Latest news with #GVCs
India Gazette
10-07-2025
- Business
- India Gazette
Ongoing, past trade pacts to enhance India's participation in global value chains: Rajesh Agrawal
New Delhi [India], July 10 (ANI): Rajesh Agrawal, Special Secretary, Department of Commerce, emphasised the significance of India's ongoing and past Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations in enhancing India's participation in global value chains (GVCs). Speaking at a conference on export logistics organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in the national capital on Thursday, the special secretary asserted that identifying gaps in multimodal transportation and bringing all stakeholders together will reduce logistics costs, driving exports and growth in India's economy. In another suggestion, Agrawal mentioned that there is a need for more air cargo space, port space, rail and road space, in addition to enhancing cold chain logistics in India's agriculture sector. He also highlighted that to achieve net zero by 2027, there is a need to ensure that logistics are sustainable, with a minimum carbon footprint. For India to become the third-largest economic power, the country needs to increase its exports, and shipping and waterways will play a crucial role in enhancing these exports, said Shantanu Thakur, Minister of State for Ports, Shipping, and Waterways. The minister emphasised that equal and balanced focus on the development of each sector is crucial; priority must be given to enhancing the value of India's products to the world. Minister Thakur emphasised that reducing the turnaround time for transporting goods from one state to another is of paramount importance. The use of artificial intelligence is an imperative for the deeper development of the shipping and logistics sector. As 70 per cent of trade happens through shipping, there is a need for vast development of the shipping industry, the minister suggested. He also mentioned the need for improved communication to establish a robust connectivity infrastructure, spanning from the northeast region to the northwest part of India, encompassing both first-mile and last-mile connections. During the logistics-focused event, Vijay Kumar, Chairman, Inland Waterways Authority, deliberated on India's transformative journey and the role of Inland Waterways in actualising India's ambitious goal of achieving USD 2 trillion in exports by 2030, and net zero emission target by 2070. 'If the cost of logistics has to be brought down to single digits, we have to meet the twin goals of economy and sustainability, then inland waterways transport is the solution,' Vijay Kumar further added. Vijay Kumar also highlighted crucial steps taken by the government to address major industry issues, including water availability and draft variability, emphasising the importance of multimodal connectivity and cargo aggregation hubs in reducing first-mile and last-mile costs. B Thiagarajan, Chairman, CII Trade Fairs Council and CII National Committee on CSR and Managing Director, Blue Star Limited outlined that to boost exports, industry must embrace technology and automation and encourage shift from road to rail and waterways. He advocated for investment in green warehousing, energy-efficient flight systems, and fostering collaborative platforms between manufacturers, logistics providers, and government authorities. (ANI)
Hans India
10-07-2025
- Business
- Hans India
Shipping and waterways sector will play a key role in boosting exports: Minister
New Delhi: Shipping and waterways will play a vital role in enhancing India's exports as the country is headed to become the third largest economic power, Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Shantanu Thakur, said on Thursday. Addressing a conference on exports logistics organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, the minister emphasised that equal and balanced focus on development of each sector is crucial. Thakur highlighted that reduction of the turnaround time of ships in the transportation of goods is of paramount importance. 'As 70 per cent of trade happens through shipping, there is a need for vast development of the shipping industry, ' Thakur pointed out. He also said that the use of artificial intelligence is an imperative for deeper development of the shipping and logistics sector. The minister mentioned the need for improved communication to establish a robust connectivity infrastructure, spanning from the Northeast region to the Northwest part of India, encompassing both first mile and last-mile connections. Speaking at the conference, Rajesh Agrawal, Special Secretary, Department of Commerce, highlighted three important factors in India's logistics journey. First, the container revolution played an important role in enhancing the role of Global Value Chains (GVC). He further emphasised the significance of India's ongoing and past free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations in enhancing India's participation in GVCs, adding that identification of gaps in multimodal transportation and bringing all stakeholders together will bring down the logistics cost, driving exports and growth in India's economy. Secondly, Agrawal mentioned that there is a need for more air cargo space, port space, rail and road space, in addition to enhancing cold chain logistics in India's agriculture sector. He further highlighted that to achieve Net Zero by 2027, there is a need to see that the logistics journey that India embarks upon is sustainable, with minimum carbon footprint. Vijay Kumar, Chairman, Inland Waterways Authority, deliberated on India's transformative journey and the role of Inland Waterways in actualising India's ambitious goal of achieving $2 trillion in exports by 2030, and net zero emission target by 2070. 'If the cost of logistics has to be brought down to single digit, we have to meet the twin goals of economy and sustainability, then inland waterways transport is the solution,' he added. Kumar also discussed the crucial steps taken by the government to address major industry issues including water availability and draft variability, highlighting the importance of multimodal connectivity and cargo aggregation hubs to bring down first mile and last mile costs.
