indian manufacturer

What are your views on the penalty to Ranbaxy and do you believe the $500 million payout was too harsh? It’s unfortunate. The company lost over $500 million in business opportunities, which may be the highest for any generic company, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) penalty has been higher for many global leaders, like GlaxoSmithKline (British) which signed a consent decree in 2005 to post a penal bond of $650 million for violation of manufacturing standards. In 2011, the FDA issued a consent decree to McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a Johnson & Johnson (US) subsidiary, over its repeated manufacturing problems (for drug Tylenol), indefinitely closing one plant and placing oversight over the two others. In another consent decree, Ben Venue Laboratories, a subsidiary of Boehringer Ingelheim (German), was restrained from manufacturing and distributing drugs from its Ohio facility until FDA determines that its operations are compliant with the Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act. The loss of business and reputation is a greater risk than the penalty payable. Does the closure of this case impact the Indian generic drug market?indian manufacturers The consent decree puts a lid on the case. The company (Ranbaxy) can now start afresh and focus on its business. It is unlikely to have any spillover effect on other Indian companies. The US FDA processes are very objective and thorough, but unbiased. The fear of collateral damage is from the foreign competition. They may use this episode to contain the challenge of safe, affordable and quality generics from India. What are the learnings Indian companies can take away from Ranbaxy’s issues with the FDA? The first and most important lesson is not to compromise quality and safety of medicines. The second and more important lesson is not to cover up, even if the error is inadvertent. In this context, Johnson & Johnson’s response to owning up to the responsibility for manufacturing and quality defects in an over-thecounter drug Tylenol is noteworthy. Has the case damaged the reputation of the Indian generic drug market, and Ranbaxy in particular? Will exports from other Indian companies gain from their disgrace? One cannot rule out collateral damage by foreign competitors, but all Indian companies will have to work together to prevent such damage. After the consent decree, when the company (Ranbaxy) is able to resume supplies,indian manufacturer it is unlikely that other Indian companies can take away their business. Whatever was lost, was lost before the consent decree (was signed). Falsification of data and violation of manufacturing process guidelines were charges leveled against Ranbaxy. Are those widespread problems in India? Regulators from different jurisdictions have not come across such practices which confirm it is not a widespread problem.,indian suppliers Cases of adulterated medicines have been reported from the Indian market as well. Why aren’t our norms as stringent as the FDA? The National Drug Regulatory Authority is a product of the milieu. It evolves by national priority and is generally in conformity with the standards of general hygiene, sanitation and drinking water. India is moving towards improving these standards and has made significant progress in the last decade. However, we still have a long way to go. In the meantime, companies looking at the developed markets adopt appropriate standards to suit their business requirements. In the US and other developed markets, there is a robust system of recalling all consumer goods, including medicines. What do we have in India? Rules 54 and 55 of the Drugs & Cosmetics Act have provision for freezing and destroying stocks of sub-standard medicines. Rule 74(j) of the Act empowers the licensing authority and obliges the manufacturer to recall medicines not conforming to the standards. Companies follow strict guidelines for the export of medicines. Why can’t they then abide by the same standards in their home market? India does not have different standards for different markets. However, the manufacturers comply with the standards of the respective markets where they are selling their products. The h a r m o n i z at i o n o f standards is a major challenge. Political leadership and drug regulators need to work on it. Some progress is made under the ICH (Inter national Conference on Harmonization), but there is still a long way to go.

Weakening trade barriers boon for Indian agri biz

Ahmedabad: India’s agricultural produce may have to wait a while before it tastes the fruit of global success, but Indian agri-business players are certain it is only a matter of time as western trade barriers are living on borrowed time. Inspite of pre-conference signs indicating that ensuing round of World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) ministerial talks at Hong Kong may yield little in terms of concrete advances, there is overwhelming optimism that American and European trade barriers will collapse over next two-three years. India is a force to reckon with, says icecream manufacturer Vadilal’s Rajesh Gandhi, adding, “India’s bargaining power on the WTO has never been greater.” Indeed, with allies like China, Argentina, Brazil and Australia, India now packs considerable muscle. But, like other developing nations, India is unable to export its agricultural produce due to colossal western trade barriers. For instance, despite being the world’s largest milk producer, its milk exports are negligible. RS Sodhi of dairy giant Amul feels western governments are losing patience with their uncompetitive farmers. agricultural products manufacturers In the European Union, for example, with almost half the budget being pumped into agricultural subsidies, citizens and politicians alike are now recognising that supporting productive industries could fetch better returns. agricultural products exporters With its low-cost economy and the highest irrigated land-surface in the world, India is in a prime position to become a leading exporter of agricultural produce in an open world market, which also has major consequences for overall development. Indian agricultural products “The quality of life in Indian villages stands to improve drastically within the next three years if western barriers continue to fall as expected,” says Piruz Khambatta, chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) food-processing committee. “Agriculture has a lot of social ramifications. Half the population is made up of the poor living in villages, working as casual labour on the farms,” says Khambatta. With agricultural exports as core strength, Khambatta is confident that the “forgotten” part of India’s recent economic success will get a chance to compete. Sodhi too estimates an end to western subsidies to translate into a 20 per cent increase in the local milk producer’s income. “A fall in subsidies would create big opportunities at a rural level and a reduction in migration to urban centres like Ahmedabad.” Such opportunities would help India allay its growing urban-rural divide. Unfortunately Indian villages will have to wait a little while longer before their agricultural produce goes international.

