Chennai Projects Update thread - III

[murlee]

KONE to set up second manufacturing facility

Finnish elevator and escalator maker KONE is setting up its second manufacturing facility near here, to increase its market share, according to a top company official.

"We have bought the land as part of our expansion plans. It (the plant) is in planning stage. We are going to make a modern factory..." KONE Elevator India Managing Director Neeraj Sharma said.

The plant, to come up at the SIPCOT Industrial Park near Sriperumbudur would be spread across 18.5 acre, he said and added the capacity of plant would be 'doubled'.

KONE Elevator India, a subsidiary of KONE Corporation, has its first manufacturing unit at Ayanambakkam which is spread across 8.8 acre.

The company has over 20% market share in the elevator market, which is around 40,000 units per year, Sharma said.

Declining to reveal the investment figures for the proposed plant, he said it will commence operations by 2015.

The company has over 3,000 employees besides the R&D unit employing about 900 engineers, he said.

He added that with the setting up of new manufacturing unit, they are hoping to increase the market share. "Yes, we hope to increase it. That is our aim...", he said.

The plant, besides serving the local market would also look for export opportunities, as it would become KONE's one of the biggest manufacturing units in the world, KONE Corporation Executive Vice-President (Asia Pacific and West Asia) Noud Veeger said.

"We believe the (Indian)market will grow in excess of 10%...", he said.

KONE Corporation has six manufacturing facilities across globe and their India operation ranks among the top five, he said.

The company officials were here to unveil the new range elevators which they claim would be 60% energy efficient.

He said they would focus on three principles -- better eco-efficient, better rider-comfort, better design.

http://business-standard.com/india/n...lity/177734/on

[Raji7373]

Direct selling fast moving consumer goods company Amway India has finalised Sanand in Gujarat to set up its first company-owned manufacturing plant in the country, state government sources here confirmed. The investment would be to the tune of Rs 400 crore.

At present, Amway India has a vendor plant in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh. The company had recently tripled the production capacity at the contract manufacturing plant at Baddi by adding four new production lines. The US-headquartered FMCG company had earlier zeroed in on Tamil Nadu and Gujarat to set up its first manufacturing plant and has finally chosen Gujarat over the southern state.
Achinta Banerjie, vice-president (west region), did not wish to comment on the location of the upcoming plant. Sources in the state industries department, however, confirmed the development and said the company had earlier sought for land from the Gujarat government, but things did not fall in place then.

"They had asked for 30-40 acres at the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) cluster at Sanand last year, and land was allotted accordingly. However, the company failed to make payment on the last day, owing to some pending clearance from their headquarter,” said the official.

Following this, the company had asked for an extension from the GIDC, which was granted. "Amway, indeed, is coming up with a plant at Sanand now. Everything has been finalised,” the source added. The company is likely to invest Rs 40 crore for 35 acres of land.

Amway has clocked a growth rate of 27 per cent in Gujarat at Rs 85 crore in 2011 (the company follows a January to December financial year). This is better than its national growth rate. It touched a turnover of Rs 2,130 crore in 2011, up 19 per cent from Rs 1,790 crore in 2010.

"In Gujarat, we have recently opened operations in Anand, Valsad and Godhra. A Brand Center was instituted at the Surat office in the end of 2011. Gujarat has close to 50,000 active Amway business owners,” said Banerjie.

Commenting on the production capacity of the upcoming plant, Banerjie said it would be aligned to meet the company's growth strategy for the next 10 years. The company plans to touch a revenue of Rs 2,500 crore during the current financial year.

At present, 60 per cent of the company's business in India comes from the sales of its flagship brand, Nutrilite

http://www.business-standard.com/ind...-india/479733/

[murlee]

Alcatel R&D centre files 75 patents

In the last six years, the research and development centre of Alcatel-Lucent in Chennai has filed nearly 75 patents on various technologies. This is nearly half of the total patents filed by the company out of India, according to a senior company official. For the French company, Chennai currently has global R&D ownership in major product lines, including fixed access element management system, said Mr Munish Seth, President and Managing Director, India Regional Unit, Alcatel-Lucent India Ltd. India is a major hub for Alcatel-Lucent’s global R&D ecosystem.