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Business Standard
25-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Plurilateral agreements may help keep WTO relevant into the future
A large number of developing economies have been benefitted, through their participation in FTAs, and increased their integration with GVCs and their share of global trade Amita Batra Listen to This Article Earlier this month Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), in her lecture at the London School of Economics, emphasised the need to speak up for the multilateral institution, particularly when the dominant funding economy has chosen to suppress its voice and relevance. Her statement augurs well for the WTO, which stands at a crossroads in terms of its fundamental processes and the objective of promoting freer and fairer trade. While there has been much talk about the United States blocking appointments to the Appellate Body of the Dispute Settlement Mechanism, the decline of the institution, in
Time of India
06-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
'It's no longer a cost thing': GCCs shift from support units to strategic value creators
Once viewed as peripheral back offices or outsourcing outposts, India's Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are undergoing an identity shift. Today, they are emerging as strategic nerve centres—driving product innovation, global go-to-market capabilities, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) breakthroughs across industries. Take the instance of Bosch Global Software Technologies, a global digital engineering company, where the journey of GCCs spans a 30-year transformation into a global AI-led business unit. Meanwhile, Rakuten, a global financial group based in Tokyo, suggests renaming GCCs as Global Value Centres (GVCs), a shift that indicates the growing strategic and innovation-led value these centres contribute beyond cost efficiency. In their increasing role as R&D powerhouses, GCCs are not just applying AI but leading innovations across healthcare, real estate, mobility, and hardware. At Bosch, GCCs are steering the company's generative (Gen) AI roadmap, with GenAI frameworks helping enhance code libraries. In a similar vein, at Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (JLL), the global real estate conglomerate is focusing its internal hackathons on agentic AI. Meanwhile, Qualcomm, a global chip manufacturing giant, designs AI-enabled chipsets for next-gen vehicles, even as Philips Innovation Campus leverages AI to reduce MRI scan time by 50%. These signals of transformation were discussed at the final round of Bosch Conversations roundtable titled 'GCCs as Engines of Strategic Innovation: Creating Global Centers of Excellence'. Held on May 22 at the Hilton Embassy Bengaluru, industry leaders came together to chart the evolution of India's GCCs from cost centres to engines of strategic value. Live Events Against the backdrop of a sector poised to reach USD 105 billion and employ over 2.8 million people by 2030 , as projected by Union Labour Secretary Sumita Dawra earlier this year, the discussion delved into how GCCs are now pivotal to global product innovation, AI-led transformation, and go-to-market acceleration. The speakers included Ramaprasad Subramaniam, Vice President & GCC Lead, Qualcomm; Arvind Vaishnav, Head of Philips Innovation Campus, Philips; Pawan Sachdeva, Managing Director - Digital and Health Services Platform, Carelon Global Solutions; Manish Mittal, Director, GBS Corporate Shared Services, Novozymes (a Novonesis company); Pratik Nath, Managing Director, Epsilon India; Ashokkumar Jayakumar, CIO, JLL; Subbu Swaminathan, Senior Vice President – Product & Engineering, Rakuten; Soumitra Saha, MD and Country Head, Lumen India; and, Ramesh Ramaswamy, Head - Transformation, Bosch Software and Digital Solutions. Driving the AI-led shift One of the clearest illustrations of this multi-decade journey came from Ramesh Ramaswamy, Head of Transformation at Bosch Software and Digital Solutions. Reflecting on Bosch's early entry into the GCC space, he said, ' 'We began our GCC journey long before the term even existed—over 25-27 years back,' he recalled. 'For us, a GCC is not only about delivering for the headquarters, it is also about being close to the end markets enabling us to deliver high-value, relevant outcomes to the parent organization.' Ramaswamy traced the evolution of Bosch's GCC footprint across India, Vietnam, Mexico, and Poland—driven not just by access to talent, but by proximity to customer ecosystems. He emphasized how Bosch GCCs have matured from delivery units into true innovation hubs—creating new products and even monetizing them independently. Moving up the value chain: From innovation to execution This theme of end-to-end innovation was echoed by Arvind Vaishnav, Head of Philips Innovation Campus, who reinforced that India is no longer just executing ideas but generating them, particularly in healthtech. He pointed to Philips' SmartSpeed solution as a breakthrough in AI-led clinical outcomes. Speaking about the interventions that could make Indian healthcare robust, from predictive diagnostics to faster scans, the speaker highlighted the need for a broader mindset shift: 'Everyone is identifying these real-world pain points and striving to move up the value chain. True value is created only when you're solving meaningful problems—not just building for the sake of it.' He added that it's no longer enough to just deliver hardware or standalone products. 