’Our experience in India over the past 20 years has been quite phenomenal’
Why is India an important destination for Sigma-Aldrich?
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| Sunil Punjabi |
India is a key destination for all global companies like Sigma Aldrich. Being one of the fastest growing economies in the world, the country’s R&D and manufacturing activities are significantly expanding to cater to both local and global requirements. This provides opportunities for us to support and make both our customers and us successful through expanding our footprints in India. In addition, we are leveraging India’s advantage by providing support to our global operations through our shared services centre in Bangalore. The talent pool available in India is another key reason for high importance of India as an important destination for Sigma Aldrich.
Tell us about your business interests in India.
We actively promote our corporate flagship product line under brands Sigma (Life science), Aldrich (Chemistry), Fluka & Supelco (Analytical), SAFC (manufacturing customers in life science and hi-tech industry) to our customers in research, applied and commercial markets.
India has an enormous potential and we have a robust plan to continue our focus in India on small scale manufacturing, R&D, packaging and distribution. In addition, we will actively seek opportunities in expansion of channel distribution of scientific products and solutions which includes our recent agreements for distribution with Corning Axygen, GE Whatman and in the past with Corning Life Science. We also have global shared services centre in India to support operations globally within Sigma Aldrich to achieve operational excellence.
What is the size of these markets and what percentage is served by Sigma-Aldrich?
We believe the market size is around $ 400-500 million in the space we operate and we are a significant player in the market.
Sigma-Aldrich has been in India for 20 years, how has the experience been?
Our experience in India over the past 20 years has been quite phenomenal. We are very pleased with it. From a modest liaison and branch office status in 1992-94, we expanded our operations through our Customs bonded warehouse in 1999 to support our customers pan-India. We added oligonucleotide manufacturing facility in 2004 and moved to our own 10 acre sprawling campus in 2006 which houses manufacturing, R&D, packaging and distribution facilities. In addition, we have our global shared services operations working out of a dedicated facility in Bangalore to support our global operations.
How has the Indian market evolved in the past 20 years?
Prior to 1992, most of the R&D work was carried out in government-funded research institutions and universities. However, with economic liberalisation in 1991, there has been accelerated expansion of R&D labs in both private and public sectors. Manufacturing sector grew at a significant rate over the last two decades to support both local and global requirements. This further helped expansion of R&D to support it. More and more global companies have expanded their R&D and manufacturing units in India in last two decades. The globalisation of Indian R&D and manufacturing market has helped in making it more competitive and achieve operational excellence to remain relevant in this challenging global environment. Sigma Aldrich caters to customers in both R&D and manufacturing; it has evolved itself to support changes in both these sectors by bringing both global and local solutions to support its customer base. Companies in our space have had to come up with innovative solutions like customs bonded warehouse etc. to provide for the dynamic requirements of its customers. Sigma Aldrich has been pioneer in bringing solutions to market to remain always ahead in the curve to support its customer needs.
What are the new trends in this market?
The key trend we see in the market is about focus on competencies rather than cost. Market opportunities and development of product to meet local needs is the buzz word rather than just localising the existing product. Customer desires and needs are the drivers for research and development and manufacturing rather than government incentives. The focus has moved to catering for both local and global requirements to sustain and grow business.
Tell us about your expansion plans in India.
We have,over the last few years, expanded our warehouse, global shared service centre and services and capabilities in our small scale manufacturing set up in Bangalore. We will further evaluate expansion and scale up of our manufacturing activity in India to support our local and global customers. We will continue to enhance the capabilities and scaling of our global shared services over the years to support our global operations.
What is the staff strength of Sigma-Aldrich in India? Would you be hiring new talent?
Currently, we have more than 325 staff members in India and expect to increase the headcount to more than 500 in the next few years.
Which new products would you be launching in future?
Our focus is going to be more customer-centric and our offerings to be launched in the future will be aligned to customers in research, applied and SAFC commercial segments like life science and Hi-tech. We are working on a robust product pipeline in analytical and life science range to bring to market over next few years. We have also launched the Vetec Brand Lab Essential range of product line to offer value and reliability. We will be expanding this range over the next few years to cater to the requirement of scientists for their everyday research use.
What is Sigma-Aldrich’s focus for future?
Sigma Aldrich’s focus will continue on driving innovation and expanding into new markets by leveraging our core scientific strengths: analytical chemistry, biology and chemistry-materials science. Our initiatives will enhance our position in the areas we know best for our customers in research, applied and commercial markets.
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