Bala Iyer

Last Friday we were hosted by the Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT) in the TVS Electronics office located in the Guindy Industrial Estate. We had representatives from Nokia, Dell, Motorola, Salcomp and Lenovo there. After our discussions, I left with the impression that manufacturing was quietly flourishing in Chennai. Furthermore, the ecosystem was well developed there, with players competing and cooperating to succeed. I am not quite ready to say the same about the ITES ecosystem. The other big difference was that these manufacturers are mainly serving the Indian market. This requires them to be very innovative to meet the cost and pricing considerations of the Indian market and, hopefully, create products and services for the non-domestic markets. These sectors can learn from one another. Manufacturing can teach the ITES industry about process control and lean techniques. The ITES sector can teach them about customer focus and innovation in products and business models.