'The real differentiation comes from combining robust software with innovative thinking to create solutions that truly improve patient experience and clinical outcomes. That's how India can lead—not just in innovation, but in execution that has a global impact.' Solving real-world problems at scale Throughout the conversation, a common refrain was the deep customer orientation and problem-solving mindset. Philips stressed co-creation with clinicians; JLL builds tools that help brokers make decisions 'in front of the client'; Rakuten developed India-born products now used across Asia. For Ashokkumar Jayakumar, CIO at JLL, India's GCCs have become indispensable to the firm's digital-first real estate strategy. The Bengaluru centre, now 1,000-strong, leads key products such as Azara and enables real-time decision tools for brokers and clients. 'We want to give the best tech tools to [our brokers]—so building CRM systems or any apps that they can use to show in front of the clients... we enable tools so our clients can make informed decisions.' Jayakumar underscored how sustainability imperatives are shaping product development from India. 'Each and all your companies have sustainability goals, so we help our clients with that... we come up with tools and tech to see how we can reduce and help our clients get their goals.' He also pointed to India's growing influence in ideation: 'We run hackathons... (the) majority of the participation comes from our GCC... This year, actually, we are running a hackathon on agentic AI… exciting times.' Pawan Sachdeva, Managing Director - Digital and Health Services Platform, Carelon Global Solutions, highlighted how GCCs are evolving beyond cost arbitrage to become strategic platforms delivering tangible value in healthcare innovation. That said, Sachdeva cautioned against technology obsession over consumer experience. He shared a real-life example from within Carelon Global Solutions to demonstrate this. 'It wasn't some rocket science or major tech breakthrough. It was something very simple—my team began systematically reviewing user feedback on the app stores. If a single, small issue was responsible for multiple negative reviews, we fixed it. Then we proactively responded to the users to let them know their feedback had been addressed. This led to overwhelmingly positive responses,' Sachdeva illustrated. India as the nerve centre: From innovation hubs to global deployment Pratik Nath, Managing Director of Epsilon India, seconded Sachdeva's opinion, reinforcing the view that India's GCCs have evolved far beyond cost centres to become core engines of AI and martech innovation. Nearly half of Epsilon's engineering talent is based in India, Nath noted, leading global initiatives in predictive modelling, personalised marketing at scale, and campaign automation using generative AI. He urged a shift from legacy maturity models to outcome-led global leadership from day one. 'What's fascinating is the sheer scale and continuity of model evolution. Just in the time we've been speaking, over two billion model updates have happened globally. And many aren't shiny GenAI models—they're older, embedded systems like risk and recommendation engines, some dating back to the '90s. Innovation isn't about replacing them, but layering new capabilities like GenAI on top of what already works.' 'GCCs are often seen primarily as tech hubs, but they're just as capable of delivering high-quality customer experiences—even from thousands of miles away from the headquarters,' stressed Soumitra Saha, MD and Country Head, Lumen India. From being a traditional telco, Lumen is transitioning into a digital-first, AI-powered company—with India at the forefront of this shift, proactively piloting GenAI initiatives. 'A key success factor for GCCs over the next decade will be their ability to drive innovation in products, services, and experiences directly from India. But to do this effectively, they must combine deep domain expertise with strong business understanding.' From Rakuten's observability tech launched in India and scaled to Southeast Asia, to Qualcomm's India-led chipset design for global devices, to Philips' India-developed FDA filings—the narrative is clear: India is not just a talent pool, it's a launchpad. Subbu Swaminathan of Rakuten India offered a compelling reframe: from Global Capability Centres to Global Value Centres (GVCs). Over the past decade, Rakuten's Bengaluru-based hub has evolved from a conventional outsourcing unit to a launchpad for in-house product innovation. 