Global major United Technologies Corporation (UTC) will design specific products for Indian market, according to its CEO and Chairman, Mr Louis Chenevert.
In his keynote address at the on-going Nasscom's India Leadership Forum 2011 here on Wednesday, Mr Chenevert said the Indian engineering services team of the US-based company is working on developing “unique products” for Indian market.
The product segment would include air-conditioners, elevator-lifts and security electronics.
Leadership team
The company's strategy in India also included development of a strong local leadership team for its operations in Bangalore and Gurgaon.
“We have successful business partners in India with companies like Infotech Enterprises and Tatas. Over 1,500 employees of Hyderabad-based Infotech Enterprises are supporting our operations every day,'' Mr Chenevert said. Similarly, the helicopter cabins being manufactured by UTC and Tatas in Hyderabad were being exported to countries all over the world, he added.
The urbanisation and other aspects of globalisation were expected to increase consumption among the middle class in the emerging markets such as India and China, he said.
“For instance, the current demand for elevators is 500,000 units a year. In the next five years, China alone could use 500,000 units,'' he pointed out.
Recounting the association of UTC with India for the last 100 years, the CEO said the emerging opportunities in Indian market would offer win-win situation for UTC and Indian companies.
ROLE OF IT INDUSTRY
The growth of all other sectors would need support from IT industry. Even UTC would need high computing abilities to adopt new technologies in advanced engineering designs.
“We run 15 data centres, 8,700 servers and 1.80 million emails a day. A network disruption could impact our production line,'' Mr Chenevert said.
The industry should continue to focus on innovation, he said. The R&D expenses of UTC were at $3.6 billion last year which would grow to $4 billion this year, he added.
At present, UTC employs over two lakh employees globally out of which 5,000 are in India.