Lack of T&M orientation in Projects costing India dearly!

There are various projects in the country which are experiencing either stickiness in the implementation of them successfully,or lacking the compliance requirement.Many of the projects are also facing the regulatory bottlenecks.If we see precisely the cause behind the cause,the problem lies
with the Quality checks not enforced,or the relevant measures were missing,or the metrics was not
followed and backed by testing and measurement.All this gets traced to non availability of right tools and testers for QoS work needed there.Lets illustrate this by way of few currently valid challenges faced by India.

Take for example so called Call Drop problem in the Indian Telecom Network.Everybody knows,or should know the Quality of a telecom network is ultimately product of good Network Components and good quality CRM interfaces.But the metrics of good hardware and services can be done by good T&M systems setup used for checking the system quality.If we lack either the availability of good T&M hardware or the quality skilled T&M manpower ,we will never be able to get total network conformance and miss out on signal integrity etc.This is exactly what is happening and we are resorting to finger pointing at each other instead.

Likewise there are various projects in Defense,Aerospace and Engineering which are suffering time delays because somehow we don't have the T&M labs available to the user organisation,or the need of quality is not appreciated.As a result of which we are not able to move ahead with the project or complete the same with quality compliance overall.Even large scale procurements of Hitech equipment gets severely delayed,as our own readiness is not there,because we cannot prepare the RFQs because the user or the DRDO don't have proper testing facility,or the Quality related specs are not prepared.

In telecom specially we are not able to resolve till date the issue of establishing quality labs for malware checking,as no good facility is available with the DoT or any of their associate organisation.This has kept lot of telecom equipment procurement in limbo,as we can't check the acceptance parameters of the systems imported from outside sources,particularly from China for instance.

Actually we need reorientation in our thinking first where the T&M related investment in setting up labs or the test centers is considered as an investment,and not routine expenditure.All the parties in the value chain-the user to Finance and Tech Support all look to T&M technology as a resource and not an afterthought activity.

What can be viable options for ICT industry to grow?

Right now in our country the ability of our planners to take decision for risky pursuits is getting
a little difficult because of civil and political system.But the fact is the time is running out fast as the
Industry is getting more important and critical ,both compared to oil and gas industry size,as well
as the mounting size of imports.The foreign exchange outgo is increasing and in next few years imports may as well touch 400 Billion $ in next fewer years! This is not a happy scenario both because of hardening $ as well as our limited exports for past several quarters.

There are the short term as well as more long term options which can be exercised as far as the ICT
Industry is concerned.We must liberalize and open the sub sectors for all types of investments-Global
as well as the Domestic entrepreneurs.We have to break up the industry hardware into three distinct
categories: Devices, Equipment and Complete Network and Systems.Both the Digital India and Make
in. India programs should be liberally expanded in the scope,so that faster import of FDI can happen.
FDI and its attended manufacturing rollout here will ensure on ground activity and capital formation.
As a target all states and the Deity must give eClearances for setting up both 100pct and less than 100 pct FDI participation.FDI must be tagged for 100 pct,if there is case of multi use of ICT in Telecom,Railways,Defense and Higher Research and Aerospace.A one page application for FIPB
should be done for immediate approval.There is no need for even waiting beyond user ministry vetting time.

Necessarily all these projects can be under various state Govt STP or SEZ schemes including the
Semiconductor projects.Certain state Governments have set up these projects on the basis of their own initiatives.More and more such projects should be encouraged so the investment from private
sector can pour in.If the systems can be imported into countries which will improve quality of public
infrastructure then these can be approved without delay.Such imports will help improve domestic
revenues and indirectly be helpful in paying off to Global vendors!

Human Resource Development is another area of concern in ICT industry in India.The industry can
tie up with Global professional Organisations and domestic vendors for ongoing supplying to the new
Organisations.This can be part of the initial application where the requirement of such skills can be identified and if any Visa needed to import the project manpower temporarily.Ease of doing the business should be both really easy as well as Simple.