The Pope’s moral blunders on outsourcing

Religion and business rarely mix well. This shows up in the encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI. The encyclical0 generally supports globalization, but criticizes western companies that outsource business to developing countries. This criticism has an unfortunate ethnic slant. The Pope echoes the wish of a white labour aristocracy in the West to snatch jobs and income away from much poorer but more competitive workers in Third World countries. That is repugnant in both economic and moral terms.brass hardware manufacturers The western argument cannot quite be called racist. Politicians and workers in the West are not all white — some are black or brown. Yet, the ethnic implications of the western protest against outsourcing cannot be ignored. The protest rarely focuses on outsourcing to white countries like Poland, Latvia or Bulgaria. It focuses overwhelmingly on outsourcing to black, brown and yellow nations. This is mainly on economic grounds — wages are lower in Asia than in Eastern Europe, and so, the scope for outsourcing is far greater. Yet, the ethnic implications cannot be ignored. The mainly white labour aristocracy of the West is clamouring to get companies to shut down jobs and production in countries with black, brown and yellow workers. This means impoverishing poor workers to subsidize the labour aristocracy. Instead of being ashamed of trying to rob the poor of jobs, the labour aristocracy talks in high moral tones, as though it has a God-given right to jobs that have actually gone entirely on merit to the Third World. For most of history, China and India were the richest countries in the world, with the most advanced technologies and best jobs.hardware suppliers The Industrial Revolution changed that — the best jobs moved to the West, and millions of Indian textile workers were rendered unemployed by British mills. The western labour aristocracy never complained of that shift of the best jobs from the East to the West, but cannot countenance a shift in the opposite direction. One valid western objection, on both economic and moral grounds, relates to the use (mainly by China) of prison labour, forced labour and child labour to produce cheap goods for export. Such exports have largely been checked, and now constitute a negligible part of outsourcing. This objection does not apply at all to India’s burgeoning exports of software or BPO, or to the shift of 80,000 IBM jobs or 35,000 Accenture jobs to India. China has become the world’s biggest supplier of manufactured goods, while India has become a major exporter of computer software, back-office services and R&D. This has transformed the economies of the two most populous countries in the world, made them the fastestgrowing in the world, and helped hundreds of millions of poor people to rise out of poverty. You might think that the Pope would hail this as a great development for humanity. Instead, he has parroted the bogus claims of the white labour aristocracy. His encyclical says, “the so-called outsourcing of production can weaken the company’s sense of responsibility towards the stakeholders — namely the workers, the suppliers, the consumers, the natural environment, and broader society — in favour of the shareholders, who are not tied to a specific geographical area and who, therefore, enjoy extraordinary mobility.” The racial implications of this leave me dumbstruck.brass hardware manufacturers The Pope has posed the issue as one of stakeholders versus shareholders. But are white stakeholders the only ones that matter? When IBM shifts 80,000 jobs to India , 80,000 Indian stakeholders replace American ones. Are the rights of 80,000 Indian stakeholders any less than those of the Americans they replace? When Chinese suppliers outbid American ones in supplying hardware to IBM, are the Chinese lesser stakeholders than the Americans they replace? The Pope is simply wrong in posing outsourcing as a conflict between shareholders and stakeholders. Outsourcing merely globalizes stakeholders across the world instead of leaving them within narrow national walls. And as a believer in one world, the Pope should be encouraging this spread of stakeholders across all humanity. Shareholders are getting globalised no less than workers, suppliers or consumers. Many shareholders of Citibank and IBM come from the West Asia, China or Japan. Are they not stakeholders on par with American ones? There is no moral imperative at all for Japanese or Arab shareholders of IBM to try and shift jobs from the Third World to the US. Yet, US politicians and trade unions talk as though morality lies in US jobs alone. In truth, it is a perversion of morality to penalize non-American workers and shareholders just to promote US jobs. Hopefully, Pope Benedict will have the courage to say so in his next encyclical.

