Srinivasan Dwarakanath, MD, Airbus India speaks to Outlook Business on the ocassion of Smart Enterprise 2016.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 India is a strategic country for Airbus, not only because of its market size, but also
00:08 to the access to skills and resources.
00:11 Make in India is at the heart of Airbus and Airbus Group strategy in the country.
00:16 We are committed to developing aerospace and aviation ecosystem in the country.
00:23 Airbus strategy is based on the following four pillars, engineering, customer services,
00:31 aerospace supplier partnerships, R&T and innovation.
00:34 Today we have about 400 engineers who work for us in Bangalore on core activities.
00:40 We also have more than 45 suppliers in the country, SMEs and MSMEs.
00:48 We have created more than 6,000 jobs in the country across the supply chain.
00:54 We have 70% market share in the country and I am proud to say that every aircraft which
01:00 comes out of the Airbus assembly line has something made in the country.
01:04 If you look at our engineering center in Bangalore, the engineers there work on core activities.
01:13 They are really important for the design of high performance aircraft such as the A380,
01:19 A350 and A320neo.
01:21 And the engineers here are plugged globally into the engineering talent pool of the whole
01:27 of Airbus.
01:28 We also have something called the Emerging Technologies and Concepts Group within that
01:32 engineering center and this group focuses on disruptive innovation, whether that innovation
01:39 is coming from within the industry or from outside the industry.
01:43 They try and bring that so that innovative ideas are brought into the product design.
01:49 And this Emerging Technologies and Concepts Group is based in Toulouse, Hamburg and Bangalore
01:56 and I am proud to say for the whole of Airbus this is led from Bangalore.
01:59 Apart from that we also have started recently something called Airbus Bislab.
02:05 What is this Bislab?
02:06 Bislab is an aerospace accelerator and this helps to bring ideas to business.
02:12 We have entrepreneurs coming from outside and also entrepreneurs coming from within
02:17 Airbus who work together on innovative ideas and they try and bring those ideas to fruition
02:24 in a matter of six months.
02:26 Airbus sourcing strategy in India is to work across the product life cycle.
02:31 We work with companies on engineering activities, manufacturing activities as well as customer
02:36 services.
02:37 On engineering, apart from our own engineering center, we have two dedicated development
02:43 centers, one with CADIS for fuselage activities and one with Quest for engineering and pylon
02:51 activities as well.
02:52 So approximately 2,000 people work across the engineering supply chain for us.
02:58 If you look at manufacturing, we work predominantly in aerostructures but in other areas as well
03:04 and today more than about 4,000 people work across the supply chain on the manufacturing
03:10 activities for us.
03:11 Overall, about 45 plus companies are working across the engineering and manufacturing supply
03:17 chain.
03:18 But when it comes to customer services, we do focus on two areas mainly.
03:23 One is technical publications.
03:24 There are two or three companies who work with us on this area and last but not least,
03:29 we also work on maintenance, repair and overhaul as well with the help of the supply chain.
03:35 Through our supply chain, Indian companies work across different Airbus aircraft programs,
03:41 be it the A380, the A350 or the A320neo.
03:46 If you look at aerospace industry, aerospace industry is predominantly a skill-based industry
03:54 and normally it takes about 20 to 25 years to develop aerospace supply chain in any part
04:01 of this world as well.
04:02 So in India, it will take some time as well.
04:04 In the last 10 years, private companies have come in and predominantly SMEs and MSMEs who
04:11 have come in to work in aerospace industry and they are the real force behind the industry
04:17 and they are the ones we need to count for innovation as well.
04:21 India is a focus country for us in Asia apart from China and Korea.
04:27 What we do normally is to really bring in our European tier one companies to partner
04:32 with Indian companies.
04:33 Why?
04:34 80% of what we sell, we buy.
04:37 At Airbus, we are an integrator.
04:39 So we have big tier one companies and what we did in the last few years is to really
04:44 bring them here and then bring the Indian companies and we did something called the
04:48 matchmaking like a speed dating.
04:50 You know, it helps the European tier one companies to look at Indian companies quickly and if
04:56 they like to partner with them, then they take that further and that has really helped
05:00 to grow the Indian supply chain for us.
05:03 So some of the Indian MSMEs or SMEs, they start as a tier three supplier for us.
05:08 That means you have tier ones, the ones who work directly with Airbus and then you have
05:12 tier twos who work with the tier ones and then the tier threes who work with tier twos
05:16 as well.
05:17 So some of them start as tier threes and they have graduated to tier two, example, SimTools
05:23 and some of them started as tier two companies and then graduated as tier one to work directly
05:29 with Airbus, examples, Dynamatics and Acres.
05:33 And some of these companies, when they wanted to start with us, they just didn't know where
05:37 to start.
05:38 They came in with PowerPoint slides.
05:40 We were really hand-holding them right from the stage where they had the PowerPoint slides
05:45 to set up a factory and then start manufacturing for Airbus products, either as tier one or
05:52 as tier two.
05:53 That's how I think we have been growing the aerospace supply chain in the country.
05:57 If you look at automotive industry, 20, 25 years ago, we just started on this journey
06:03 and today we are proud that India has become a manufacturing hub for the automotive industry.
06:09 And like that, I strongly believe that India can become a manufacturing hub for the aerospace
06:15 industry.
06:16 The Make in India initiative has given us all a shared vision to follow.
06:23 Even though Airbus has been working or making in India for a long time, this Make in India
06:30 vision of the Prime Minister has put this at the heart of our strategy.
06:35 We are excited about our partnership with India and in this context, I am pleased to
06:41 attend the Outlook Business Smart Enterprise event.
06:45 See you there.
06:47 (upbeat music)