Make in India makes business sense: Business leaders

CHANDIGARH: Converging at the Indian School of Business, Mohali, for the first day of ISB Leadership Summit (ILS), business leaders agreed that the ‘Make in India’ campaign was a win-win situation for both the maker and the user.
With the inaugural address by NASSCOM founder Kiran Karnik, the day was followed up by panel discussions. In the first session, Zubin Irani, President United Technologies and Kamna Aggarwala, marketing director of GDPA Fasteners discussed ‘From Muddle to Miracle – Re-imagining the Asian Century’.
While Aggarwala presented a woman entrepreneur’s point of view and said that businesses needed to involve a woman’s point of view to succeed, Zubin emphasized that industry should be linked with academia to be able to work on the ‘Make in India’ concept.
“The Make in India makes business sense. One, it brings down cost by 10-15%, it cuts down delivery time and allows designing of products and manufacturing them suitable to the Indian market,” Irani said.
Irani also said the focus should shift on university and linking of industry with academia. “The need is to move towards industry-academia collaborations rather than research coming from independent labs,” he added.
The other panels were based on themes like - ‘Taking India Experience Abroad’, ‘Technology Revolutionizing Businesses Worldwide’, ‘Breaking the Glass Ceiling’ and ‘BRICS to Bridges’.
In the inaugural address, Karnik said, “The key to growth lies in innovation and entrepreneurship. We need to keep learning everyday in order to grow. In such a scenario higher education institutions play a vital role in providing an environment and creating the ecosystem to learn something new everyday.”