth and effective implementation of such projects. Dr. Aulbur explains, “I think we have opportunity to make ‘Make in India’ a reality. The key challenges are the same that we’ve been discussing for some time now. One is the flexibility in labour, which is a major driver of manufacturing success. The second is quality of talent; having the right people to drive operational performance improvement and to drive innovation in companies. Infrastructure is an area that needs to be addressed desperately, to make sure that we can fight a level playing field with the Chinese. Even our tax system is complex. It would be easier to have a simple tax system to make it competitive with some of the countries we are in competition with.” Others also added the land acquisition bill and GST to the list of woes. However, Dr. Aulbur agreed that there’s an upside. “India has lower labour costs than China, so that gives us a potential opportunity. I think it is important for everybody, including the government, opposition, industry, and also academia, to make sure that we can leverage this opportunity going forward, even more than we have in the past.”
Slowly, but surely, that is happening, starting with a change in attitude. As Bhargava puts it, “Certainly there is a change in the mood of the people. There is an outlook, which is positive. People are giving future schedules, which is positive. So, yes, there is a good feeling.”
Even with the markets faring badly recently and competition from Chinese players holding us back, there is hope that we will emerge stronger, at the end of this arduous journey. Manufacturing Today salutes that sentiment! After all, when the going gets tough, there is nothing quite like a pat on the back to spur one on. We, at ITP, will continue to do our bit in recognising quality performances in manufacturing and encouraging new talent that is taking this country forward. As always, we will strive to reward excellence in manufacturing, as seen during our robust nominations process and as will be resonated when the winners are finally revealed to the world at a glittering ceremony on September 11, 2015, in Pune.