Industrialist and Chairman of Aditya Birla Group Kumar Mangalam Birla feels that its telecom brand Idea has the potential to be a global brand and that it would be the first brand from the conglomerate's stable to enter the global markets.
Birla, however, did not give a timeline to when it plans to take Idea to the international markets.
Talking on sidelines at the Government's flagship Make In India event here today, Birla said that, "Making Indian brands global requires lot of time, patience and consistency in terms of product quality and delivery. We are yet to see a brand which is truly global to be honest. The next step is about learning lot of new skills and There's some time away on achieving those actually happening. "
Aditya Birla Group is a diversified conglomerate with focus from telecom, cement, textiles and fashion among others. The company had recently entered the e-commerce segment with ABOF, in which Birla sees a great opportunity to transform as a global brand.
"Abof is much easier to go global because it is electronics and much easier to take off," Birla added.
He also mentioned that to create global brands, companies need to chart out innovative ways in terms of building the leadership. The conglomerate, since the last two years, has been working on its "two by two" strategy where a leader handles two different businesses in two different geographies thus allowing to climb up the ladder fast.
During a panel discussion with CNN's Richard Quest, Mahindra Group Chairman along with Birla also spoke about the need of digitization in the manufacturing sector in a bid to make the "Make In India" a successful initiative and thus turn India into a global manufacturing hub and not just a "sweatshop".
However, to achieve all that the Government needs to focus on infrastructural and environmental issues.