We will discuss in next blog some more specifics as far as Defense Manufacturing is concerned.

In new Govt initiatives like Digital India and Make in India T&M is critical!

Role of T& M as the Capex involved in manufacturing test is very well understood by engg and finance teams overseen by operational management.As the factory organisation is getting more
complex than ever before, the activities which are around the core manufacturing become important.
Today for example the customized design prototypes and the Marketing Architecture influence almost 60-70 pct of manufacturing competitiveness of the organisation.

Since the two initiatives made by present dispensation impact the local services and local assembly and test infrastructure,the T&M used and T&M services leverage the hardware to come up with end solutions.Many of the states are undertaking Digital Solutions of eGovernance now mostly transferred to the Mobile.The Governance deals with the effective delivery of public services in a timely and accurate manner.This actually involves data capture and presentation and processing digitally to a GUI for public consumption.This means right T&M architecture of hardware and services.Lot of Public Delivery Services and Monitoring networks have to use T&M.

Actually all these digital network solutions use the intersection of IT , T&M and Communication devices and the network platforms.It is critical to incorporate the T&M professionals ahead of the conceptualisation and end user proposal.Which means integrated and strategic thinking on the part of Solution Architect and System Implementers.

We intend to invite comments on what kind of networks are being conceptualists today.If there is heads up on that information,this blog itself can give contours of the possible solutions.Likewise new age products planned under local manufacturing programs can be better managed with right Capex and opex involved.

Rapid Prototyping and superior T&M skills needed for Hardware Startups!

As India fever gets really going for high evaluation startups,we start wondering that if we are going to see the valuation bubble burst like Dotcom in late 90s.Is there a real development of technology,injection of real equity and is real value creation happening here.? Or there is lot of hype,hot money and Ho hoopla about online marketplace? These are some genuine questions and people with traditional mindset ,who look for RoI and established corporate principles critically look these startups gobbling unlimited money like anything!

Well there is another way we can look at these startups.Most and almost all are software types.Aggregators,Cloud exploiters and virtual world people are entering all sectors-from garments to real estate- and creating daily the companies we call "Unicorns" overnight.No of employees are not important the intellectual capital is.Everybody thinks they need to just go on expanding customer base by investor funds and platform efficiency.The interesting thing is the startups based on the hardware development are missing.Hardly 25-30 companies are involved in hardware compared to overall figure of 4000 or so.

Reason is very easy to spot.Hardware is hard.The ecosystem to support sourcing,components testing and inwards inspection,Rapid prototyping and testing/quality assurance is next to nothing here.Both Chinese tech cities and Taiwan traditionally cater to all analog/digital components and thousands of job shoppers doing subcontracting for any company.No doubt all mass markets of mobile etc are being nurtured by these centers.Contrast this with situation at home where neither testing infrastructure nor the quick protyping can be conveniently done.

For us the better bet will be to get hardware stuff done in China or some other less expensive place and seek customers in India.Design and conceptualisation can happen in India and we can get investors anywhere,for markets near here.Silicon valley Bangalore remains the best bet to us.Startup capital of India will be good for finding T&M infrastructure too,as the demand for rapid prototyping grows overtime.

Hopefully the modest hardware startups will also trigger need of niche T&M companies and their services!

Restructuring of Global T&M industry triggers new markets!

The Global T&M industry is going thru many unprecedented changes,particularly since the beginning of this decade.The factors causing the changes are both technical,product attribute changes and the commercial economics one too.The technological changes are happening both due to space miniaturization of components as well as the new modulation and multiplexing schemes. A good base
is framed what kind of T&M technologies are likely to dominate by mapping the Moores Law alongside these.

Instrumentation value adding started happening when automation to standalone instruments was done thru HP-IB and later other IEEE standards.Inthe late 90s the compliance and performance instrumentation and systems were evolved.Now of course in the current decade the Internet of things and newer generation 4G onwards will dictate the choice of new designs.

