Indian manufacturing sector is experiencing similar advantages that the IT services world saw in the past with India emerging as a hub for Industry 4.0, B Santhanam, the CEO Asia-Pacific & India region, Saint-Gobain, said on Monday.
“We are increasingly seeing a kind of ‘talent cost arbitrage’ that the IT services saw in the past, in Industry 4.0. Today, North American or European factories are not able to get talent there. The talent is available here, especially in South India. The global needs of engineering, R&D and Industry 4.0 can be done out of India,” he said.
He was speaking at a fireside chat, part of CII’s Mystic South Global Linkages Summit 2025 in Chennai.
Growth potential for South
Santhanam noted that there is an opportunity today where global factories can be managed out of Chennai, something like a business services arm for manufacturing entities.
“If India has to grow 5x in the next 23 years, the South has to grow much faster. The region is extensively manufacturing and construction-led. If India has to reach $20 trillion by 2047, then South has to be $6-7 trillion with more than one-third of this in manufacturing/construction,” he said. The region’s Global Capability Centre (GCC) ecosystem, educational institutions and the manufacturing sector will help them reach the target, he added.
Vir S Advani, Chairman and Managing Director, Blue Star India, said that India, especially the South, needs to invest more in advanced technologies to be able to compete globally and meet quality standards of the Western markets. “Without technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) and full traceability of components, it is difficult to scale globally and take market share away from global competition,” he said.
He also emphasised on the need to improve productivity of the Indian manufacturing workforce – both blue collar and managerial. “We have to accept that we are going to keep growing the labour workforce but we need to do that along with leapfrogging productivity to catch up with other advanced manufacturing economies,” he said.
Both executives also urged the Southern States to project to the world the region’s strengths as a sustainable manufacturing location.
“The South, especially States like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, is the best place to be [for global companies] for sustainable manufacturing today,” Santhanam, said.
