Since the energy and liquidity crisis of the first Gulf War, India has burst onto the International scene with high level growth rates of over 8%. Growth within the emerging countries has been fuelled by low factor costs (labour and raw materials) and manufacturing. Unusually, Indian success has been triggered by IT and now, the goal is to build on this with manufacturing and, agriculture.
Rapidly, India is moving up the value chain and this is typified by the IT industry itself whereby low cost BPO is being transformed into sophisticated business models using IT in bio technology, financial services and much more. Given that an estimated 40% of Silicon valley start ups in the US are owned by Indians, the trend to added value services has strong roots. For example, more than 800 Indian companies in bi technology have more than 20% growth rate. And R&D business is growing significantly as connectivity with the world stage reaches world class standards.
Another feature of Indian success has been the impact on the world stage of home grown players such as Tata. The acquisition of Corus and the soon to be concluded purchase of Jaguar illustrates the point. There are others and there will be many more.
India has many things going for it including the demographic dividend whereby more than 50% of the worlds under 25 year olds will be Indian by 2011. This is the time when China will have more people in retirement than in work. And yet, India has many challenges to face not least of which is the need for world class infrastructure to match world class aspirations.
Peter Drucker observed that “Distribution is the last Dark Continent” and this is especially true of India where the need for Ports and multi modal connectivity is having an impact on sustainability. Retail is likely to have the biggest impact in this area and Archomai believe it has a major positive contribution to make as a catalyst for infrastructure and skills development. Currently, only 1% of the Retail market is formal but this can climb to 30% in the medium term as India becomes the worlds largest Retail market.
Archomai see India as a key market for our expertise in three areas:
- Pipeline. Taking innovative products and services into the Indian market and from the Indian market to the Middle East and the EU.
- Learning. Working with UK partners to take much needed vocational training courses into target sectors such as Ports, Aviation, Rail, Food Processing and Retail.
- Supply Chain expertise. Working with partners in target sectors to deliver handling equipment expertise and skills.
- Consultancy. Archomai will be announcing developments in support for capital projects in Logistics Parks and Ports with an exciting development in Food Processing to follow.