Amitansu Satpathy, managing director, Best Power Equipments, in an exclusive interview with Nijhum Rudra, explains that even though there are a lot of important government directives and policies for the development of Indian industries, sadly, implementation of these directives is extremely poor. The prime minister’s office (PMO) issues a lot of directives to the Ministry of Defence, the HRD ministry, as well as to the IITs and universities so that Indian manufacturers get the best solutions. Unfortunately, Satpathy claims, decision makers who need to implement these solutions seem to encourage multinational companies rather than local MSMEs. There is a general perception that the problems of Indian MSME manufacturers are rarely addressed since their voices are not heard. Here are some interesting excerpts from the interaction.
EB: As an industry leader, what do you consider to be the challenges that the electronics manufacturing sector faces in India? How have you overcome those challenges?
Currently, as things stand in the industrial electronics ecosystem, we need a lot more government initiatives that support companies entering the market. The government should offer incentives to manufacturers so that they can tide over a crisis. In electronics manufacturing, there are a lot of software technologies involved too. Hence, unless the Centre gives a lot of support and provides the basic infrastructural requirements to all registered MSMEs in the industrial electronics domain, things will not fall in place. There isn’t enough awareness at present about things like the problems associated with importing material from China. Often, using these components or products does not suit Indian power conditions. Products that use these components are not really reliable and, in the end, the customer spends a lot but remains unsatisfied.
EB: Even though the electronics market is growing in India, we are still not able to beat China and other Southeast Asian countries. Why is this so and what are the steps needed to improve the situation?
As far as electronics MSMEs are concerned, we have written a lot of letters to the ministry but these have been ignored. Our requirements are very critical, yet weightage is not being given to small manufacturers. For example, when the IITs interact with the government, they should focus on the technical parameters of a product that is to be manufactured. Instead, they tend to focus on commercial parameters, such as stating that lithium-ion batteries should be used in a product (instead of giving the tech parameters these batteries should meet), or that three-phase UPS systems worth ₹ 1 billion should be sold during a year. Such commercial parameters favour multinational companies and not local industry.
The prime minister’s office (PMO) is asking the directors of IITs to focus on the tech parameters, but that is not happening on the ground. At present, most Indian businesses have a turnover of only ₹ 100 million to ₹ 150 million.
EB: Where do you see the Indian electronics manufacturing sector five to ten years down the line? What are your expectations from the government to make the future of manufacturing more promising?
First, the government should initiate awareness programmes for MSMEs, as there are a lot of upcoming companies who are already doing a lot of electronics manufacturing. These companies should come forward at events like exhibitions, seminars, etc, to educate other smaller players in the ecosystem. The government should give these companies a platform to showcase their products and solutions, so that knowledge about such products disseminates widely, and there is deeper understanding and acceptance of global methods and standards in manufacturing within that particular sector.
In fact, the government should also offer consultancy services, so that MSMEs know what the requirements are and in the next few years, ramp up to develop the products that are in demand. Unless we take care of these things, the market will again be taken over by multinationals—they will keep growing while new or upcoming Indian industrialists will never make it.
EB: The duty structure and taxation on exports and imports seem to be too complex for Indian electronics manufacturers, claim a majority of electronics firms. What are your views on this issue?
We don’t have a lot of issues with that, because taxation has to be uniform. Yes, it was complex, but now, after the introduction of GST, there have been a lot of improvements. Regarding taxation, I personally feel that there are not too many challenges.
When it comes to what support I wish the government would provide to MSMEs, let me give a few examples. In other countries, the government gives money for the advertisements that companies display during international exhibitions; they even subsidise the costs companies incur when they go abroad to exhibit their products. Our government is not doing these things—but unless you go out and showcase your product line, how can you popularise your products outside India? So, we should get some incentives from the Centre because there are a lot of expenses when MSMEs go abroad.
EB: Could you elaborate on your business model and your vision for the Indian as well as global markets.
At present, there is a big price gap between the products sold by a big player and a startup company. Our motto is to sell international-grade products at a very economical price, and we have moved forward on this promise. Ours is more a B2B business model rather than B2C, and we are more involved with building a dealer-distributor network. We don’t mind having fewer sales employees. Hence, we are not talking directly to our customers, but to the dealer, distributor and channel partner so that we can support our product portfolio.
EB: Which of your products are gaining the most market share and traction? Any plans to launch new and innovative products this year?
We have products for every electronics market segment. Our focus is now more on the 20kVA UPS segment, catering to data centres. Since this market has grown very big over the last three to four years, we are working a lot on that particular technology. However, we will be focusing more on the industrial product category and on modular technology for the next four to five years. We make all our products at our three manufacturing units in Noida.
EB: How many R&D centres do you have right now? Do you have plans to set up new ones in India? Any patents filed on new-age products?
Yes, we have R&D centres based in Noida, and we are talking to a lot of companies in Europe and Southeast Asia, with whom we have technology exchange programmes. Together, we are exploring new technologies that we can adopt in India. Right now, we have a small R&D team.
