Want to know why Pratap Bose, Chief Creative and Design Officer at Mahindra Global Design thinks so?
Daimler, world's largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles, had reached an understanding in December 2007 for establishment of a joint venture with Munjal family-promoted Hero group, a leading Indian business house with presence in automotive manufacturing, auto parts and services sector.
Some major contracts coming up for renewal include TCS' deals with Star Alliance, a consortium of airlines based in Germany, and Nielsen; Infosys' deals with GE Appliances and Daimler; HCLTech's with UK-based life insurer Chesnara; Wipro's with German electric utility company E.ON and Petrobras of Brazil; and Tech Mahindra's with Circle Health.
The initiative is in its early stages of discussion, with the company undertaking a basic assessment of the domestic automobile finance market. While details are yet to be worked out, the financing arm could be on the lines of services offered by the Daimler group for its clients in Europe and West Asia among others.
"We are disengaging from the joint venture, but the project (to manufacture CVs) will continue to exist and be run by Daimler. The reason for the move is the current economic slowdown and we will not like to commit such big investment in these circumstances," said Sunil Kant Munjal, chairman, Hero Corporate Services.
As per the arrangement, Aabar has agreed to take a 9.1 per cent stake in Germany's Daimler, the manufacturer of Mercedes Benz cars and the world's biggest truck maker, the companies said. Aabar is listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and directly invests in various sectors including energy, infrastructure, real estate, automotive and financial services companies.
The plant, which would be functional in 2010, would produce up to 70,000 trucks in its initial phase of operation. The company said it plans to export from the plant to markets whose product requirements are similar to those of the Indian market. The investment plan is valued at about Rs 4,500 crore (Rs 45 billion).
The company will start manufacturing commercial vehicles by 2010. The new company is aiming to achieve a localisation rate of up to 80 per cent. The production of commercial vehicle for export to other emerging markets will also be launched thereafter. The two companies signed a joint venture agreement on Monday to float a company Daimler Hero Motor Corporation, in which the German company will have 60 per cent stake and the rest with Hero.
On introduction of new technologies, Daimler manager (emission) Michael Anger said the company has introduced a diesel filter in Europe to reduce emission of harmful particles from its cars.
Tamil Nadu is leaving no stone unturned in marketing its upcoming global investors meeting on January 7 and 8. While business veterans are promoting the positives of the state's industrial climate through the 'Titans of Tamil Nadu" campaign, the state is narrating the human stories behind its robust industrial growth via the 'One Trillion Dreams' campaign. Among the industry bigwigs, who are showcasing Tamil Nadu to the world through this mega marketing initiative include Venu Srinivasan of TVS Motor Company, K M Mammen of MRF Ltd, Pratap Reddy of Apollo Hospitals, P R Venketrama Raja of Ramco Group, Mallika Srinivasan of TAFE; and Vellayan Subbiah of Murugappa Group.
While Infosys has increased the margin guidance for FY21 by 100 bps to 24-24.5 per cent, analysts believe there will pressure on near-term margins as discretionary cuts - promotions and travel, headcount addition, record utilisation, and wage hikes start to reflect on costs.
Cummins India will soon start producing fuel-agnostic engine systems at the Tata-Cummins plant in Phaltan in Satara district of Maharashtra, senior officials at Cummins India said. The firm will start limited production by the end of 2023 and mass production will likely begin by 2024, the officials said.
The luxury car maker plans to recruit 1,000 people next year; in five years, research staff had jumped from 700 to 3,500.
Tamil Nadu has cornered around 18.63 per cent of the fresh investments in Q1FY21 and topped the list of state-wise investments. These investments should help create over 67,212 jobs.
The COVID-19 case fatality rate stood at 1.44 per cent.
The highest compensation package for the Global MBA class at the S P Jain School of Management stood at Rs 43.9 lakh while that for the MGB programme was Rs 35 lakh.
Tata Motors group's investment for this fiscal is pegged at Rs 28,900 crore, mostly for its British arm Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), company chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Friday. The company will also look to raise capital separately for its electric vehicles (EV) business at an appropriate time. It is looking to have 25 per cent of its sales coming from EVs in the medium to long term, up from 2 per cent at present, he said while addressing the company's virtual AGM.
Harman, the premium global audio and infotainment group, which retails brands such as JBL, AKG and Harman-Kardon, is training Indian engineers based at its research and development centre in Bangalore to work on audio components for brands like BMW and Audi. This business contributes an estimated $600 million to the company's sales.
In 2017, when Infosys announced that Salil Parekh would be its next chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD), very few in the industry or the analyst community doubted his ability to bring the company back to a healthy growth trajectory, improve morale within the company and, more importantly, win the promoters' trust and investor confidence. There were reasons for this confidence. He was not only the deputy CEO of the Paris-headquartered IT services major Capgemini, but also one of the only non-European faces on the executive board of the company.
Bilderberg, which has been called the high priests of glabalization, is accused of running a shadowy global government.
Lakshmi Venu, granddaughter of T S Srinivasan (TVS) and A Sivasailam (The Amalgamations Group), is managing director of Sundaram Clayton Limited (SCL) and director of TAFE Motors and Tractors Limited (TMTL).
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday unveiled a Rs 39.45 lakh crore Budget with a view to fire up the key engines of the economy to sustain a world-beating recovery from the pandemic. This was Sitharaman's fourth Budget. While the taxpayers were left in the lurch, once again, was she able to cheer Corporate India?
Ratan Tata, the 71-year-old Indian industrial patriarch whose Tata group now owns Jaguar and Land Rover, had personal experience of the importance of Jaguar's "heritage"during a visit to the British company in mid-July.
The pint-sized i-Road has two front wheels that move up and down independently of each other.
A planned freeze on engine development in Formula One from 2008 will be brought forward to next year.
Barcelona are in intimidating form going into Tuesday's Champions League clash with VfB Stuttgart and the Germans are fearing the worst.
A part of Volkswagen Group, Audi currently imports its 'A4', 'A6' luxury sedans and SUV 'Q7' in India through the completely-built-unit route.
"When you see things happening to Thierry Henry with the ball like we did today, you can see it was not a good pitch at all for these kind of players."
Guenter Butschek will start his new job by Feb. 15
Clients are seen realigning their tech strategy by moving works from own captives to third-party service providers which is mostly benefiting to large companies such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro or HCL Technologies.
Formula One world championship leader Nico Rosberg's contract with the Mercedes team has shown up in the Panama Papers, leaked documents which reveal offshore financial dealings, German broadcaster ARD reported on Monday.
FMCG giant Unilever CEO Paul Polman and technology major Intel President Renee James on Tuesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a slew of global corporatehonchos continue to line up to express their intention to invest in India.
The industry said if the policy was announced, it would have taken 28 million vehicles bought before March 2005 off the road.
The alliance will extend an existing partnership between the two.
The carmaker was presenting itself as being run by technological diehards obsessed with building the world's best cars.
While Tata Elxsi will steer clear of building hardware sensors used in autonomous driving, the company is also working with large Tier-1 suppliers to co-develop sensors that will be work with its underlying software.
Mumbai is the most hard working city in the world. Mumbaikars work for an average of 3,315 hours annually. In comparison, a full-time employee in Beijing works for an average of 2,096 hours a year, says Shyamal Majumdar.
The Renault-Nissan alliance aims to have a 10 per cent share in the Indian passenger vehicles market