Accordingly the T&M software and services companies will have to closely work with hardware OEM companies and discover customized solution for these technologies.Because of so much froth
in the industry and merger and de mergers no body is certain who will survive or who will get to retain the umbrella brands.The game will be driven by the cash and market share accretive ess of these financial deals and there are limited target and acquirers in the mature T&M industry.

These developments happening since beginning of 2010 are giving continuous challenges as well as many latent opportunities to expand the size of the market overall.It really boils down to individual companies capability to restructure their product generation teams and arrange financial model to increase the T&M top line.

Let us keep a tight watch. Many interesting things will happen in this year itself.

Clearance of Defense Manufacturing will boost T&M in FY16 onwards

Finally under new Governments completion of one year is starting to show some actions on the ground.We are seeing that there is around activity on license to manufacture and assemble all kind
of equipment from aircraft to helicopters and also lot of strategic Electronics.Only today they have
cleared as many as 16 projects worth 613 cr of investment.All these startup activity will naturally
have the Capex and so T&M equipment investment of high tech variety.

Stat wise the Government seems to have cleared 73 industrial licenses compared to just 50 between 2011 to 2014 May.More importantly the technology content is lot higher and local manufacturing is emphasized.The period of licensing is bigger too and so liberal view is taken.

Foreign investment is allowed to be upto 49percent and exceptional cases to 100pct.Mostly up to 49
percent is very attractive in these tech cases.

I think the T& M companies have an opportunity to sit and discuss with the manufacturers the new range of manual and automatic equipment immediately.

Digital India and Make in India intersect at Tested in India for boost to T&M

We have earlier talked about manufacturing and design clusters in the Electronics and Semiconductors domain.The Government is taking big strides in going ahead with attendant investment in this effort.The idea is to derive deserving revenues for the industry by appropriate
Infrastructure and other ecosystem here.

Good amount of proposals have turned up for both normal investment and approvals have been given
For about 9000 crore.20 to 25 percent incentive is available on the capex programs in SEZ and non SEZ activity.Of course one has to seize of the derivative opportunity in manufacturing locally if we want to draw linkages between mobile population,attendant service revenues and what is locally produced between devices and networks.

The key to all sort of manufacturing will be our ability to produce Quality Equipment progressively
In India and bring down the cost compared with imported full fledged equipment and devices here.
A good amount of value engineering and economics has to be factored in so as to increase value intact.All aspects of design,engineering and sales/marketing have to be compared ahead of pure kit assembly and testing.So all aspects of land,building and power have to come in before a product is shipped out the door.

Testing the preassembly and assembled systems is the core manufacturing activity in manufacturing.
T&M equipment for manual and automated testers will be required in these clusters where Government is envisaging RS 65000cr of investment proposals.Lot of money will be spent on Capex.

It is our industry's job to keep tab on these closely and come up with Solicted and Unsolicited proposals to units located there for T&M.All the best.

Make in India and "Tested in India" create opportunities for FY16

A continuous thrust to produce the high technology IT and Telecom Network Elements and devices here in India is creating T&M opportunities in FY 16 and beyond.Whether it is local home grown mobile devices manufacturer or the Apple outsourcer Fox Conn all are curious about India.The chief reason being they want to operate as closely as possible to the 970 million mobile customer base as possible.There are at least 160 Smartphones connections and in equal numbers are the net connection users.Both the factors are helping the general aggregator industry-including e Commerce grow well here.Obviously we can see sliding price points and so the competitive local manufacturing as the time passes.

One of the possible outfall of competition locally is the proliferation of Eastern Manufacturers from China, Taiwan, and Korea in the consumer markets.This requires that the local authorities ensure the consumers better quality safety and competitive prices.A big quality test center becomes the pre requisite to ensure hardware,software and malware are tested and certified before shipping to the customers.The labs are to be supported by the user department and often funded by the telecom/IT entity overseeing them.

