Engineering and technology company Honeywell expects major growth to come from micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), east for east (local sourcing and manufacturing for the local market), digitisation, automation and sustainability solutions, as it gears up to double its current $1 billion business from India.
Ashish Modi, who took over as the company’s president recently, told businessline that Honeywell’s growth vectors are in line with the country’s growth, giving him greater certainty that the company will accomplish its targets within the projected duration of 4-5 years.
“To achieve a two-fold increase in any business within five years, growth must fall within the range of 15-18 per cent. We are confident that half of our growth will be attributed to four specific growth vectors, while the remaining half should be driven by natural growth or GDP expansion.”
Furthermore, Honeywell is actively investing in two areas — people and the mass midmarket, or MSMEs, which have largely been untapped by the company.
He elaborated on two key aspects, the first being the investment needed to create market-ready products. “In our case, we see immense untapped potential in the mass mid-market segment. Hence, we plan to allocate substantial investments towards product development and enhance our commercial go-to-market strategy, aiming to seize these opportunities.”
According to the company, it has largely been an enterprise player, and believes the mid-market is an opportunity. “We recognise the opportunity and will make significant investments in both the commercial side and the product development side to capture that segment,” he added.
Honeywell has a headcount of 13,500 people in India, of whom, 7,000 are pure engineers. Going ahead, to keep up with its growth ambitions, the company will expand its employee base across various verticals.
“We have a large global engineering and R&D presence in India that caters to the world, and based on how the global market grows, we add additional workforce here, across the four-five verticals that I mentioned — mid-market, aviation, sustainability, digitalisation, automation—and we’ll continue to add people as needed to fuel the growth,” said Modi.
Honeywell operates three manufacturing and engineering facilities and four global centers of excellence for technology development and innovation.
Honeywell Automation India, the company that is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, did export sales of ₹1,109 crore during FY22. According to Modi, exports out of the country have been doing well primarily because of pent-up demand. “We expect exports will continue to grow because of global manufacturing expansion and sustained momentum.” Its exports mainly out of its Pune facility largely for the tech market.