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Ok, everyone talks about BPO, call centres, mad centres, sane centres, so on and so forth, with every CEO worth his salt driving a recruitment largesse whisking best talents away from anywhere to his glass-domed fiefdom, barring washrooms / toilets. But, a silent giant of an industry has emerged in the recent times to be firmly considered so in global parlance. That is auto industry for you and for the more discerning industry-insider automotive ancillary industry, which offers one thing that BPO cannot, long-term sustenance, besides many other key benefits that one expects from a BPO and/or IT-enabled services industry, ofcourse, though the latter is a common hub that connects all industries together as a service, which undoubtedly is an industry in its own right. Be that as it may, before the advent of BPO, a job in the automotive sector was nothing less than top-notch, and still continues to be so, and exotic even, dandy dress, flashy smiles model-like employess, the works so to speak of how one would visualize a BPO, except if you dont mind the grease, the sweltering heat at the production-floor. Oh, by the way you can comfortably forget the glossed-over, polished images of all-smiling faces, since it is a riot out there and a potboiler of fast and furious synergy of mental and physical activities out there at the shop floor.

The long and short of what is plus and minus

The auto industry by its very nature has certain advantages which metamorphsizes into disadvantages from a purely bottom-line and profit-centric entrepreneurial approach, as the overheads are phenomenally high compared to BPO, whose perhaps, barring the negligible cost they spend on systems/travel and teleconferencing and fat salaries to keep the best of humanware, neglible compared to what they earn on the basis of income :expenditure ratio compared to auto industry that at best, even in the case of the best and biggest of global players, can hope for a meagre 15% profit at best, after the financial year closing shakedown of numbers.

The advantage is that when you say overheads, it talks about providing employment in several walks of activities surrounding it, particularly upto the point where they convert to a finished product, meaning backward integration of processes relating to incoming and outbound parts, not only apply to vehicle manufacturers themselves, but extended to and expected of their suppliers as well, who, by and large, conform to such a modus operandi, in the absence of which they surely are likely to be rejected and forced out of contention if and when it came to meeting a long and arduous selection process, as stipulated by most, if not all, of the big-time manufacturers. Such employments, by the very process of manufacturing methodlogy involved, are extended from vehicle makers to tier-1 suppliers, from tier-1 to tier-2 and tier-2 to tier-3 and so on, providing sustenance and livelyhood to plenty as activites progress from one entity to another in this chain.

Why is it a mammoth proposition now

First, as I write this article, new investments - when I say new investments, tangible investments as has been publicised, much publicised rather - to the tune of more than a 100,000 Crores of Rupees expected to ploughed into the new market, with more promised in the very near and foreseeable future. Chennai alone, the emerging business capital of the South for all walks of industry, including the ubiqutuous IT, boasts of an investment worth Rs. 40,000 Crores, which compares only with the other, equally competitive region, Pune. Sops offered by the government are numerous, including the consummate 100 per cent duty-free import of components and export of parts.

Second, the global big-time players, including the big 3 - GM, Daimler Chrysler, Ford (note I have not added Toyota, who steadfastly like any other Japanese manufactures believes in working with only Japanese part markers, Delphi is an exception, for backward integration of their parts movements upto the stage of finished products) have, atleast by now, developed a strong partnership with many renowned Indian OE parts manufactures for their assembly-line requirements, not just the aftermarket when they initially sort of tested the waters (that was nearly 15 years ago, a very long time rather) to first and foremost get a grip on the innate talents of Indian engineers, who expectedly proved their consummate ease in reverse engineering, indigenisation and cost cutting on all key and critical-process areas, which were passed on to the customer by way of reduced prices, at a rate almost incredibly low compared to the global norms when it came to pricing. It is another matter that Chinese being more natrually adept at mass-production capabilities easily outquoted Indian suppliers when there was a head-on competition. All is not lost. Much solace could be drawn from the fact that some of the Western gians still do feel that when it came to handling products of high engineering content and complexity, we still hold an edge over many, and particularly Chinese.

What is auto ancillary that BPO is not, a direct comparison of positive and flipsides

The downside of BPO is its being far too uncertain at times, not necessarily caused by factors and driven by strategic external business consideration, the big Apple, for example, which is almost always beyond the purview of our control: I fervently wish I am wrong, but for BPO which we would have faced the wrath a civil-war like situation that certainly would have reared its ugly face with the bludgeoning growth in number of professional colleges and newer colleges, which though prompted only by the sky-rocketing growth in business and business-gone-global, would still have present us some very huge numbers of students who would have been left stranded on the job market, it in fact is the BPO that provided the much-needed succour and oasis in what otherwise would have ended as an economic catastrophe of sorts that at best we are ill-equipped to match, what with other typical, both social and political, problems that we have.

Coming back to auto ancillary industry, it is more poised than ever to register a large-scale and certainly unprecedented growth rate in the near and foreseeable future, and the international OE customers are more than willing to take a keener approach to roping in Indian suppliers for the simple reason that they have to cut costs. So if you are not a software engineer or in simple insider term a coder, care not, and if you surely have an engineering bent of mind, and that you dont want to be forced into the routine route of what everyone else does, auto industry is the most happening thing for you, with due respect ofcourse to other industries as well.

Indian can and will become a major player and will become only bigger and better

The best about auto industry is the fact that it offers in its wake a variety of job opportunities, which are not just oriented towards just process improvement, but are essentials if one wants to make an impression in the global, which not only is quality-driven, but is also as key deciding factor looking to costs, as the wages have gone through the roof in typical Western democracies. We are not around the block, though in our own right, we are major players as one big group, but if we were to ask ourselves the question that if we have amidst us a Delphi or Covisint, or Arvin Merito, a honest answer would be No, but we are getting there, and all the high-tech auto and associated services setting up design centres and other activites left, right and centre is proof enough, and only good times are ahead, provided we get to imbibe the right kind of training and work culture to meet with the exacting demands of global customers.

Simply put, not only the big 3, but other big players are also making a beeline to India (they also seek out China) with the Chinese dragon breething too close to be comfortable, but that should only spur us to put up a good show and walk away with kudos, if we as software engineers can do that in strange lands, away from India, we can the repeat the stellar act here too and decisively at that in other industries, say auto ancillary. Guess what would roughly be the annual purchase budget of GM as a whole, a whopping 90 billion or so, more than our GDP itself. Taking cognizance of the scale of that kind of investment and size of pie that we can possibly lay our hands on, we better hurry and end up being a very happy lot, if we were to settle for just 10% of that pie.

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