Malware/Spyware related testing is important for network elements and devices originating from China .Western manufacturers are slightly safe from that criticism because of long presence in telecom sector and their installed base.New upstart companies from China and also from Taiwan will face the initial hiccups and therefore a quality assurance setup supported by the parent telecom ministry will be helpful.Let us also ensure necessary test gear to check quality,safety and other standards are managed through these test centers.We derive good opportunities here to sell the T&M services and other hardware related to testing.Watch this space for more.

Opportunity to create new T&M solution in ipV6

India has cashed on in FY2K the opportunity when the Computer industry needed an IT solution for getting over the date stamping challenge in the computing Machines at the turn of the last millennium.Our fledgling industry with army of coders available were handed this challenge and almost overnight lot of outsourcing work came to Indian Software coolies for porting and other rectification so.India found for herself a new identity as a new industry was getting borne to either serve from India or serve "on site" wherever the client was located.Surely and Silently,an youth from India saw the opportunity and big bucks in the IT industry then.Rest is history and today the industry
Majorly as a Service Industry boasts of 120Billion revenues for the country!

Whenever such like discontinuity occurs,there is always need for new solution to the problems.The solution in our industry can be in new development of hardware,or software/services or both a combination of the two plus some additions.The technology industry has become a breeding ground for new problems rand so new solution opportunities for everybody- the Designers,Manufacturers,the Venture Capitalists or the Governments wanting to create jobs in their local economies.Scaling of these is possible if the technology is robust,inexpensive,exclusive and suits the Economy.Recent Examples have been block buster disruptions created by Apple in iPhone and now on the Apple Watch.

ICANN is now running out of web addresses because of insufficiency of IPV4.The new standard will be IPV6 which will not run out of numbers needed.IP addresses will be always available in this domain,but there will be porting or some other modification is to be done in the existing hardware or a new hardware/ software combo needs to be created.New specifications have got almost unlimited possibilities of IP addresses.Many countries have moved over to new system and many are moving.

There is a possibility that the modification solution will involve hardware,software or both.And that will be at the intersection of IT,Telecom and T&M technologies and in fact can be a powerful scalable and big opportunities for industry,like the set top box for the domestic TV industry.Retrofitting the old existing hardware with new device can be a possible solution or creating a patch over the box can be yet another.

Whatever that may be,an opportunity for developing a technology and viable solution does exist here.
And the skills of IT and T&M will come handy for both conceiving and manufacturing the device for commercial exploitation. Will someone take the ball?

T&M Industry can learn and appreciate the Disruption from eCommerce

If we examine closely the way new economy companies are basing their business model on,we find most of them are tech driven,high on software and uniquely disruptive in nature and innovative.They don't necessarily need lot of physical assets or very expansive factory resources.They really fill the customers unmet need by choosing to operate in the so called "white spaces" left u utilized by traditional players.

For example most of the chip companies don't have their fab.Taxi aggregator like Uber with a 50B valuation on its map don't have a single vehicle.Facebook doesn't have any content.Airbnb doesn't have any real estate.Whatsapp doesn't have its servers even though they transmit 3B messages per day.We can go on like that . So everywhere we find Disruptions of all kind.

Hardware,factories,Large warehouses,Factories of yesteryear so and Big Telecom Networks are really
a thing of the past,as the original purpose for which they were needed are getting met by some other innovative model,thinking,process or plain redundancy!

So, the point is we don't have to be a T&M hardware company to supply those services or the boxes of goods meant for testing and measurement.Can the same job be done by a consulting approach,or removing the function,or creating a business model by outsourcing the process,and the manufacturing.What we need is IT capability of extra-ordinary nature and a supply chain which brokers information on Engineering or Management overall to achieve same intended objective much
inexpensively and scalable manner.A combination of Internet,Mobile Technology, Location Knowledge and Broadband Everywhere can do the trick.

How we will actually apply these to basically a box company? Watch this space in few writings ahead!

