NORTHERN REGION

THE YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS PROGRAMME: 1 NOVEMBER 1999
"The Old Guard gives way to New"- several young Entrepreneurs having joined the Old Guard in family business, have inducted fresh ideas, concepts and enthusiasms. The programme, organised by ACMA (NR) at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, brought together yesteryears and modern-day Young Entrepreneurs, in an exchange of thoughts, problems, solutions, dreams, visions and realities.

Mr Deep Kapuria, welcomed participants and presenters, Mr Sanjay Labroo (MD Asahi India Safety Glass Ltd), Mr Jayant Davar (MD Sandhar Locking Devices Ltd) with the first generation entrepreneurs' view and Mr A K Taneja, Sr Executive Director and Intrepreneur Shriram Pistons & Rings Ltd, speaking on challenges facing the Entrepreneur of Indian industry.

The 20 participants gave encouraging feed back on the usefulness of the programme. We hope more of our younger generation members join the next round as their presence would greatly enliven the programme, making it more interesting.

Following are certain points of interest and words of experience, taken from the presentations of-

Mr Sanjay Labroo: Who is an Entrepreneur?
One who does not allow conflict between Ownership & Management

One who opens the mind to learning -education not a must but evidence of its success seen in TVS, Rane, Sona

One who establishers principles. Credibility needs principles; takes years to build and goes in a flash. One who pushes change. Use position to drive change.

One who can initiate change without destruction: make aware - initiate - go for progress

One who develops and nurtures key personnel. No Entrepreneur has the full complement of skills

One who is not happy and content for this spells failure

One who creates wealth for shareholders - an Entrepreneur's sole job and this will create wealth for himself. The successful creation of wealth empowers to sustain its growth - money begets money, e.g. the U.S.

Mr Jayant Davar: What is an Entrepreneur?

Mr Taneja: Challenges for an Entrepreneur
The Entrepreneur is the manger /director creating wealth outside corporates, whose key to success pre - 1991 was: who did he know; who were his family; huge evasion of taxes; individual competence, etc. Post 1991 liberalisation and de-licensing gave choice of industry and location; freedom to import the right environment for foreign investment bringing higher growth and more competition. The Entrepreneur had to change and with it came the issue of the speed of change - the life cycle of ideas, etc, impacted from decades into years; had to "learn and unlearn" for today's stress was on the capability of handling change and the ability to identify trends way before it actually happened. This meant constant scanning of customer requirement. The buzz word was/is "thought leadership": people constantly updating and aware of changes taking place in the world.

To achieve this, it would be important to put together persons of common focus and to do it successfully, 'Talent' had to be attracted in an innovative way and 'Teams' created to make the changes and make a difference - "give them a dream, inspire them and they should take off".

ACMA (NR) - INVEST PROGRAMME ON ROLE OF VALUE ENGINGEERING IN THE COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT:10TH DECEMBER 1999

More than 60 participants and Members of Invest Indian Value Engineering Society founded in 1977- were welcomed by Mr Jayant Davar, ACMA Executive Committee Member, chairing the workshop in the absence of Mr Deep Kapuria. The application of Value Engineering techniques give greater edge in terms of cost reduction and providing value products to the customer. Five ways to add value were: i) Keep functions unchanged and reduce cost ii) increase function and reduce cost iii) Increase function and keep cost unchanged iv) Increase functions more than cost increase.

Mr M K Mittal, Chairman Invest & Director BHEL, described Value Engineering as a complete diagnosis of the technical & cost aspects of products and systems essential to industry.

Mr Ranjan Dasgupta, Director & Board Member, Crompton Greaves Ltd made a superb presentation on "What is Value Engineering? And by implementing it, how did countries like the U.S. and Japan benefit monetarily?" USA achieves 100 % hit ratio, i.e. they achieve whatever they plan for. Speaking of Value Engineering practices in Crompton Greaves as well as Tata Steel, it was inevitable that Mr J J Irani be mentioned as the man behind Value Engineering who changed working systems and reduced costs.

Mr K N Rattan, Executive Director and Mr Pankaj Arora, Shriram Pistons & Rings Ltd as well as Mr Sharad Agarwal, Deputy Manger, International Tobacco Company Ltd (ITC) presented case studies of Value Engineering implementation.

INTERACTION WITH ASRTU: 13TH DECEMBER 1999

ACMA (NR) renewed relationship with ASRTU with a seminar were it interacted with more than 30 captains of the auto component industry and was willing to interact with other regional members. Dr Koteeswaran, Executive Director, ASRTU and colleagues Mr A S Lakhra, Director (Engg) and Mr M L Gore, Director (Tech) made a presentation on their policy; their transparent working and willingness to work closely with the industry.

In the course of the discussion, agreement was reached to consider certain issues raised by both sides, such as, the submission of one bank guarantee only (to the ASRTU instead of every STU); special consideration for exemption in various fields to QS 9000 companies; exemption of 2% discount on excise duties; 2% cash discount to STUs if payment was made within the stipulated time; formation of a sub-committee to look into problems with CIRT officials on specifications of products; looking into the disparity of an OE suppliers fetching a higher rate from ASRTU than OEMs, through a method of calculation by ASRTU, whereas some products fetched a lower price than that offered by OEMS. There are 67 STUs with ASRTU, sourcing auto component worth more than Rs. 250 crores. ASRTU affirmed that they would be happy to interact with ACMA members in other Regions.

ACMA - JETRO SI PROGRAMME ON FORGING & CASTING

Forging Experts: 6 February - 2 March 2000
Two experts from JETRO successfully executed the Second Phase of the project for companies manufacturing forged components. Mr T Yamaguchi, the machining expert and Mr K Nansai, a new Forging Expert, visited 6 companies in the Northern Region - Amtek Auto Ltd, Gurgaon; Best Metals Pvt Ltd, Noida; Hi-Tech Gears Ltd, Bhiwadi; Kay Jay Foregings Pvt Ltd, Ludhiana; Lakshmi Precision Screws Ltd, Rohtak and GNA, Jalandhar. The feedback from companies was very encouraging. They welcomed the expert advice given by them on hot and warm forging process, as well as some suggested Kaizen activities.

Casting Experts: 6-9 March, 2000
In continuation of an existing project, Mr K Tamura and Mr T Myojin visited UT Ltd, Barotiwala; Rico Auto industries Ltd, Gurgaon and Shriram Pistons & Rings Ltd, Ghaziabad.

VISIT TO HONDA SIEL CARS INDIA LTD: 15TH FEBRUARY 2000

ACMA (NR) had a very successful visit to the Greater Noida Factory, of Honda Siel Cars India Ltd. Senior Officials from Honda Siel were present to interact with the members. The delegation consisted of more than 25 Chief Executives from the Northern Region Membership.

Honda Siel made a presentation on their sourcing policy. Some important points that emerged during the presentation and interaction were:

• Single Purchasing Policy worldwide. This is ruled by 3 Principle Policy guidelines:
1. Free/ Open Procurement worldwide
2. Equal Treatment to all Suppliers
3. Despite good benchmarking for high technology, they respect the individuality of the     Suppliers and do not impose Management Policy
• Honda has achieved an indigenisation level of 70% with 68 suppliers. This year, they plan to   achieve 75% indigenisation
• The items planned for indigenisation during 2000 -2001 are : Piston, Ring, Oil Pump, Water    Pump and Hoses.