The India centre has over 3,000 engineers and scientists located in four locations – Chennai, Gurgaon, Noida and Bangalore - he told newspersons at its new location in the city. The company has consolidated all of its centres in Chennai. It has moved to a new 60,000 sq ft central location on the Old Mahabalipuram Road. This centre was inaugurated by Mr Sachin Pilot, Union Minister of State, Communications and Information Technology. The centre has a capacity to accommodate up to 1,000 engineers while the current capacity is around 800.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/...ue&ref=wl_home

[murlee]

“We have five R&D centres in Asia-Pacific of which the biggest is in Chennai (Chrysler India Automotive) with over 1,200 engineers. The second is in Ranjangaon near Pune which employs 35 engineers. These people are the most important group in the Fiat world,” Mr Atanasio says.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/...cle3621226.ece

[saysenthil]

Originally Posted by murlee

Alcatel R&D centre files 75 patents
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/...ue&ref=wl_home

Alcatel Lucent opens new R&D facility in Chennai

Network equipment and services provider Alcatel Lucent on Monday announced the opening of its new research facility in Chennai. The company will consolidate all research operations into the new location, which were hitherto spread across facilities in the city.

The 60,000-sqft facility is designed to house around 1,000 people. It currently has 800 engineers and researchers there. "Hiring of new professionals will depend on projects and market demand," said Munish Seth, president and managing director of Alcatel's India regional unit. He declined to reveal financial details.

The company has about 13,000 employees in India, of which 3,500 are engaged in R&D services. It has centres in Bangalore, Chennai, Noida and Gurgaon. The Chennai R&D operations accounted for 75 of the 150 patents the Indian operations filed in the past six years.

[murlee]

PricewaterhouseCoopers's new office to provide advisory, tax, regulatory services

Strengthening its presence in the country, research firm PricewaterhouseCoopers today inaugurated its new office here to provide advisory, tax and regulatory services.

"As one of the fastest growing firms within the PwC global network, we are increasingly focused on providing professional services to both multinational as well as local companies. Expanding our Chennai office is a well timed move for us", PricewaterhouseCoopers India Chairman Deepak Kapoor said.

The company, as part of expansion plans, has also ramped up its employee base by 24 per cent at the Chennai Centre that would meet the growing demand for various sectors.

Stating that Tamil Nadu has over $ 8 billion of foreign direct investments and over 50 public-private partnership projects, Kapoor said in a statement that PwC aims to work closely with clients in the state in sectors like automobile, auto-components, electronic hardware, textiles and other sectors to meet business demand.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has a presence in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune, the statement added.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/14803995.cms

[thjoku]

Originally Posted by saysenthil

Alcatel Lucent opens new R&D facility in Chennai

Hi,
Its not the opening of a new Center. Its just a consolidation. The R&D center was there already in Guindy in RR towers 3&4. Now all of them moved to the TVH building in OMR.

[R2IChennai]

Originally Posted by murlee

Alcatel R&D centre files 75 patents



http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/...ue&ref=wl_home

+1111111

[Subra]

http://techcircle.vccircle.com/500/h...obal-hot-spot/

Chennai, the conservative capital of Tamil Nadu, is quietly scripting India’s second tech wave, with a slew of innovative startups setting up shop there and targeting markets abroad.

Earlier, the metropolis had only a few things to stake claim in business (not that it’s anything less) such as being a preferred destination for global automobile manufacturers like Hyundai, BMW, Nissan, Daimler and Ford, companies that set up plants there, or being the film capital of the south, where Tamil and Malayalam film makers have been churning out big-budget movies.

As for information technology, the city lagged behind the neighbouring Bangalore, which has Infosys and Wipro, and hundreds of other IT companies starting up in the garden city. On the other hand, Chennai could just boast of Cognizant and Polaris Software, besides many additional offices of IT companies.

Perhaps, that scenario is witnessing a change.

Chennai now is the headquarters of scores of new age social media and software-as-service (SaaS) startups like OrangeScape, InterviewStreet, Extragram, Freshdesk, Tenmiles Corporation, Unmetric, and XLabz Technologies, which have been attracting global attention in their own space. One emerging theme of most of these startups is that the target market (like many e-com firms based out of Bangalore or Delhi NCR) is not domestic, but global.