Automobile sales plunge to multi-year lows in Nov,Sector Bears The Brunt Of Economic Turmoil, Witnesses Major Downfall

New Delhi: Poor retail finance and negative sentiment worsened domestic auto sales in November which plunged to multi-year lows as customers postponed new purchases in view of uncertain economic situation. Car sales, which had been slipping, crashed by record levels with major companies like Maruti and Hyundai leading the downfall. According to sales numbers released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam), November car sales dropped 19% to 83,059 units against 1.03 lakh units in same month last year. The year-onyear percentage drop was biggest in last five years since a 31% fall in February 2003. The situation has been no better in eight months of this fiscal as car sales growth shrunk to a mere 0.48% in April-November ’08 period. The numbers appear alarming as except for scooters that came up with positive numbers, all other segments were down. Worst fall was noticed in commercial vehicles, where sales plunged by 49.5% at 20,637 units (40,879). The slowdown has already seen companies like Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and Eicher announce major production cuts and even close plants temporarily. automobile supplies Within commercial vehicles, medium and heavy vehicle category was the worst hit as sales slipped by 63% and closed November’08 at 8,325 units against 22,453 units with both Tata and Ashok Leyland slipping. and automobile manufacturers in india Fall in economic activity has been a big dampener and freight operators are not willing to make any new purchases, analysts said. “In our history, all segments have never been down so badly together in a month,” Siam’s director general Dilip Chenoy said after releasing the sales numbers. automobiles manufacturers Motorcycle sales were also down and fell 20% at 4.3 lakh units against 5.4 lakh units in November last year. A sharp decline in sales of heavyweights like Bajaj Auto and TVS pulled the numbers down. Scooters, however, remained the sole category, where numbers grew, as sales were up 12%. Good growth reported by Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India and Hero Honda led to this increase. Analysts feel that the 4% excise duty cut announced by government would not immediately revive auto sales. “While it will make cars cheap, real booster will come when financing becomes easy and interest rates climb down,” the analysts said. “Banks must cut their rates and start lending more,” Chenoy said.

Tough measures to cure garment sector’s Re woes

Mumbai: These days, it is easy to get an appointment with chief executives of garment manufacturing firms. They want to talk at length of their woes, mainly due to the declining dollar and even large firms have been forced to send home workers. Two large Mumbai firms, which have been in the business for over two decades, claim they have sent home 600 workers. Coming in the back of a year when the garment industry received record orders from foreign buyers, the reversal seems to suggest that something is seriously amiss. Says Vijay Agarwal, chairman, Apparel Export Promotion Council, and owner of Mumbaibased Creative Garment: ‘‘The sudden depreciation of the rupee hit the industry like a tsunami. A short term relief is much in need to stem the closure of units.’’ apparel manufacturer Agarwal paints a grim picture. He shows statistics that the export has actually declined in the first few months this year. Though he is unwilling to talk about his company, as the chief of the industry association, he laments that many firms across the country have shut shop. In fact, firms in Tirupur have given their employees extended holidays in the festive season as Indian orders have been diverted to Bangladesh and China, where the local currencies have not appreciated like in India. The change in the attitude of garment manufacturers is quite dramatic. As early as 2004, they wouldn’t want to talk about their business. wholesale apparel manufacturers Mostly family-owned, garment manufacturers were then making money hand over fist, thanks to firms quotas they held to export to developed countries like the US, Europe and Japan. Larger firms broke down their business into smaller ones and ran them under different names to benefit from government regulations. A large manufacturer in Tirupur, who spoke at length at his current problems, had then said: ‘‘We have nothing to say to the media.’’ apparel manufacturers india What changed? The WTO abolished quota in 2005, making it a free-for-all. Existing players had a head start, but months into the free market the cracks began to show. Bought up in a tame environment, Indian companies were highly inefficient in managing capital and manufacturing productivity. An Indian worker made 40% fewer shirts than their Chinese and Thai counterparts. Says a Delhi-based consultant: ‘‘Margins in the quota era was 30% plus, there was no incentive to be efficient.’’ Again as an export industry, the industry was pampered by the government with further tax and credit concessions. Even today, textile and garment firms wanting to expand their business can get a 5% special discount on the interest rates available to other industries.

