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India Automotive Summit

October 13th &14th, 2011, Pune, India

PUNE, INDIA, 13-14 OCTOBER 2011 – The Indian passenger market is growing at a healthy speed and is well on its way to becoming the fourth largest market in the world. Under the Automotive Mission Plan (AMP), India had set a target to become a USD145 billion automotive market by 2016, for which USD 35-40 billion investment is required.

Noppen’s first India Automotive Summit 2011 occurred in Pune, India at the Le Meridien Hotel and included a gathering of 140 prominent industry leaders and government officials from across the globe. They came together to share ideas and discuss India’s current needs and their ambitious future. “Well organized event, head decision makers came together to project their views very well.” CIRT

There was a number of interesting speakers at the event, standout ones include keynote speaker Mr. Guru Kathawate, Vice President of Automotive, Sika Corporation. He spoke on day one of the conference and his speech concentrated on the challenges that occur in design when using advanced materials. He stated that there are several factors that will affect where India will reach in 2020 and they are functionality, aesthetics, structural rigidity, safety, durability and economics. His presentation went on to address the few basic questions that are really interesting on managing those 6 factors, including ‘why do I need certain parts?’ and ‘can I use a better material which can do 2 or 3 things together?’ He summarized by saying that to achieve success in the automotive industry India needs more ‘industry –university’ partnerships, engineers should have access to innovative technologies, better ‘application based’ education to engineering students, ‘silicon valley’ type environment where people innovate and share which leads to speed in the developmental process, and efficient delivery times. He was shortly followed by another keynote speaker Mr. Nagaraj Meda, Chairman & MD of Transgraph Consulting. He gave a different perspective into the automotive industry by addressing the commodity price risk management. He mentioned that the key challenges being faced in the automotive industry are high volatility in raw material prices which will impact on the profitability. Another key challenge is the increase of procurement expenditure but these challenges are controllable. There are also number of uncontrollable factors that will also impact the sales and profitability of the automotive industry, these include technological innovations, rise in borrowing cost, competition and oil prices and last but not least policy intervention. In order to overcome these challenges risk management needs to be applied where there are two sectors in risk management, physical hedging and financial hedging. “It’s very well arranged, precise time management, use full content and covers wide range of subjects.” Bharat Forge Ltd.

On day two of the conference Professor S.K. Gupte, Professor & Head of Automobile Engineering Department, A.D. Patel Institute of Technology spoke about the issue of changing customer requirements in emerging markets. He started off by saying that urbanization, increased pay bands and lifestyles have changed and globalization has brought international brands to India. Customers in India are ready to pay for ‘concept’. There are two factors that customers in India are looking for, firstly, keep it simple rather than attraction in terms of value versus advanced technology and secondly, relevance of technology. Furthermore, he made a very significant list of different types of customers. His presentation was highly enjoyed by the attending delegates as they found it rich in content and useful.

Other notable speakers at the conference came from KUKA Systems (I) Pvt. Ltd., Sakthi Automotive Group, Sika Corporation, FCRI, ARAI, CRISIL Ltd., Eaton Corporation, UFI Filters India Pvt. Ltd., National Engineering India Ltd., Central Institute of Road Transport, Omron Automation Pvt. Ltd., Ernst & Young and Inteva Products India Pvt. Ltd. “Very well planned, networking event. Good time adherence and speaker selection is very good” M&M Ltd The conference also included a site tour which occurred on day one of the conference, a number of delegates were taken to Mercedes Benz and Premier Ltd for a plant tour. The delegates found it very interesting to compare between a foreign car manufacturer and domestic India car manufacturer. They were honoured and pleased to be given the opportunity to visit both plants and found it very knowledgeable. “Appreciated the session - gave valuable insights about automotive industry; relevant to my job needs. Business networking with industry experts was much fruitful.” TATA MOTORS

Noppen would like to give a special thanks to all the speakers and sponsors who came together to make the India Automotive Summit 2011 a success. This includes Kuka Systems, UFI Filters, National Engineering Industries, AK Steel International, Inteva Products, Motorola Solutions, NRB Bearings, Omron Automation Pvt Ltd, Eaton Corporation and PwC.

India Automotive Summit

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