MSMEs in dialogue with Southeast Asian companies

Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) from India’s space and satellite sector are set to internationalize their sub-system manufacturing expertise through joint ventures with global manufacturers.

“Indian industry is in dialogue with not only Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to cater the burgeoning domestic demand but also original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) as suppliers to their global supply chain,” said Col. H S Shankar, chairman and managing director of Alpha Design Technologies Pvt Ltd.

Having worked as ISRO subcontractors and vendors, the Indian industry partners, primarily MSMEs, have migrated from being supply chain vendors to assembly, integration & design (AIT) which opens up immense market opportunity.

This also leaves ISRO to its core capabilities of design, development and research, he said.

“The Indian MSMEs are in a position to build a complete satellite and launch it. This gives ISRO and the global space industry confidence in our capacity,” stressed Dr Subba Rao Pavuluri, chairman and managing director of Ananth Technologies Ltd.

“We are also expanding our eco-system by including Indian start-ups working on space technologies,” Dr Rao added.

Both Col. Shankar and Dr Rao are part of the nine-member industry delegation at the two-day Global Space and Technology Convention (GSTC) being held 1-2 Feb 2018 in Singapore.

Ananth Technologies and Alpha Design are main subcontractors and vendors to ISRO.

The two companies have capacity to design, build and test satellites.

ISRO along with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Singapore Space Technology Association since last November (2017) for mutual support of the space industry initiatives in the two countries.

The Indian MSMEs, along with their heavyweight peer groups, have forged alliances between the Indian public and private sectors with the Indian state-owned space engineering companies, which gives them advantage of venturing into international projects, industry observers said.

ISRO has been handholding some of these MSMEs and providing training for their engineers as part of government initiatives for small enterprises and start-ups.

Supporting these broad plans of going global, FICCI, as an industry body, will follow up with another space industry delegation visits to Southeast Asian companies and institutes working on satellites, according to Lt. Col. Ratan Shrivastava, Honorary Advisor to FICCI’s Space Division.

GSTC, attended for the first time by the Indian delegation as a global platform, comes just about three months after FICCI and ISRO held a seminar on “Indian Space Program: Trends and Opportunities for Industry” on 20-21 Nov 2017 in New Delhi. fii-news.com