Dell plans to sell computer plants worldwide

Dell Inc is seeking to sell all of its manufacturing plants worldwide and has approached contract computer manufacturers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The proposed factory sales, intended to slash costs, mark a significant shift from Dell’s long-standing strategy of making its own products, the Journal said. Instead, Dell plans to have contract manufacturers make all its computers, the paper reported. Dell, the world’s second-biggest maker of personal computers, is seeking to raise profitability after reporting earnings that missed analysts’ estimates as it cut prices to take market share from industry leader Hewlett-Packard Co. computer parts suppliers Selling its production sites to focus on sales and marketing may aid efforts by the Round Rock, Texas-based company to expand its product range. “As the company moves away from its direct sales business model, it needs to offer a wider range of products and respond more quickly to market demand,” said Wang Wanli, a technology analyst at HSBC Holdings Plc in Taipei. computer parts suppliers “Outsourcing production to third-party manufacturers will help them become more flexible.” Dell would ensure that any contract manufacturer who purchased a factory would agree to make hardware for the company, according to the Journal report. indian manufacturersDell may sell all of its plants within 18 months, the newspaper said. Last month, Dell introduced new notebooks with longer battery life aimed at business users. The company also started selling a slimmer laptop weighing 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) after Hewlett-Packard offered a similar model in June. Now available in stores Dell, which in 2007 abandoned selling PCs only via telephone and the Internet, has forged agreements to sell its computers through retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc in the US, Gome Electrical Appliance Holdings in China, Carrefour SA in Europe, Bic Camera in Japan, and the Croma chain of electronics stores of India’s Tata group. T R Reid, a Singapore-based Dell spokesman for Asia Pacific and Japan, declined to comment on the report, citing company policy not to comment on speculation. “We have said repeatedly there are opportunities to use third-party manufacturers to reduce costs and increase efficiency,” Reid said. Determining “how best to do that is something that is in process now.” Dell increased PC shipments 21% in the quarter ended June 30, compared with Hewlett-Packard’s 17%, and 15% for the market overall, according to research company IDC. BLOOMBERG

Small is big: SMEs on overseas drive

What kind of a paradigm shift are you planning in India? First, we think that the Indian market is going to witness a strong and sustainable growth for the next 10 years. This market should reach six million cars a year in 10 years down the road. This means we are going to move to six million cars from two million. Somebody has to build the four million capacity. You need more cars and you need more taste. We want to bring in the Nissan and Renault taste. Second, a product like Micra is a very modern and very sophisticated one. You will see it big from inside compared with any car in this category. It is probably a champion in terms of fuel efficiency and emission, it is already a champion in Europe and Japan. It is going to come at amazingly low cost because it is localised in India. indian manufacturer Thirdly, Indian entry is a paradigm shift for us. We think the ‘A’ segment that exists in India is unique to the Indian market. I don’t think there is any market in the world which has a ‘A’ segment like here. This ‘A’ segment might be migrating to other emerging markets. The best place to learn how to make these cars is India. What are your plans with Indian partners? indian manufacturers The multiple partnership in India is something we feel at ease with. Each partner is working on a different project. M&M is working on the Logan with Renault, Ashok Leyland is working on an LCV (light commercial vehicle) with Nissan, Bajaj is working with Renault and Nissan on ultra low cost (ULC) cars. We don’t have partners with whom we do competing projects. India is a very sophisticated market, very specific market. A global manufacturer is not going to learn India by sending a bunch of expatriates to India. Having multiple partners help us understand what is going on, learn and compare the practices of one partner with the other. It can help us to have, maybe, multiple practices instead of one. We came to India to learn more about frugal engineering and frugal product planning. If we are to mature and the day we become ‘Indian’, the day Nissan and Renault have an extensive understanding of India, maybe then we can say we don’t need so many partners. We are the fourth largest car marker with a 10% market share. We are less than 1% in India. So in order to move from 1 to 10, we need the help of partners. Each partner can bring something to the table. We will give something to them. It will be a collaborative effort. How frugal or cheap is India compared with other locations? indian suppliers India is not the cheapest country in the world. One can always find cheaper countries than India. What India offers is a low-cost market model. The Indian mindset is embedded with frugality. Not all the countries are like this. The attractiveness for us is not the low cost. I had a meeting with one of the partners. He came with his engineer for the product. I brought mine. I asked both the engineers how much investment is needed. I was shocked by the difference. What my Indian partner promises to do it with one, my engineer tells me we need five to complete this project. The difference is huge. It is a completely different approach. That’s is why we think Indian engineering and product planning is such an important thing. We want this spirit to conquest other markets.