T&M Industry in India : FY14 must segregate Torso & Tail customers!

It looks like we are having the right focus on the deals which may be emanating from big Global Manufacturers downstream projects fanning out to India.In fact we covered the strategy to just follow the balance sheets of large EMS/ODM type accounts in asia and tracking them to local units here.I think some mainstream accounts will get covered that way and without difficulty we can generate business for manufacturing test systems,or even PXI based modular customised ATEs there.The OEMs related to telecom are also being pursuaded to produce goods locally as per the new policies of DoT (NTP 2012) and the cluster manufacturing policy of the DeITY.

A real critical part of covering the geography as vast as India is small and medium to large industries or assembly projects of Electronics nature.Here a simple policy should have three elements : Cover to Compete and then Close deals.Small R&D based single product small manufacturers are thousands of them in area of Components,Energy,Materials,Healthcare and Automotive Electronics.The modern jargon in marketing is " Torso" and "Tail"  type customers.Here the combination of a pull and downstream calling by the company is required,where the deal size can be small but otherwise rewarding-due to faster close cycle and the IGM on the deal very high usually.

Much of the pre-sales effort can be mass customised for this purpose and modula instrumentation based on new PXI can be useful here.With one survey,it is estimated that we may be having approx
150,000 or so suspects in the country.We can take ideas of the kind of solution which can go there,from some geographically spread accounts in Energy Meter industry,or capacitor manufacturer.
Segregating and separate focus on tail particularly is important because over the time they will graduate to the "Torso"  status and their own growth will drive T&M industrys growth too!.

T&M Industry in India : In short term too it is LTE in FY14 !

Since 2012 when several networks in the Continent and the US adopted going to LTE format of one kind or the other , several questions arose on the T&M applications and what were the testing solutions available that time? These questions are not answered even 80% as primarily the nature of the network is still evolving,the standards still getting the template and the 4G infrastructure and devices tethered on these networks are ramping up on various providers.Today, hoever it looks that the operators are settling for a particular version of LTE, local standards are being written as well as the particular standards writing body is fine tuning on various network elements as well as the MIMO scheme. Depending on where your location home base is, the local 4G operator is seeing impact of new age T&M on the network as well as the sensitive T&M manufacturer and developer is releasing versions for LTE test.

The major change here is because of the fact these networks have come away from the TDM/ATM
domain and is following the IP side.The data intensive networks are getting IPified and so the intelligence is more prominent here.So, the thing is Signalling part is changing from AcceSS7 to newer type eg Diameter Signalling in the LTE. The voice is receding on the background as more and more data is riding the devices and the network.Wherever Voice is still to be carried for the Economic Reasons and customer retention,Schemes like VoLTE or CFSB are coming to the fore.So testing these LTE networks impact the testing process and type as well.Besides Signalling,Voice and the Protocol testing other T&M impact happens in the Radio Network interface tests,Conformance testing on the devices and high data rate tests.

Internet address explosion and high scaling therein, the migration from Ipv4 to Ipv6  is also another testing challenge.The compatibilty for IPv6 compliance is necessary as the addresses outnumbe networks ability and special purpose testers will be needed here.The networks in India are supposed to be TDD type with Adv version of LTE eventually to follow.Devices manufacturers like Samsung are now a little sure to have local line of Smartphones in India.A clutch of home grown phone manufacturers are aggressively scaling up the presence, so in the short term too it is Long Term Evolution in India.Couple of mega deals on LTE testing are signed up.Follow this space for more.

T&M Industry in India : FY14 looking for Cash pile Manufacturer?

While the North India is currently sizzling with heat, the T&M industry is wanting to have some major clues for growth in the Enterprise segment and more clearly for test automation related opportunities for big Deals.We covered the environment and where to look for specific opportunities in Deployment, Defense projects etc in earlier blocks.The challenges are very many right now and we need to wait for clarity there.These things in Govt Procurement can always take time and need focussed effort there.Likewise the big PSU manufacturers in Defense and Telecom are also driven by the Capex releases from the concerned ministries.

One very good perspective from Global Telecom and consumer Electronic Manufacturers  come when we study their current "Cash Pile" on their balance sheets. Just scan the East Asia in particular,like Taiwan and Korea and chaotic place like China. See how much cash is piling up.Hon Hai Electronics, Samsung Electronics and host of  smaller manufacturers have 40 B$ and approx 20B $  cash/equivalent on the balance sheets! Normally these mega manufacturers will either do buyback of their shares,acquire new companies, or announce big offshore plans or simply shift to a better tax efficient location.Very clearly Sriperembdur, Noida and some other locations in the West India need to be our hunting ground to help them spend on capex and T&M systems.

Some of these accounts are captive for large Global players.But many of the manufacturers are vendors to Apple,Samsung and Hyundai Electronics.And these vendors will like to move to India for getting closer to the manufacturing system.How much they will be able to release in FY 14 is ultimately the effort of T&M vendors calling on them and selling their respective value proposition.Asia ,Manufacturing, Multi Country offshore plant locations and CASH PILE are the words having the right nexus here.