Recognition of T&M Services as a strategic item in Defense Plan!

The present Government is putting lot of emphasis on the Indigeneous development and procurement of Defense Equipment and services from indigenous sources.As part of the revamping the Defense procurement policy is totally overhauled and provision of creating Strategic Partners is also made.Basically we need fundamental changes in the development and production of new and innovative technologies,as most of the incumbent here is our evolved Public sector companies and the DRDO labs expertise.

The participative collaboration with the industry will have to include sharing of plan re possible areas of supply where private sector can collaborate more smoothly and ensure their contribution to the quality of Defense wings operation and maintenance.The services are drawing up their individual Modernisation plans,and the T&M services are mentioned as a separate prominent line item,perhaps for the first time in their official plan document.For instance Air Force are mentioning "Test Equipment and Ground Support" as this to denote these services!

The plan document is under public discourse thru CII and therefore the arithmetics of procurement will be known progressively,but we can expect 2-5 percent of total outlay of hardware spent here.
This obviously will be good area for Indigeneous supply of software development and engineering services and procurement thereof.Operation and maintenance thru T&M technologies will be a low hanging fruit here.I believe lot will depend upon the T&M industry itself to assert for its own share by creative Assesment of need behind the need of T&M and offering right optimal mix of hardware and services.

Opportunity for approx 20,000 Cr for next 10 years is laid out by IAF.Now it is up to the industry to seize and execute by quality deliver You!

Global R&D resident in India is exotic growth avenue for T&M

As Indias overall economic recovery is happening slowly and steadily(while the Global pains are
still to get over), one thing remains sure footed. This is an unassailed positioning as a frugal destination for Global R&D.India as a market for tech products and a resource center for the rare as well as generic skills in development remains intact.Well the R&D work is many times concurrent,and the manpower engaged here is either trying to augment the work in Corporate Labs at home country,or supplements by a synchronicity of time.Sometimes even the products are getting developed locally both for Global Market,as well as Customised for value engineered largely meant for India.

We need to get deeper and understand where these engineers and scientists reside in Indian innovation centers,what cities are the major hosts to the highly qualified manpower,and most importantly what sectors of technology these people are working on!If we quickly make a reference to Study by Zinnov, we find that the major talent resides in Southern cities of Bangalore,Hyderabad and Chennai and followed by NCR cluster.Pune is fast catching up,as the Auto sector related work picks up around this cooler town.

Because of very amenable nature of software and design services type of work Semiconductor vertical is at the Top of Electronics oriented R&D,and closely followed by Defense and Aerospace
sector.Due to number of Personnels engaged in the Industry Auto vertical is highest. It is our speculation that Digital India, local Defense Manufacturing oriented towards Make in India will increase substantially the Defense and Aerospace man powers.Looks like MNC R&D persons are the best catchment area for the High cost ,High technology T&M services and hardware from the Industry both now and future.Clentele is sophisticated,business processes are driven by Global procurement processes and opportunities to do a good job of selling and supporting is high.

Can our T&M services and hardware industry systematically go after this specific cluster of clients which are expected to top 1 Million in numbers over 3-5 years? This could be linked to an opportunity where sometimes window can be narrow,but pay off very high,!

T&M growth should be explored in newer tech activity!

The growth of technology industry in India is expected to change gear in this year.And the main reason is that India has exited FY 16 on a reasonable positive note.The main cause is the excellent management of fiscal deficit at 3.9 percent of GDP and expected growth rate of 7.5 pct plus,The RBI is expected to be supportive of milder interest rate in the April first week announcement,and the various infrastructure projects,particularly the road sector is stepping up due to de logging of projects in the economy.Coal production this year has been record high level and power plants are not starved at all of the fuel.Restructuring of disco so thru UDAY and expected announcement of new UMPP will be a fillip to power sector.Steel sectors need of safeguard duty is also being finalized for combating steel demand slowing globally.Exports are on a slide for past one year,but the trade deficit is also
narrowed due to low imports and still low fuel prices.

But how is our technology industry is changing which will eventually trigger new projects and applications where the T&M and associated services can be deployed now on?We need to answer this possibility thru various bulk initiatives proposed by the Center.Top of them is deregulation and new DPP 2016 for Defense.Many new conglomerates and SMEs will become the strategic partners where the record high of 50 Billion Dollars worth projects are earmarked for Indigenisation.This coupled with Smart Cities project and Mobile manufacturing projects (some 100 of them) in various states will drive Capex and T&M demand.Green energy and Solar projects are another major T&M consumption.The national 4G where Jio is making major investment of Rs 150 000 cr will be triggering continuous buys of T&M.

M2M initiative is going to be important for new IoT type of work in telecom sector as well as others in the economy.So the sensor based T&M will be part of taxonomy in these projects.Emphasis is being placed on Cloud,Analytics and Big Data.Digital India across various public processes will also consume newer type T&M in bulk.Big public sectors also will be customers of power test equipment and system components.The Dept of Space allocation is continuously on the rise and so also of Railways projects of infrastructure and required monitoring equipments at several places.DEFENSE LABORATORIES are the main source of technology in strategic pursuits and T&M will be specially
important here.Indigeneous navigational satellites will spur lot of monitoring and test equipment.We hope that the FY 17 will be very positive for the industry as these new projects are funded by the center. Best of Luck.