According to Mani Doraisamy, co-founder and CTO of tech startup OrangeScape, there is a strong early stage tech ecosystem developing in the city, giving rise to new tech startups. “The city has very passionate techies and the best analytical minds in the country. Earlier, these techies did not get the mentorship on businesses. Now, there is a strong ecosystem brewing, helping them in building businesses,” he says.

Set up in 2003, OrangeScape recently hit the headlines for being recognised as one of the hottest startups in platform-as-a-service (PaaS) category by IT research houses like Gartner and Forrester. With clients in the US, Europe, OrangeScape offers a platform for companies to build business applications that can be deployed as Cloud, SaaS or on-premise. OrangeScape recently raised its first round of funding of $1 million from Indian Angel Network.

InterviewStreet, a Chennai startup attracted global headlines for being the first Indian company to be admitted into Y Combinator Program (a Silicon Valley startup investment firm run by well known early-stage investor Paul Graham). It also raised capital from the likes of Sun Microsystems’ founder Vinod Khosla. InterviewStreet, started by alumni of National Institute of Technology, Trichy, helps companies screen and hire programmers via web-based tools.

Freshdesk, founded by ex-Zoho employees Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, is another notable startup. It has developed a SaaS platform that aims to change the face of customer care systems in large and small corporations. Being the most sought-after SaaS startup in India, several VC firms are eyeing a slice of Freshdesk. In April, it raised capital from Accel Partners and Tiger Global.

Two ex-Zoho employees, Rajaraman Santhanam and K P Saravanan, founded subscription billing company ChargeBee. Ventuno Technologies, started by Subbu Murugan, a former employee of TIBCO Software, is Chennai’s contribution to the online video solutions market. Its platform helps website publishers with content, infrastructure and monetisation tools. With 200-odd publishers under its wing and powering close to 50 million video impressions a month, Ventuno is on its way to play a leading role in the online video advertising market.

Cut to Pondicherry, two hours away from Chennai. Headquartered in this beautiful beach town is Xlabz, which runs a mobile and rich internet applications company serving clients including Adobe, Nokia, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Nokia R&D, Yodlee Inc., Zentuvo AS and Reliance Communications.

Xlabz founder and CEO Krishna Prathab RV says it makes sense to be in Chennai or in a place like Pondicherry. “Unlike other cities like Bangalore and Mumbai, cost of living is cheaper here and it’s relatively easy to get resources for lower salaries. In our company, we spend close to one year in training our employees and so lower salary helps us save costs.”

Although new-age startups are mushrooming now, the first such tech company to set up shop in Chennai was Zoho Corporation, often referred to as India’s answer to Google (well, sort of, in some of the businesses like Google apps).

Zoho set up a development centre in Chennai a few years ago and has ever since been churning out a host of web applications for business, productivity improvement and collaboration. The company claims to have a user base of six million. Interestingly, all of its products are developed in Chennai and manned by developers hired from Tamil Nadu’s lesser known engineering colleges.

Vijay Anand, founder of The Startup Centre, an incubator, says efforts taken in the community level a few years ago — such as Chennai Open Coffee Club, The Chennai Geeks — and various other platforms helped Chennai’s cause.

The Startup Centre predicts that media companies will start to gravitate towards Mumbai, while technology players will come to the South, spread over Bangalore and Chennai,while retail companies will continue their dominance in hubs like New Delhi.

“Since that trend seems to be picking up, we are seeing the birth of organizations like the Chennai Angels, localised capital and support structures that can participate and be part of the growth of IT here in Chennai,” Anand says.

According to estimates, in cities like Bangalore, it takes seven years on an average for a professional to turn entrepreneur because of the expensive lifestyle and higher living cost, whereas in cities like Chennai and Pune the time frame is not more than three years.

Prathab of Xlabz, however, feels the city still faces roadblocks when it comes to getting funds from the government or VC investors. Doraisamy of Orangescape also subscribed to this view. “Most companies in Chennai are bootstrapped. Some companies like ours are funded. But, if the government and VCs can back it up, this city has a lot of potential.”

Anand is sceptical. “I doubt if Chennai can be leading the global IT startup arena. But India has seen an ecosystem where multiple hubs flourish – not just one Silicon Valley, but different clusters, each with its own culture, intricacies and support mechanisms.”