Clues for T&M business in Fy16 from eCommerce companies,

Currently India is going through a vibrant and often very bullish mood on the Internet based emailer
Or eCommerce companies.This mood has been built on the back of a strong and growing Smartphone
population,very young demographics,availability of venture investment and general hype on an aspirational society.The social,locational and mobility related Apps are getting triggered by the local
Developer Ecosystem and general startup(rather than just high managerial job) entrepreneurs.

We are seeing as a result of all this many techpreneurs in their 20s. and 30s putting up a proposal for investors from sort of non-traditional background and display equally unusual bent of risk taking and self pride in the "babies" they just plan to birth to.The valuation of Billions and the various role models in front of them- Snapdeal or a Myntra- become good motivators for this budding class.Most of these may not convert into "Unicorn" immediately or they might fail or stop short of  sufficient funding.Yet they have been able to contribute to the change happening in India today.

What we are observing also is that there is a conflict happening between online and offline businesses.The big ticket funding is initiated by the Japanese and Chinese Giants,as well as the PE investors from Asia.The offline brick and mortar companies have started gearing up for protection.
The scaling up and speed is visible around and there is visible intent to buy from the net rather than
drive up to the mall in the suburb and get caught up in traffic woes!

How and what learning can be taken from this to the T&M market? Can we straightaway take the taxi
Aggregator. Model,or can we replicate the aggregation of a Flipcart here?Can we create a new model
out of the learning and apply full fledged to both T&M boxes and services together.? How will the customer support to T& M be delivered electronically?Can we integrate Marketing,Sales and Support functions beautifully thru the Internet glue and virtual order taking/physical delivery from a distant warehouse?

I can say it is interesting and tempting to apply after learning,but we have to dip our feet first and test
the water.Do we have a ready model elsewhere for our industry or we have to generate India specific
business model of customer acquisition and products physical delivery chain? These are the questions
we will discuss and attempt to find answers for. Stay tuned!

T&M market growth can be on the pattern of eCommerce in FY 16!

As we were discussing the channel development of T&M industry on the patterns of eCommerce startups in previous blogs, lot of ideas came to mind.The problem of a matured industry can be seen from various angles: People,Product,Pricing strategy and Promotion and channel Productivity.Nowadays the fashion is to emulate business through Social Networking and make a bigger and bigger universe of prospects in various verticals.How such a concept can be deployed for box and systems T&M products is key to emulating Social Networking way?

Generally it is assumed that the test products-boxes and portables- are bought by engineers working in identified large verticals ,like Defense,Telecom,Railways and Telecom and Healthcare.These verticals are identified and spelt out by data driven from Government Budget Allocations to these verticals over the successive 5 year plans and the trade statistics.Now our social networking concepts can be applied to all these verticals to reach the Engineers working in these sectors and back target them through marketing and promotions.Some of the data like targeted prospects can be reached through Directories of all Personnels in the admin systems of these and other data through mobile and emails intersections.Mobile Apps or similar media tools can be used as the basic platform for reaching the audience.Internet ,Web and the OTT are available to reach maximum number of targets in these individual market verticals.

Design of various CRM systems and software is necessary for impact maximization of these marketing programs.Various small developers like Anvesha and Applicate are in the market for addressing the markets.Or we can go to a mega supplier of Software and services in the CRM space.
Whatever CRM may we deploy,the basics of reaching a prospect remain same.The Contact,Qualify,Investigate,Present,Close and Selling to Community remain as they are deployed in personal selling the product.So important thing is we reach all the buying influences within a sector,let all sense what we are selling and use our "go to market" strategies in such a way that our selling and the verticals buying processes match.Opportunities and our Preparation intersection will always lead to creation of market and Business Money!

I will be interested in knowing if any of you are ready to sell your products and services through these eCommerce techniques? Share the experience and let me know if these worked for you?

