- Evaluate India's infrastructure in two "buckets." One is moving bits and bytes - telecommunications, fiber optics and satellites. The second is movement of physical goods.
- In October 2014, an India Development Update by the World Bank estimated that "simply halving delays due to road blocks, tolls and other stoppages" could cut freight time by 20 percent to 30 percent and logistics by 30 percent to 40 percent.
- In its follow-up report six months later, the Update notes that the government's efforts to boost private investment "will be crucial to bridge the yawning infrastructure deficit and support the favorable growth outlook."
- The World Bank's real GDP growth outlook for India is 7.5 percent this year, 7.9 percent in 2016 and 8 percent in 2017. It also says India is on course to overtake China to claim the position as the world's fastest-growing large economy in the next two years.
- India is expected to rank among the world's top three growth economies and among the top three manufacturing destinations by 2020.
- Make in India's website www.makeinindia.com has a "Policies" section which details new processes and policies in areas such as foreign direct investment, intellectual property and national manufacturing.
- India is ranked fifth for number of CPSMs, and is expected to soon overtake Canada. Increased manufacturing means supply management practitioners will need high-level skills to collaborate across the value chain to remain competitive in their industry sectors.
- The government launched a National Multi-Skills Mission, focused on vocational skills training to meet the needs of manufacturing employees. It is estimated that 2.3 percent of India's workforce has formal skills training, compared to 52 percent in the United States and 96 percent in South Korea.
- India is one of the largest importers of defense armaments. Defense manufacturing was a state-owned enterprise in India, but the government recently opened the industry to the private sector.
- The consumer electronics sector, and specifically the smart phone segment, is expected to grow as companies continue to tap into India's large marketplace. India is the third largest smart phone market place is expected to become second largest by 2017.
- The global car manufacturers have been ramping up investments in India to cater to growing domestic demand. The manufacturers also plan to leverage India's competitive advantage to set up export-oriented production hubs. Unlike China which restricts the equity stake of foreign car companies to a maximum of 50%, there is no such restrictions in India.
- India ranks 142nd out of 189 countries in the World Bank Group's Doing Business rankings, which measures the ease of doing business around the world. This will need to improve for India to achieve its goals. However, a well-established legal, judicial and administrative system exists to manage intellectual property protection and contract issues.
Source: Siegfried, M. 2015. India Rolls Out the Red Carpet. Inside Supply Management, November/December, 16-20.