“Chennai’s long heritage with building a culture and ecosystem of user groups to come together, share and learn from each other, is helping the city attract IT businesses,” according to Anand. He said Chennai is throwing a heavy punch and there seems to be a second wave of startups lining up.

[murlee]

Karbonn Mobile To Raise PE Investment

Karbonn Mobile is planning to raise R1000Cr by diluting 15-20% stake to PE investors. It is planning to set up a manufacturing plant and acquiring a Korean research and development firm.

Karbonn Mobiles will invest Rs 600 crore in the mobile device manufacturing plant in Chennai over 2013-14, for which land has been acquired. The balance of Rs 400 crore will be used in acquiring the R&D centre based out of Korea, for which due-diligence was going on, according to ET.

Karbonn Mobile is a joint venture between Bangalore-based United Telelinks group and Delhi-based Jaina group.

Karbonn Mobiles was setting up a handset manufacturing facility in Bangalore with a capacity of 400,000 units. As of now, all of Karbonn’s handsets, like for most domestic players, are imported largely from China and Taiwan while the designing is done in India.

Karbonn sold about a million handsets a month last year with an average sale price of between Rs 1,800-2,000. It has doubled its targets to sell 20 million handsets in 2012-13 with an average sale price of Rs 3,500-4,000.

Presently, It has over 650 service centres and by FY'14 it plans to have 1,000 centres. The company is planning to launch four new smartphone and three new tablets in next three months.

In 2010, Sandstone Capital, Sequoia Capital and Madison India Capital invested around Rs.200 Cr for a minority stake of less than 10% in handset maker, Micromax.

http://www.dealcurry.com/20120712-Ka...Investment.htm

[janarthanan.04]

Tube Investments of India buy could make Shanthi Gears employees richer
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/14863863.cms

Over 470 employees of Shanthi Gears could get richer by over Rs 80,000 each on an average if Friday's acquisition of their company by Tube Investments of India (TII) gets to its logical end with an open offer.

This is because, in 2010, Shanthi Gears' promoter and CMD P Subramanian gifted 4.73 lakh shares (constituting 0.58% of the paid-up capital) from his personal account to 473 employees and associates.

Only the previous year, the company faced labour problems and had to declare a lockout.

Each of the 473 employees got 1,000 shares, at that time worth Rs 46,000 each, as a gift with no holding period and freely tradable.

As a result, the shareholding of Subramanian, a first generation entrepreneur, had come down to 34.57% from 35.15%.

The Murugappa group's Tube Investments on Friday announced it would acquire a 44.12% stake in Shanthi Gears in an all-cash deal that's likely to cost it Rs 292 crore. The shares are being acquired at a price of Rs 81 a piece. Tube Investments will further make an open offer for a further 26% at the same price. The total deal is expected to be Rs 464 crore.

Each of those 473 employees who are still with the company with their shares intact and willing to participate in the open offer can look forward to an unexpected bonus.

[murlee]

Tata''s DIESL eyes topslot in $ 90 bn logistics space

Tata Group's logistics arm, DIESL today said it has embarked on an expansion drive to emerge as the market leader in the USD 90 billion domestic supply-chain industry and would consolidate its presence in the retail segment by 2012.

It also plans setting up nine major hubs in the country by 2013 to provide logistics, transportation, warehousing, distribution among other services.

"We are among top four players in the domestic logistic industry and aim to occupy the top slot by 2015. We have added 1 million square feet in 2010 taking the total area of our 176 warehouses to 5.3 million square feet and would set up nine hubs in next 30 months," (DIESL) CEO Ajay Chopra told PTI.

Drive India Enterprise Solutions Ltd (DIESL), a joint venture between Tata Industries and Tata International, will set up five hubs in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Guwahati in the next 18 months.

Remaining four will be set up at other strategic locations by 2013, Chopra said, adding that the company was also focussed on bulk logistics in the eastern and north-eastern region, setting facilities for cement and steel production.

Besides consolidating its domestic presence, DIESL may plan looking at overseas markets, especially in the South East Asian countries like Singapore, under Noel Tata who has taken over as Chairman of DIESL, Chopra said.

