SME sector: Opportunities and challenges in Chennai

SME sectors are exposed to greater opportunities in India. The Indian market is growing rapidly and Indian entrepreneurs are making better progress than ever.

Chennai, popularly known as the Detroit of Asia, is the base of 30% of the automotive sector of the country and 40% of the auto components. In addition, Chennai has a cast pool of engineering colleges, polytechnics and a very highly qualified entrepreneurial base and a port to boot. Can the auto and engineering cluster of Chennai become a global manufacturing hub? An illustrious panel including, Sanjiv Mantri, GM, ICICI Bank, KS Jayraman, CEO and director technical, Autotech Industries, Kumar Kandaswami, senior director, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, India, Dr P K Ananthanarayanan, HoD, Mechanical and Automation Engineering Amity University, Ajay Kumar Bishnoi, chairman and MD, Techpro Systems, discuss the opportunities available to the SMEs and the challenges they face in Chennai. Below is a verbatim transcript. Also watch the accompanying videos. Q: You have seen a steep scaling from a small company to a very large company now. You have seen it all, you have seen the engineering section, and you have seen the automotive department. What are the factors in Chennai that have led to this huge growth of Chennai as a prospective automotive and engineering cluster becoming a global manufacturing hub? Bishnoi: We have been in business from 2002 and mainly we have been in Chennai. There are some factors which have proved to be very useful for us and which has helped us to grow to be where we are today. Chennai offers a very dedicated and skilled pool of people. In any industry, especially in an industry like ours, which is engineering oriented, it