Explore T&M opportunities through ECommerce startups way in Fy16

There are various innovative ways we can look at selling T&M products and services in India.A particular situation prevailing is that a particular representative is usually tied to a foreign company or  a multinational export distributor,and he is made to follow a distribution or selling model suiting to that specific principals.The selling model can be pure play direct sales force,where you are distributing exclusively their boxes and building brand strength for that overseas company. The brand image gets built at the expense of distributor manpower quality and coverage.The IP and all the hard work is done by the specific employees of the distributor and the insularity gets built between the market and the overseas sales management based in the region.At certain point of time they decide to go direct and leave the good people high and dry in the Country.It doesn't lead to a strong channel network on the ground.

Charles Handy in his book -The age of unreason- has described various ways for a company to build overseas business based on earliest "outsourcing" way.Keep the direct costs limited to Top in resident country manager and employ natives to run after the business at highly sales percentage commission based compensation with very little,or zero fixed compensation.Generally in India such a model doesn't work,as the self motivation for a T&M product line-where the deals and customers are few and far between- is very thin and they prefer to look out for steady income.Professional grooming and sales training is rare and ultimately smart competitors steal away the good people,or these people pick up their own line and leave! It is not a great Win-Win ending either way.

With Indian Ecosystem for both the Hitech customers and pure play distributors  changed since 1991 Liberalisation and telecom mobile penetration ,the technology can help address this situation.Our ultimate objective is to create a robust well oile sales and support machinery on the ground and not loose smart people to the OEM regional Asia op team of Competitors.A stable sales force will lead to growing business,but needs sustained skills and people practices.This will be possible if our sales roles are flexible,dynamic,innovative and in tune with market conditions.That actually requires us to understand three to four crucial skills are critical in building sales team.Ability to get orders,from large and geographically spread small accounts,Supporting on pre and post sales basis and be able to collect our Accounts Recievables in time are those qualities .All leadership have to recognize,reward and retain these attributes for a buildup.

For a typical product boxes or hardware company channel sales models are fading very rapidly as role of personal selling is changing everyday.From Peddlers to Sales Engineering to Consultative Seller they are constantly on the run as the loner! Take care of them both as professionals and humans and they will be foundation for good leadership in the field.Ignore them and your organisation will be constantly fragile. Choice is yours to build a solid thing,or constantly firefight!

FY 16 and beyond Test Opportunities abound!

There are various high tech organizations under the Govt of India and many of these are involved in checkout and integration of automated test set ups. I think the ISRO is far ahead in exploiting the T&M technologies.For example cryogenic engine testing through modular testers integrated in a
proper fashion can be the regular business for the test companies.The testing of all these systems becomes more and more challenging with the weight of satellites and that is the trend we are going to see increasingly.Bigger and bigger footprints of testers will be required.Space organizations will spend money in those indigenous test systems.


Another trend nowadays is development of startups in the location based areas and eCommerce platforms for delivery.A whole host of companies are involved in developing the hardware,software and services needed around these.Although Drones are still banned in India for commercial usage,they are very much used in law keeping and Disaster Management type of services.Such companies cater to the requirements of IITs and DRDO Labs and NAL.NavStik,Aero360 and Edall Systems are the typical names involved in testing of their systems by modular testers.International names like3D Robotics and Airware are seeing their clones getting borne out of Indian startups and these will all need T&M systems more and more!


Likewise the opportunities in the emerging area of IoT are happening internationally and in India too.Since the time Cisco pointed out the IoT to be a 19 Trillion $ opportunity for all connected sensors,accelerators in all industrial systems,smart cities and driverless vehicles,companies like Bosch,Hitachi and GE have unveiled their own view of opportunities.Most of these companies are involved heavily in building large systems and they see themselves enablers of  IoT through their embedded sensors and other devices.Basically we will have intersection of Big Data,Devices and Process Control and Communication here.T&M companies need to proactively explore M2M testing and IoT opportunities here.