Noel Tata, who is considered a possible successor of Ratan Tata for the USD 70 billion salt-to-software Tata empire took over as DIESL Chairman in May this year.

Chopra said that under his leadership, the company was planning to strengthen its position in the retail segment, which at present constitutes only 10 per cent of the firm's total revenue of Rs 300 crore.

"We are continuously focussing on the retail side and plan to gradually take into fold the services from major Tata brands in retail like Westside, Trent Star Bazaar. We are giving stress on technology augmentation, too, to become capable of the daily replenishment need of the retail sector," Chopra said.

He said that at present over 80 per cent of its clientele was outside its fold, including brands like Sony and Philips.

Expressing hope that the GST regime will boost the domestic sector, he said that with innovative services and technology, DIESL would be well armed to compete with the global players.

Indian supply chain is said to be driven more by tax savings reasons than by logistics efficiency, thereby, driving up the logistics cost.

According to experts, the introduction of the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) is likely to give a boost to the domestic logistics sector as the new regime would propose comprehensive indirect tax on manufacture, sale and consumption of goods and services.

http://www.tata.com/media/reports/in...d=rNjjdUXO5Fg=

[cofee]

Originally Posted by Raji7373

Direct selling fast moving consumer goods company Amway India has finalised Sanand in Gujarat to set up its first company-owned manufacturing plant in the country, state government sources here confirmed. The investment would be to the tune of Rs 400 crore.

At present, Amway India has a vendor plant in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh. The company had recently tripled the production capacity at the contract manufacturing plant at Baddi by adding four new production lines. The US-headquartered FMCG company had earlier zeroed in on Tamil Nadu and Gujarat to set up its first manufacturing plant and has finally chosen Gujarat over the southern state.


http://www.business-standard.com/ind...-india/479733/

Thank god AMWAY chose Gujrat instead of TN.

AMWAY pookuntha vedum, Ammai pookuntha vedum velankathu.

Keep AMWAY Gujarat.

[kongutamizhan]

Originally Posted by cofee

Thank god AMWAY chose Gujrat instead of TN.

AMWAY pookuntha vedum, Ammai pookuntha vedum velankathu.

Keep AMWAY Gujarat.

Amway marketing sucks, but if you use their products you won't go back. They have real high quality brands / household items

From my friends brother to me and my friend once -> Unakku 45-50 vayasu aagum bodhu avanga products evvalavu gethunnu unakku puriyum. "ella vidhathulayum" un life'la kooda vara pora thozhannu appo nee purinjipa

[krishnaswamy]

Originally Posted by kongutamizhan

Amway marketing sucks, but if you use their products you won't go back. They have real high quality brands / household items

+10.
Amway consumers always give good ratings. Even we have used couple of products 1 time through my friend. It is good.

[kvijayasundaram]

The real issue here is not about how annoying AMWAY's marketing strategies are, or how good their products are. The core issue here is loss of 400 cr investment which could have made a reasonable contribution to the state's economy.

[karkal]

Also its important to note that how much the company got bribed.....sorry incentivised.

[krishnaswamy]

Originally Posted by karkal

Also its important to note that how much the company got bribed.....sorry incentivised.

All states woos investments and the "Freebies" should be in a given range.
since the "interested" states are in a good position, we can safely say the "freebies" are in a limit.

PS: what about "other" bribes the rulers receives behind the scene?

[murlee]

Aircel to invest $500 million to launch 4G LTE by December

Aircel is gearing up to launch 4G services between October and December. The launch is expected to revive the otherwise gloomy telecom market.

Aircel, which is looking for a strategic partnership with companies such as MTS India, will invest $500 million to launch TD-LTE services in Chennai.

Aircel, according to a report in Business Standard, is expected to start rolling out 4G services from Chennai and other cities of Tamil Nadu.

http://telecomlead.com/inner-page-de...318&block=News

[jaish]

Originally Posted by kongutamizhan

Amway marketing sucks, but if you use their products you won't go back. They have real high quality brands / household items

From my friends brother to me and my friend once -> Unakku 45-50 vayasu aagum bodhu avanga products evvalavu gethunnu unakku puriyum. "ella vidhathulayum" un life'la kooda vara pora thozhannu appo nee purinjipa

What about their price....