India stands on the cusp of a manufacturing revolution, poised to transform itself into a global hub that can compete with the world’s most advanced economies. Central to this transformation is a new breed of leaders, the Next Generation visionaries who are reshaping the country’s manufacturing landscape with innovative thinking, technological prowess, and a commitment to sustainable growth.

Few of the India’s dynamic young industry leaders shared their vision and innovative ideas at the 4th edition of NextGen Chemical and Petrochemical Summit 2024 organized by the Indian Chemical News in Mumbai on July 11-12, 2024.

The twelfth session, ‘NextGen Leaders: Role in Making India a Global Manufacturing Hub’ was Pravin Prashant, Executive Editor, Indian Chemical News.

Expressing his confidence about the enormous growth potential ahead for the Indian chemical industry, Mihir V. Shah, Executive Director, Vipul Organics Limited said, "This year we are celebrating the 10 years of Make in India. It took 58 years for the first trillion, 12 years for the second trillion and 3 years for the third trillion. I am absolutely confident even if we grow at 7-8%, we are going to achieve a US $5 trillion economy by 2027. Talking of manufacturing sector, the chemical manufacturing sector contributes about 7% to the GDP and this is growing very fast because it is directly proportional to the consumption. I think chemicals is very peculiar industry that is connected with most of the industries that exist today, be it steel, petrochemicals, pharma, textile and almost everywhere.”

"In terms of competing with China and the way forward, Shah added, “We have come a long way but there are certain challenges that we face in this industry, the biggest being right infrastructure for large scale manufacturing. We may criticize China and we talk about their quality but one thing is certain that they are having huge economies of scale and that is possible because of the kind of infrastructure support that they are getting. We need to imbibe that and improve the infrastructure and availability of skilled workers which is a challenge. We need to ensure availability of a level playing field, promoting sustainable manufacturing in the chemical industry, and streamlined regulatory systems and policies.”

Emphasizing on the dire need to focus on R&D and IP creation, Komal Shah Bhukhanwala, Director, R&D and IP, SML Limited (Formerly known as Sulphur Mills Limited) said, “The vision for making the business R&D driven or IP driven has been our focus for the more than 15 to 20 years. I came back from the US about 20 years ago and India around the same time there was a change in the IP laws in the country. We moved on from just having process patterns to more product patterns. Being recognized in the country and having this kind of IP doesn't come around overnight. There is a very long gestation period because you have to connect several dots or several gaps to really have meaningful IP or R&D which will have a commercial value. So initially a lot of our focus was on formulation research and we were not just interested in building IP which was only dependent on processes because processes as intellectual property are much more difficult to enforce. To get that kind of exclusivity is very difficult and practically I would not say it would not really give you that kind of return on investment. The focus was initially on formulation R&D and our very early patterns have and still continue to be a large large amount on the formulation space. We have created a niche in this area. From an SML point of view, about 30% of our top line comes from patented products. Our goal is to see that we take it to about 70 to 80% which is just exclusive product that we develop and also look at partnerships in these areas.”

Specifically on the lack of enough women workforce within the chemical industry, Bhukhanwala opined: "It is not about the quantity of women in job roles but the quality. It is for the women to decide if they would be interested in taking up job roles in the chemical industry. Agriculture is an area where we don't see enough women but things will surely change once we have more of them taking up positions across industries."

Sharing the deep insights on the vision behind his company and the journey so far, Jashan Bhumkar, Director, Soujanya Color said, “We are a 40-year old company that was started by my grandfather and currently is being driven by my mother who is the Managing Director. At regular intervals, we sit together as a team and think about what is it that we really want to do and what is it that is really really exciting us? Then we get into very deeper levels of the discussion. For example, we started off as making color for paint and coatings and we achieved a market leadership position and a lot of respect in that. It was our excitement about color and it being a part of millions of lives that made us develop a strategy for becoming an all-encompassing color company. As the color goes into different applications that came with a lot of skill gaps. Hence, we had to bridge that in terms of technology manufacturing and then also the pandemic struck and we felt we are adding happiness to people's lives through color and color is vibrant, beautiful and all of those things. But that what we have really done over 40 years and the answer we then came up with is that we have aimed to perfect chemical processes.”

On the top priorities ahead for the company, Bhumkar added: "With a lot of excitement and with a lot of passion we can run a large chemical setup with a lot of focus on efficiency and technology. We have therefore re-branded it now as Soujanya Group which is an all-encompassing specialty chemicals player. We are continuing to focus on color as there is a lot of opportunity there at a global and India level. Yet at the same time, we are looking at adding value, whether it is in cosmetic ingredients or pharmaceutical intermediates. We plan to challenge the status quo and take up market leadership roles. Retaining the value system and culture is very important for us. For us, human touch does matter a lot despite the fast growing digital means of communication."

The Summit was supported by DCM Shriram Chemicals as principal partner, Somaiya Vidyavihar University as academia partner, Cadmatic as platinum partner and Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board (APEDB), Govt. of Andhra Pradesh as state partner.
Gold partners for NextGen Chemicals & Petrochemicals were Epsilon Carbon, Forbes Marshall, Gharda Chemicals, Indofil Industries, Ingenero, IPCO, Jaaji Technologies, Moglix, PIP, Port of Antwerp - Bruges, RIECO and Re Sustainability. Associate Partners are: HPCL and Nuberg EPC.
Supporting partners included Aarayaa Advisory Services, Archroma, India Glycols and Tata Steel Special Economic Zone and industry association partners are: ACFI, AMAI, CropLife India, Gujarat Chemical Association and PMFAI.