Derivative T&M opportunities in FY 16 and beyond

In continuation with previous writing for opportunities in the current Fy16 and beyond,we are trying to mention few more here.

Defense and Aerospace programs are finding prominent place. The main driver is the Make-in-India program initiated with the PM directive.A major project cleared by the Government is manufacture of vital seeker systems.

This seeker program will involve large amount of checkout and system testing.Due to major acceleration of program now, major shield components will be assembled and tested locally.
There is possibility of Radars and seekers working in tandem.Of course import outright from abroad and local assembly and test will be involved.

Likewise on the Semiconductor side the STPI Bangalore unit of the organisation recently inaugurated by the IT minister will focus on Semiconductor T&M laboratory . Setup at cost of RS 14 Cr ,this facility is a nodal center for Hitech companies to test hips and reduce design cycles.Tessolve Semiconductor will be holding this T&M lab and will cater to test Reliability and failure analysis too.

Opportunities for T&M will also be there in the area of IoT with India IT giant HCL technologies
Tele2 program.This program will open opportunities for M2M interface testing standards and relevant protocols.

Under Defense local manufacturing private companies participation is increasing by the day.L&T
for example is developing vendors for system integration and app development for the strategic ships
manufacturing and deployment.

We will continue to highlight more such opportunities for T&M business here.Thanks.

Derivative T&M Opportunities in FY 16 and beyond!

The opportunities in the T&M industry are almost never visible on the platter.They need fair amount
of qualification and investigation, as typical of a Deal Making-not just merely Deal taking!

There is a great emphasis in the country on few fundamental things: The basic desire to grow,the entrepreneurship exhibit thru new startup culture and connectivity of various technological and business networks. When these factors are blended with Administrative Support and free spirited thinking we have Growth of the Economy and T&M industry growth is a byProduct.

Look at the famous NOFN project of the Dept of Telecommunication.The latest input is the fiberisation is now grown by leaps. New outlay for this Bharat Net project is whopping RS 72000
Cr and the attendant number of nodes increasing!

Likewise several mining projects will get increased because of passing of Mining Bill and the increased modern communication technology and networking.All the mining majors are looking at
India in a positive way.

Same thing goes to Insurance and Finance sector where increased FDI will trigger indirectly the growth of Network Technology etc and Devices/ Networks will overlap the Ecosystem.

T&M industry gets a fillip where there is start up or turnaround of sector happens.The Capex gets spent when we want to search a solution to overcome problems of Design Productivity,Quality and
Compliance part,and also when we are passing through a Mainstream growth phase in Manufacturing. Fortunately for us both are getting manifested here.Example is seeking turnaround in Automotive,and Desire to grow rapidly in Defence Manufacturing.

However one of the important thing the T&M professionals should not lose sight off.Adherence to that particular sectors Standard is most important.It directly relates to what sort of Automation and Software Platform will be required and what measurements will be driven by Device Drivers and what will be requiring an additional box Instrument. There is of course lot happening on Platform Design and DSP architectures.We will get chance to discuss these in subsequent blogs through the current FY.

T&M related new opportunities in FY 2015

Here we had been discussing possibilities of test business in various new projects in the country.
As I write this blog,results of Spectrum Auction this year has come.Now if the telcos grab it with
positive way, lot of Capex will have to be spent over next 20 years by incumbent and new operators.

This Capex on T&M will be at least  2 percent of  mobile revenues combined with all circles.New services can spend more,like 4G and other data deployment services.Currently mobility telecom revenue is around 200,000 cr  and growing.

Among the bigger projects, India will be spending 10B$ for two chip manufacturing plants to be
established in Gujarat and UP.

Several public wifi projects will have to be undertaken including associated Smart City projects.

In Defence there is serious review on format of new AWACS project and so accordingly test platform
will have to be chosen.

Several corporates are putting special emphasis on Innovation based growth.We expect Tata Technologies will be a good consumer of T&M needed there in creating new tech.

