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Press Release

Better quality products with lower cost and accessibility needs to add sustainability to manufacturing sector: Sanjiv Mehta, President, FICCI; CEO & MD, Hindustan Unilever Ltd

Sep 20, 2022

NEW DELHI, 20 September 2022: In the 'VUCA times', manufacturing has undergone a radical transition from being labor intensive to technology centric. Global leaders are re-imagining sustainable manufacturing processes using modern technologies, IOT, to produce high quality products. Sustainability of these tech-driven manufacturing value chains lies at the center of this discussion when industry thought leaders are creating a future roadmap to transform manufacturing.

Mr Wolfgang Tiefensee, Minister for Economics, Science and Digital Society in Thuringia, Germany, underscored that India is developing at an unbelievable rate and Thuringia and Germany needs to be part of this. Transformation and transition need to be managed in the manufacturing sector and the key to this will be digitalization, decarbonization, CSR and resilience, he added.

Mr Sanjiv Mehta, President, FICCI and CEO & Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), mentioned that for India to realize its potential in manufacturing, it has to be competitive in cost, service & innovation, changing mindsets & benchmarks on productivity.

Mr Peter Rhee, Deputy Managing Director, South- West Asia, Samsung Electronics, highlighted that this is an opportune time to achieve excellence in manufacturing and India under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi is focused on making India a manufacturing hub. He also pointed out that the major challenge in making India a manufacture hub will be that how can the manufactures make products cost competitive and sustainably increase the quality of manufacturing.

Mr Manish Sharma, Chairman, Panasonic Life Solutions India & South Asia, highlighted that in today's age we need to focus on design-led manufacturing as now consumers are not only preferring products and services which are cost-friendly but one which are produced and provided sustainably.

Mr Subhrakant Panda, Managing Director, Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys Limited, highlighted that concerted efforts are being made to take share of manufacturing sector to 25% in India's GDP as it aims to become a 5 trillion economy. This a critical sector as it provides employment to a large number of people.

The key takeaways from the session:

For India as a nation to realize its potential in manufacturing, it has to be competitive in cost, service and innovation and move towards changing mindsets and set benchmarks on productivity. 

Big data is critical in improving resource allocation leading to truly sustainable manufacturing processes, enabling better accuracy along with enhanced labour and machine productivity. Indian manufactures need to modernize using these facets of smart manufacturing.

Excellence in manufacturing needs to find balance between contest and cooperation. Tradition, vision, and mission must come together to enable transformation and transition focussing on creating new ways of production that have the least harmful impact and enhances sustainability.

FICCI LEADS 2022 is a global thought leadership initiative conceptualized in the backdrop of disruptive business environment globally, which was attended by over 250 participants from around 56 countries. This year's theme has been 'Leadership for the Future' where global leaders are trying to evolve shared vision in 10 themes to make the world resilient, sustainable and future ready.

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