Category — Industrial Goods

Last Wednesday Dr. Navin Kunde of the Clorox Company and I spoke at  the Annual Meeting of of the Industrial Research Institute with over 300 global executives in attendance. The material include examples of small and large R&D initiatives in India/China by some of most reputed companies in Europe and America. I’ve received dozens of emails from attendees with more questions and requests for our slides.

Here is how the President of the IRI captured some of the key takeaways from our talk:

Gunjan Bagla, Amritt & Dr. Navin Kunde, Clorox, Global Innovation/Corporate Transformation

• 60/40 superiority test (60% consumer preference in blind testing) is a powerful tool to assess product design (This is Clorox’s practice).
• Use process, people and perception reviews for any technology organization assessment
• About half of India & China R&D efforts are being conducted for companies from outside these countries.

If you wish to receive a copy of the slides, please email usa at amritt dot com with your country, business email and include your title. (Webmail and ISP mail requests will receive a response if you also include your work email and phone number).

In 2010 American exports to Asia exceeded shipments to the Europe for the first time ever. Yesterday, I met U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke who was in Los Angeles to promote President Obama’s  National Export Initiative (NEI), which seeks to double American exports to $2 trillion by 2014.

Speaking at the Asia Pacific Business Outlook conference, Locke said exports now supported 10 million jobs in America, including 700,000 in California. One in three manufacturing jobs and one in five agricultural jobs in the United States were tied directly to exports. In addition, exports were a key driver of economic recovery in the past two years, accounting for nearly half U.S. economic growth since 2009, according to Locke.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and me

In my work at Amritt, my colleagues and I are vigorous supporters of the NEI. In fact the topic of my talk at the same conference was how to increase exports to India five-fold not just two-fold; we believe that this is quite doable.

Secretary Locke, the first Chinese American to hold a cabinet post, is expected to become the next U.S. Ambassador to China  by June of this year.

Takeaway: Asia and India in particular is hugely important to America’s economic engine going forward.

GMR Energy  announced the signing of a long-term service agreement with GE Energy for the expansion of the Vemagiri power plant in Andhra Pradesh.

Powered by two GE frame 9FA gas turbine-generators, the plant will produce over 768 MW of additional electricity by 2012. Under a 15-year contractual service agreement, GE will supply parts, services and repairs for the gas turbines. “By teaming up with GE, we are positioning the Vemagiri plant to make a long-term contribution to a modern and efficient energy infrastructure,” GMR Group CEO (Energy) Raaj Kumar said.

Luxembourg based ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel making company, is planning to set up a research and development center in India according to its CEO,Laxmi Mittal. ArcelorMittal has twelve R&D centers across the world with a budget of $250 million. India will be the thirteenth location and the company has yet to choose the city, see video below.

Mittal CEO on India\’s New Delhi Television

Western companies are driven to setup captive R&D centers in India such as this one,  not only because of low-cost labor, but also because of the need for flexibility and for access to local and regional markets in India and neighboring countries.  It is not an easy task, in fact my company holds webinars on the subject of setting up captive R&D centers in India.

According to new data released by the Department of Commerce, American exports of merchandise to India grew by 17.2 percent from $15.03 billion during the period Jan- Nov 2009 to $ 17.61 billion during the corresponding period in 2010.

At the same time, imports from India also grew to $27.39 billion,  from  $19.38 billion,   an increase of 41.36 per cent comparing the first 11 months of 2009 and 2010.

There is a good chance that bilateral trade between the countries for the full year 2010 will cross $50 billion for the first time. The India  Expert expects this number to exceed $200 billion in less than six years.