The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Adding oomph to auto industry

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 26, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Adding oomph to auto industry

Special Correspondent

BRAINSTORMING: Pawan Goenka (left), Gopal Srinivasan (centre) and Roland Hass at the panel discussion in Chennai on Tuesday. — Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

CHENNAI: How do you make the auto industry as glamorous and as attractive as the software industry?

Pawan Goenka, president, Mahindra and Mahindra, has a "very simple" solution: "Forty-hour week, ESOPS [employee stock options], air-conditioned work environment and foreign assignments."

On a more serious note, he says: "I think we have reached a point where the automotive industry is as, if not more, glamorous for young professionals. What was missing... five to ten years ago was innovation and the kind of development that happened in both two-wheeler and four-wheeler industry in the past five years. I think the young students are looking forward to a career in the automotive industry."

Mr. Goenka was answering questions at a panel discussion on `The next major opportunity/challenge in the automotive industry - Indian perspective,' on the concluding day of the International Mobility Engineering Congress and Exposition 2005 here.

He said a career in the automotive industry presented great challenges and there was a lot of satisfaction in completing a project and seeing one's product on the road.

"It used to be that auto industry did not pay as much as the IT industry. But I think — if our HR department's survey is right — we are paying almost as much as the IT industry. Therefore, that is not the concern. Used to be that foreign assignments were an attraction in the IT industry. Now there are very few foreign assignments... So, I don't think there is a big difference," he said.

He went on to add: "I'm in a minority on this, but I do not think there is any big difference in glamour between the auto industry and the IT industry."

The difference

But there was one significant difference. "The time it takes for an IT professional to become full-blown — `if I can use that word' — may be only one or two years. Whereas in the auto industry it will take a young professional several years before he becomes a good designer. May be even a lifetime before he learns the art of vehicle integration," Mr. Goenka said.

V. Sumantran, director and Member of the Board, SAE International, said the auto industry was tremendously interesting. "This industry can be as interesting and as creative as anybody can make it to be... We have the opportunity to make this a heck of a more glamorous than any software industry. It's up to our imagination," he added.

Key points

"It is really in the hands of the industry to make it attractive and retain talent," said N. Venkataramani, Managing Director, India Pistons. "Good HR practices, more publicity about the challenges in the automobile industry and definitely compensation packages. I think all these will help," he added.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu