Mumbai, Oct 10: German engineering and technology conglomerate Siemens sees India as the fastest-growing market globally presenting a “very bright sky” of opportunities, Chief Technology Officer Peter Koerte said exuding confidence that business momentum here will sustain in coming years amid the nation’s infrastructure buildup, digitisation, and manufacturing drive.
India has a huge potential, Koerte told PTI in an interview, adding that Siemens has a “very ambitious plan” for doubling down on business here.
“And we are executing against our plan much faster. Our Indian team is looking at what additional investments we can make now,” the senior executive said.
On the software side too, India is a major tech hub for the company.
“Almost every single product that we ship in Siemens has some software inside and most likely this software has been touched by Indian software engineers…So we can proudly say the Indian spirit is running through all the offerings that we have at Siemens,” Koerte said.
The company has 6,000 people in R&D and related functions in India who work in close collaboration with global engineering teams in locations including the United States, and Germany.
On the software side, India is the biggest hub for the company and “will continue to grow in future” as software defines more and more product functionalities and innovations.
“Think about your phone…A lot of functionalities used are software defined…So majority is coming from India in the future. Second, we want to help India to grow its manufacturing base, to reach 25 per cent of GDP…We help companies to become smarter in the way they set up the machineries and the factories,” he elaborated.
Early this year, Siemens signed a contract worth Rs 26,000 crore with Indian Railways to supply and service electric locomotives for freight movement in India – the win marking the single largest locomotive order in the history of Siemens Mobility and single largest order in the history of Siemens India.
“…And very exciting to us of course is the railways. So we won a major order, which we are very proud and happy to deliver that to Indian Railways and Indian people,” Koerte said.
The trains-to-industrial software group has logged “fantastic” growth rate in India, and expects the momentum to sustain.
“We see that India is the fastest-growing market for us globally. And if you think about just last year, the GDP in India was growing at about 7.2 per cent or so I believe, and we see our market growing somewhat around double digit, which is fantastic, and we expected that to continue,” he said.
All broader trends in Indian market, its demographics, infrastructure creation and speedy digitisation is fuelling that optimism.
“There is a huge investment into the areas where Siemens is, in particular, strong. So we provide smart infrastructure, from grids, buildings to energy, then we provide smart manufacturing, digital manufacturing…Digital industries, so where we really help setting up the latest state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities.
“And then, we provide mobility…Mobility in terms of railway mobility and all of that is needed to bring the Indian economy forward. So we see for the next 5-10 years significant amount of growth,” he said.
India has the ability to “leapfrog” by syncing its infrastructure buildup with connectivity.
“India has the ability to leapfrog, by making things intelligent from the very beginning…As you build your infrastructure, you have this unique capability, and opportunity to connect it, so that you always have a digital replica of the real world, which helps drive productivity and more prosperity for India,” he said. (PTI)
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