Doing Business in India For Dummies®

Considering the Winners and Losers

You can read about many manufacturing success stories in India that can help you envision your future triumphs, and I could fill up the rest of this book with examples. To give you an idea, though, I provide a few examples from various sectors in this section. The successes far outweigh the failures, but for the sake of balance I also include a few manufacturing losers and tell you why they ended up that way.

Indian manufacturing successes

India’s economic environment is extremely well suited for successful manufacturing. You can find companies that have taken advantage of the fertile manufacturing ground across many sectors and industries.

The automobile sector

Liberalization has really changed things for this sector in India. From a time when Indian children knew to identify only the Ambassador of Hindustan Motors, Fiat’s two models, and the Standard Herald (produced by Standard Motors) there’s been startling progress in the market. Cars of so many different makes and models now clog the streets. Many names exist like Ford Ikon, Tata Sumo, Qualis, Opal Corsa, Honda City, Santro, Indica, and the fashionable compact car Suzuki Elisio.

Ford Motor Company is one of the most impressive success stories. Ford came to India initially as a joint venture, but acquired a majority stake in the enterprise and renamed the company Ford India Limited in February 1999. Ford has so far poured in over $350 million into the project, which exports CKDs (completely ...