Our IT majors like HCL tech and Persistent will likewise use new testers.

Overall things appear to be rosy for our industry.Lets closely track.

T&M opportunities under new environment: Manufacturing, Defense etc...

There are various opportunities for exploring testing and measurements under new manufacturing environment.Besides the Crucial Domestic Defense productions various other projects in wireless
and high technology programs.Our job as the T&M professionals will be to cover and penetrate these
accounts and do what kind of T&M applications are needed there.

- Fallout of merger between local units of Freescale and the other Semiconductor major.

-Local innovative companies,Indix, Manthan,IBS software,Persistent,Eka and Capillary

-Local fabrication of Analog semiconductors under a greenfield project coming up in MP by the
Indian unit of Cricket Semiconductorsrs, USA

-Defense and Aerospace components manufacturer Aequs Aerospace local subsidiary

-Nimbuzz Wireless related public wi-fi infrastructure with Ozone Networks /Newcall Telecom

-White Fi technology being exploited under White Spaces sponsored by Microsoft

-Two major Defense programmers namely the TCS (Tactical Communication Systems) and the BMS-
Battle Management Systems.Allocation overall can be as much as RS 50'000 Cr.Possible vendors are
BEL, Rolta,L&T and the TATa Power.


Such exciting and large manufacturing and integration projects offer big opportunities to a typical T&M company.Let us all put our resources for generating the measurement business.

T&M boost through expected reforms and Manufacturing!

As the country waits for the first budget pronouncements this month end,lot of expectations and apprehensions both are in play.There are financial issues on the years balance sheet and expected current account deficit.So Govt can not move and take aggressive populist measures,particularly after
losing Delhi State Elections.

This blog lists out some possibilities through projects in high technology sectors where possibility of
new T&M business Dan be still there:

Local Manufacturing by local and international handset players like Xiaomi,Samsung,Lava and Micromax etc

BEL new projects in TCS of the defense Communications.

MNC companies approx 1800 companies local R&D infrastructure company

Solar projects by local and Global players with various states engaging.Huge boost expected

Nuclear Civil deal ironed out through new insurance SUV creation,and so Clean Energy projects

Ease of FDI rules and Capex funding availability in Defense,and Energy projects

Renovation and Modernisation of BHEL and CIL plants and facilities

Robotics and AI driven manufacturing undertaken in various industry sectors.

Emphasis on LED industry driving efficient lighting projects through center and states

Reliance Defense Aerospace,and other private companies like M&M,l&T Tata etc for both equipment,aircrafts and heavy carriers like helicopters and subs

Emphasis on all kind of fiber companies under NOFN fibers satin project.

Semiconductor wafer fab projects driven by Deity and expected Companies IBM and Tower

Japanese companies clusters under generic corridors and new Railway projects

Expected involvement of IT companies in various start up projects for several disruptive and innovative technologies like IoT and new wireless based networking.

Let us see if the Indian T&M industry show initiative to create business out of these opportunities!

More in subsequent writings.

Kick off to T&M industry through CY 15 start: New Govt initiative!

Finally the new government is getting ready for launching various initiatives with seemingly full commitment for local industry development.There is a commitment,there is desire and there is proper
aspiration for a growing economy.The govt is making the right noises for getting plugged in to smart manufacturing and local vaue addition by integration,and design of highest quality locally.Ultimately the local value is to be added by value addition in various applications.

But the big picture first. The value has to come from proper understanding of taxonomy in infrastructure,agriculture productivity and new application on the similar base for standard crops.Agriculture productivity,Good Governance and identification of value adding points of  Speed
And corners of the whole picture.

Ease of doing business in all areas and all state locations have to deliver quality,productivity and IP protection but opening of  FDI in practically all major sectors will drive the entrepreneurship.Private participation will really accelerate through the wide acceptance of quality and partnership.

Let us see what all areas both in the high tech and general manufacturing grow and find traction going ahead.Liberalisation with clear objectives will see us through!