Protagonist of a continuous constant growth, the prosperous Asian Country climbs positions in the global economy. A market opportunity seized by Sabaf Group with the establishment of Sabaf India premises in the outskirts of Bangalore.
Investments in the public spending, farsighted economic policies and targeted free trade agreements are allowing India to grow even in the current difficult global scenario. On the other hand, not a long time has gone by since Bloomberg’s announcement that recalled how, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the independence, which took place on August 15th 1947, the former colony even surpassed the United Kingdom by growth and GDP, rising to the fifth place among world economies.
Trends that certainly a global reality such as Sabaf Group, always ready to intercept new market opportunities, has not missed. The renowned world manufacturer of household appliance components has in fact provided for establishing a branch in India promptly. «India ranks among the most steeply rising economies in the world», confirms Steven Monkton, Regional Sales Manager of Sabaf Group, who adds: «despite global recessive pressures, the Country maintains the 6.5% growth rate, mainly driven by the development of its domestic market».
What is the “secret” of the large populous Asian nation? «India has already been facing for some years an important course of reforms in several ambits, from the digitalization to the trade facilitation. Moreover, the Government has launched a series of industrial plans aimed at filling the Country’s energy and infrastructural deficit (120 billion USD, that is to say +33% versus the previous year), which are attracting investments in many areas, sharing in the fast transformation of its economy and speeding up the transition from traders to manufacturers».
Tradition and innovation, as well as history and cultural connections, have created together what might be defined India’s original winning mix, which supports the impetuous present growth of the big Asian Country. «The first datum that catches the eye certainly concerns its constantly growing population and, therefore, the size market and the demand rise. The other reassuring distinctive element is certainly the stable democratic Government form that, together with an advanced legislative system of Anglo-Saxon derivation and an energy policy that favours the gas use in the kitchen, make the Country a mandatory goal for Sabaf. Other two important elements should not be neglected, the availability of skilled human resources and a culture more strictly approaching the European one than other Asian giants’. Already today, among EU Countries, Italy is the third commercial partner of India».
Union is strength
Today Sabaf India holds a very precise role within Sabaf Group’s global strategies, bringing its own specific added value. «Sabaf’s industrial plan provides for two growth and development lines», Monkton highlights. «One by external lines, through M&A operations, and the other by internal lines, through investment projects like the one undertaken by Sabaf India Private Limited. The manufacturing plant is organized to produce taps and burners essentially intended for the domestic market, but we do not exclude the export, of both finished products and of semi-finished components to supply other factories of the Group».
Sabaf India’s core activities, as well as the competences deployed, become then essential instruments for the harmonic growth of the whole Group, which moves on the market as a single orchestra, finding its strong point in the complementary diversity of its elements. «Sabaf Group is structured in four primary divisions: Gas Components, Hinges for Household Appliances, Electronics and Induction Cooking. Sabaf India is framed in the first division, whose appurtenance sector is precision engineering. The manufacturing process in Sabaf India is oriented to lean manufacturing principles and it is perfectly integrated and harmonized with the one of the other factories of the Group, under the attentive supervision of Ospitaletto head office, which provides assistance, training and support in each process phase».
The beginning of a great adventure
To understand fully the value of Sabaf India in the Group’s general economy, Monkton explains the details of structures, of the organization and of human resources who daily enliven the factory. «Sabaf India relies on a forefront manufacturing plant, on a team of expert engineers and on an integrated research and development laboratory that acts as a meeting point among our new and future developments and market requirements. Our structure is located in the outskirts of Bangalore, an excellence centre renowned on a global scale as a vibrant technological incubator, where countless hi-tech multinationals, also in the household appliance industry, have already been present for a long time and have made huge investments, and where competences and talents are not missing. Sabaf’s business culture has always promoted inclusion as founding value: in our employment policy, female figures play a central role».
Concerning productions, Sabaf India grants its contribution to the Group in particular in some solutions, essentially according to two product lines. «The Indian manufacturing site produces and assembles the gas control taps, certified to comply with all major standards of international quality and safety; burners belong, instead, to a product family specifically designed taking into account the characteristics and the peculiarities of the Indian cooking and of the use by final customers».
Certainly, challenges are not missing for Sabaf Group in the management of a branch in India; however, the multinational knows how to face and to overcome them. «With the strength of the community of the numerous talents and with our Group’s expertise, with the abnegation spirit of a winning team, with the broadmindedness that allows a change of perspective and with the humility and the will of learning from new contexts. In one word: adaptation, the only possible way to evolve».
Precisely for this reason, when the issue are business and market goals, prospects can be only rosy for Sabaf India, due to the matching of Sabaf Group’s competences and the typical characteristics of the Indian economy. «We do not fix any limit to expansion and growth, we are just at the beginning of a great adventure in the most promising market of the next decades», ends in fact Monkton.