'Started as… (an) outsourcing centre, but now, leading the innovation from India to Japan and other markets.' Swaminathan cited an in-house observability solution built in India and now scaled to multiple clients across Southeast Asia. 'We saw a need... So we entered and built our own observability solution and piloted at scale… launched the business from India.' For Rakuten, the GCC model is now about strategic alignment and business contribution. 'It's no longer a cost thing. It's about: how can you strategically look at the parent organization, and how can you increase the business contribution from India?' Closing the loop, Ramaprasad Subramaniam, Vice President & GCC Lead at Qualcomm, reflected on how India has moved from the periphery to the core of Qualcomm's global chip design strategy. Over two decades, the India GCC has grown from a cost arbitrage base to a full-stack innovation engine powering next-gen chipsets across smartphones, IoT, computing, and automotive use cases. He highlighted Qualcomm India's role in designing solutions for leading domestic brands such as Mahindra and Tata, and underlined that India now contributes to ARM-based laptop alternatives and future-forward chip architectures. As GCCs scale their ambitions, they are also expanding geographically to tap into India's broader talent base. Vaishnav noted that at Philips, there is a growing importance of building Tier-II/III ecosystems to avoid 'concentration risks' and tap into untapped talent. Similarly, Subramaniam affirmed Qualcomm's commitment to capability building across India, reinforcing the idea that GCCs are investing in geographic resilience. Responding to a discussion on how organisations perceive and position their GCCs, Manish Mittal, Director of GBS Corporate Shared Services at Novozymes (now part of Novonesis), explained that at this global bio-solutions leader, the India centre is not treated as a separate, siloed support unit, but as a fully embedded strategic extension of the global organisation. He emphasised that location is irrelevant when capabilities are core and integrated into enterprise decision-making. 'We are very integrated. We don't call ourselves a GCC… The core is strategic. It's not like 'this is India'—it's just, this is it. We are another function.' For more such critical insights on the future of GCCs and how GCCs are generating new revenue streams, not just supporting existing ones, watch the conversation here. 'It's no longer a cost thing': GCCs shift from support units to strategic value creators | Discussion Watch the full conversation here Bosch Conversations is a global, by-invite flagship series that brings together thought leaders. Hosted by Bosch Software and Digital Solutions , it focuses on digital disruptions and leadership in the context of market needs and industry challenges. Economic Times WhatsApp channel )
Time of India
09-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Trade pact with UK to boost India's electronics exports: ICEA
NEW DELHI: The recently signed UK-India free-trade agreement (FTA) will boost the opportunities for homegrown electronics industry to have a major share in the UK's electronics imports, the India Cellular and Electronics Association ( ICEA ) said on Friday. 'Today, the UK imports $76 billion of electronics goods from various geographies and a mere $2 billion from India. This FTA will facilitate export opportunities for Indian electronics industry to have a major share of the UK's electronics imports, helping India move swiftly towards its electronics export target of $180–200 billion by 2031,' Pankaj Mohindroo, chairman of ICEA, said in a statement. The pact, signed on May 6, 2025, between the two major economies, will positively impact manufacturing across labour and technology-intensive sectors and will open up export opportunities for sectors such as auto parts, organic chemicals, goods and toys, smartphones, and optical fibre cables, among others. 'This will substantially improve Indian goods competitiveness in the UK vis-a-vis other countries,' the Central government said in a statement recently. The ICEA, in turn, said that the FTA will shape the future of the Indian electronics manufacturing sector and partnerships with global value chains (GVCs). The agreement is set to double bilateral trade from $60 billion to $120 billion by 2030, with India's exports gaining unprecedented market access in the UK, according to the industry association. The agreement eliminates tariffs on 99% of Indian exports, expanding special access to domestically manufactured electronics, engineering goods, auto components, IT services, and more. 'The FTA eases the employment opportunities for Indian professionals, including contractual service suppliers, business visitors, intra-corporate transferees and dependent children of intra-corporate transferees with right to work,' ICEA said.
