There is vast scope in research and development (R&D) and Make in India campaign provides best platform to lauch it. This was highlighted in a study paper released at DEFTRONICS 2015, an initiative from India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA), being held in New Delhi.

The IESA-Roland Berger (a leading global strategy consulting firm with immense expertise in defence) whitepaper titled ‘Defence Electronics Market - Perspectives and Recommendations’ indicates that the defence spending has been budgeted every year & it has never seen contraction but has always had an upward trend for the past 18 years. However, India’s spend on military R&D is less than 2% of global expenditure on R&D.

M N Vidyashankar, president of IESA said, “India is the 7th largest A&D (aerospace and defence) market globally and a lion’s share of the market needs have been historically addressed by imports. Despite our defence budget increasing significantly year-on-year for the last few decades, very little has happened to strengthen the domestic A&D design and manufacturing capabilities. As our country is steadily transforming itself as a global superpower, defence self-reliance has become imperative in the recent times. Realising this pressing requirement, we have collaborated with Roland Berger - one of the leading strategy consultancies worldwide to deep dive in to India’s A&D ecosystem challenges and propose the way forward.”

“We are proudly presenting the whitepaper – ‘Defence Electronics Market- Perspectives and recommendations’ which we firmly believe will be a yardstick for India’s defence electronics sector tomorrow,” Vidyashankar said.

“It is our great pride to organise DEFTRONICS 2015, one of our premier event platforms dedicated for aerospace & defence sector. India’s A&D sectors have been undergoing tremendous transformation with the government’s strong push towards the creation of a fundamentally strong A&D ecosystem in our country. Defence Electronics is on utmost priority and IESA has therefore partnered with Roland Berger and drafted a whitepaper on ‘Defence Electronics Market - Perspectives and Recommendations’. We offer all the support to the government in their effort to modernize the country’s defence sector and glad to bring the policy makers, private & public defence players and other core ecosystem players under one platform,” said Vinay Shenoy, Chairman, India Electronics & Semiconductor Association.
 
With ‘Make in India’ bringing a new hope in indigenous manufacturing across sectors, Indian government aspires to domestically source 75% of the Indian armed forces’ hardware. This implies significant opportunity for Indian companies and global OEMs to explore models of collaboration focusing on development of capability in India and of technology tie-ups. There is potential for Indian private sector to participate in the global OEM supply chain; this indigenization push is an opportunity for the private sector to significantly expand capability, and therefore capacity, by implementing global A&D manufacturing standards and certifications.
 
The IESA-Roland Berger whitepaper raises certain issues which needs to be addressed through Defence Electronics Policy.
 
Key points of the report are: For an Indigenous electronics manufacturing to take off, the private sector needs to get visibility of both Government procurement plans as well as focus on technology. While both are currently addressed in a long term horizon document, there is a need to have visibility at intermediate levels as well.

While it is true that at component level, Indian defence manufacturing will continue to be dependent on imports, India's attractiveness would rest in its ability to develop system level competence, i.e. graduation from Know-how to Know-why. Such a move will involve working largely with 'Commercially off the shelf' technologies and products, and development of defence systems from them.

Due to its horizontal ramifications across product categories and subsequent impact on multiple product categories, competencies in this segment should be looked at from both a product as well as a technology perspective.

In line with the development of A&D electronics industry globally, India will have to focus on leveraging large developmental projects under the Make category to ensure maximization of indigenization potential, especially at component levels thereby impacting SMEs. Make project focus will also ensure development of key 'system of system' integration competence, which Indian industry has already demonstrated across major programmes.

To ensure that SMEs are able to sustain extremely high levels of performance orientation at one end and continuous pressures on margins on the other, Defence electronics industry should be provided with enablers like easier and more price efficient access to financing (akin to infrastructure).

Defence electronics manufacture should be encouraged through other measures, like using multipliers to incentivize first time exports, or multipliers where global single source competencies are created.
 
Foreign OEMs which are willing to relocate global A&D electronics manufacturing to India through partnerships with local players should be extended all benefits  including those of Preferential market access for defence procurement. This is critical, as for all global electronics play, home market is often the basis of building a business case which is then substantiated through international market access.

Different tools for different work
There are over 300 exhibitors and the electronica India  and productronica India y trade fairs have brought electronic manufacturing and production to the forefront by experts from across the globe.

MMI India on Wednesday launched the 16th edition of electronica India 2015 and productronica India 2015. The three day (9th- 11th September 2015) electronics and production trade fairs at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, will discuss global best practices and industry challenges.

The inaugural ceremony of electronica India 2015 and productronica India 2015 was carried out in the presence of R S Sharma, chairman, TRAI, Shubhra Singh, joint secretary,  Govt of India, KD Nayak, Director (R&D), DRDO, Martin Lechner, executive director business unit New Technologies, MMG International and Vinay Shenoy, Chairman, IESA.

More than 352 exhibitors are at the trade fair and there are international participants from China, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and UK.

The trade fairs will host conferences, workshops and seminars and the topics for these discussions will be Deftronics 2015, Aerospace, Defence & Internal Security: Building Global Partnerships for Make in India, Conference on Internet of Things, IPC India Conference, IPC India Workshop, Embed Asia and Conference on Smart Automation for SME’s; to how electronics and production has a positive impact on a company’s bottom line. electronica India and productronica India has provided a platform for Deftronics which is an international symposium and exhibition on strategic electronics for Defense and Aerospace. Deftronics is organised by India Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA).