—
Arun Dogra, Vice President-Sales, Marketing & Support, EMG, Agilent, India
Agilent Technologies Inc. is the world's premier
measurement company and a technology leader in chemical
analysis, life sciences, electronics and communications. In
an exclusive interaction,
Arun Dogra describes the activities
of Agilent's electronics measurement (EM) business in India.
With almost every big global organisation starting its R&D
operations in India, the potential market for T&M
instruments has expanded significantly. India will continue to
be a great market for Agilent, asserts Dogra.
To begin with, please tell us about the various products and solutions that Agilent
Electronics Measurement (EM) offers in India, with respect to the power and
electrical sector.
Agilent Technologies is the world's premier measurement company and offers the
broadest range of innovative measurement solutions that enables its customers and
partners to be leaders in their respective fields. Agilent deliver products and services
that make measurable difference in the lives of people.
Agilent offers following products in the electronic measurement sectors in Indiaoscilloscopes;
spectrum Analyzer (signal analyzer); network analyzer; logic
analyzer; protocol analyzers and exercisers; EMI/EMC; phase noise; physical layer
test; bit error ratio test (BERT) solutions; digital multimeter; voltmeters; power
meters & power sensors; frequency counter products; noise figure analyzers &
noise sources; LCR meters & impedance measurement products; digitizers; DC
power analyzer; dynamic signal analyzers; mechanical & physical test; parameter &
device analyzers; curve tracers.
The industrial, computer and the semiconductor markets is growing due to the
development in the Indian infrastructure and computational markets across Tier-I and
Tier-II cities. Aerospace and defense is growing as well and India is investing to expand
its infrastructure particularly in areas like telecommunication. All these factors has
contributed to the growth in the electronics measurement market in India.
What are the biggest demand drivers for Agilent (EM) in India?
All our products are class apart and leading in their categories but the demand in India
has been more towards Oscilloscopes. An oscilloscope being among the fundamental
test and debug tools in all spheres of product development and manufacturing, finds
application across industry segments.
The oscilloscope market in India has grown rapidly over the
last couple of years and the demand has always been driven by
the best price-value that an oscilloscope vendor can offer. The
demand for oscilloscopes has been strong from all key buyer
segments- basic, high-volume & advanced, or highperformance.
While education has been a key driver of growth
for basic oscilloscopes, the design-validation customers push
the envelope for high-performance oscilloscopes.
With advancing technologies, shrinking device sizes and rising
data rates, the need for advancements in oscilloscopes is evident.
Agilent has taken long strides and spearheaded a number of
innovations in this field, making oscilloscopes "future-ready" for
technologies of today and for the ones to come.
It is a general impression that India lacks facilities when it comes
to testing of electrical equipment (especially high voltage gear).
What is your view?
India has emerged as a major market for electronic products
and systems and the growing business and demand for
electronic products has led to an increase demand for greater
accuracy and highly specialized test and measurement (T&M)
devices such as digital multimeters, digital insulation testers,
logic analysers, digital oscilloscopes, spectrum analysers,
time domain reflectometers (TDR), multimeters, line power
meters, etc.
Agilent Technologies, the No. 1 Test & Measurement company,
has a large Indian presence to support its large Indian customer
install-base. Agilent offers its Indian customers unmatched
breadth and depth of measurement tools and expertise Agilent also
offers the Indian customer widest range of world-class application
support locally. Our India customer support centre holds an ISO
9002 certification and is an NABL accredited calibration centre.
To help keep our customers at the forefront of new technologies,
Agilent has strong R&D presence. Our endeavor in India has been
mainly across three focus areas:
- To drive customer satisfaction by engaging with customers to
link their roadmap to Agilent R&D through joint developments &
partnerships to leverage sustainable, mutual profitable growth
- To enhance technology advancement and innovation for both
global and local markets
- To drive internal and external productivity that enhances
customer experience at each touch point with Agilent
What is your view on the SME sector as a business driver for
Agilent?
India has been witnessing a robust growth in the test &
measurement space and this growth is happening across all the
industry segments. Private participation has increased in
segments like aerospace and defense, while telecom service
providers have started investing heavily in test and measurement.
The success of the global leader in handset manufacturing in India
has instilled confidence in other players to invest as well of which
we are at the forefront.
The SME market is a huge focus for us and it is known that we are
the only T&M leader who has the capability to provide solutions
across industry sectors. We maintained the lead in the market with
our innovative products; in-line with the growth that the T&M
industry is witnessing. The market is growing at a rapid pace, with
the increasing design, R&D and manufacturing investments in all
the major customer verticals including telecom, aerospace,
defense, automotive, consumer electronics, contract
manufacturing, semiconductors etc.
Very recently, Agilent's R&D centres for life sciences and chemical
analysis at Bengaluru were expanded. What are Agilent's plans for
the electronics measurement line of business?
Our customers look at us as "technology-enablers" and expect us to
be always ahead of the technology curve when it comes to our
products & solutions. Throughout its history, Agilent has invested
heavily in research and development, firmly committed to
technology leadership and our Research Laboratories identify and
enable technologies that advance measurement, create
compelling customer value and achieve sustainable competitive
differentiation.
In fiscal 2011, we will invest 11 per cent of revenue in R&D
across the board, organically outpacing the market and as India is
a big market, we will continue to focus on R&D centres.
What is your view on availability of qualified manpower in India,
mainly for Agilent's R&D and product development endeavours?
As per a study by Zinnov, owing to the large presence of MNCs in
India, the installed base of talent pool continues to increase. The
MNC R&D talent pool currently stands at 1,73,000 and is expected
to grow to 2,84,000 by 2015. We have grown steadily in India owing
to the great pool of talent and the learning and development
programmes that we have created internally.
We have initiated global programmes wherein we have worked
to build a talent pipeline for the future generation. Agilent
Technologies has been supporting technological and R&D
capabilities across the globe right from the student level. Since
2003, we have engaged more than 275,000 students in the U.S.,
China and India in the Agilent Clean Air Challenge (CAC) curriculum,
a science- and math-based program targeting students in grades
six to nine. Additionally, Agilent has trained approximately 2,000
teachers in CAC. Agilent has been a sponsor of the International
Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) for 10 years and awards paid
summer internships at Agilent sites around the world to "scientists
and engineers" of tomorrow (high school students) competing at
the event. We also award teachers globally; development grants to
those mentoring students that compete at the event and we award
$25,000 scholarships to deserving students competing in areas of
science that align back with Agilent's businesses at the event.
Since Agilent's inception in 2001, Agilent After School (AAS), a
hands-on, kit-based, after school science program targeted for
middle school aged students has reached more than 500,000
students globally, with some 6,000 Agilent employee volunteers
implementing it. Agilent has invested $3 million in AAS to
provide the program in 24 countries, and currently are
implementing it in 14 countries.
The Agilent Technologies Foundation supports university
researchers working at the forefront of bio-analysis and electronic
measurement.
In a general sense, how do you view India as a market for Agilent
Technologies? What could be the three most important and
distinguishing attributes that you see in the Indian market?
As electronics technologies evolve, Agilent stays one step ahead,
anticipating customers' test and measurement needs. India has
been a great market for us where we are growing continuously and
evolving everyday with the changing market dynamics.
Agilent offers the broadest T&M portfolio from a single vendor in
the market today. From consumer electronics to homeland
security, from wireless and wireline communication to network
reliability/assurance, Agilent offers its customers unmatched
breadth and depth of measurement tools and expertise. Our
continuous new product development is proof of our focus on
innovation and our commitment to keep our customers on the
cutting edge of technology. We offer the widest range of
application support locally. Our local customer support centre
holds an ISO 9002 certification and is an NABL accredited
calibration centre. To help keep our customers at the forefront of
new technologies, Agilent works closely with the standard bodies
like WiMAX™ forum, LTE and 3GPP.
India is an emerging and one of the fastest growing markets
in the world. Segments promising growth of T&M in India
include Telecom, Aerospace & Defense, R&D, Automotive &
Consumer Electronics, and Education. The telecom sector
remained unaffected by the economic slowdown and
registered a robust growth during the period. The tele-density
has grown multi-fold over the last couple of years and yet the
subscriber growth story continues. Telecom T&M growth has
been mainly fuelled by increasing subscriber base, domestic
demand and new technologies like 3G, WiMAX™ and LTE. All
these new technologies come with their special needs for test.
The aerospace and defense sector has been largely dependent
on the T&M industry for mission-critical testing needs.
Recently, India has successfully launched Chandrayan-1 and
plans to undertake many such missions in future as well.
Therefore, T&M for space segment has attracted a large
amount of investment.
In the past 10-15 years almost every big organization has
started R&D operations in India. These R&D centers too need
T&M equipment to develop new designs or technologies. With
increased R&D activities in India, growth of T&M is certain.
Automotive and consumer Electronics are other segments that
hold a great potential for the T&M industry. In addition to the
above industries, India's proven strength in semiconductor
design is an important driver for T&M growth in India. Education
industry is expected to see significant continued investments by
government & some new investments from foreign private
players in the next few years.