Boeing to replicate US business structure in India

Mumbai: The Boeing Company is replicating its US business model in India and scaling up operations, eyeing a major chunk of the $31-billion military and industrial aerospace market.
The US-based aircraft manufacturing giant will expand its manufacturing presence, launch subsidiaries and strengthen research and development (R&D) programmes in the country.
“In the last six years, we expanded presence to nine locations from one in 2003, increased executive strength and launched R&D centres in India. The country is an important market for Boeing outside the US,” Vivek Lall, vice-president and country head, Integrated Defense Systems (IDS), Boeing International Corporation India, told Business Standard.
“The India business would be a microcosm of all our businesses in the US,” Lall said. The company, he added, was keen on becoming India’s “preferred aerospace partner.”
Boeing is eyeing the $10-billion military aircraft contract and will plough back around 30-50 per cent into the country under an offset clause.
Boeing, which has six R&D labs in the US, will develop its technology centre in Bangalore as a centralised R&D division for its major business units. Earlier, reports had mentioned that Boeing was looking at adding 100 engineers at its centre.
The aircraft major is in talks with several private firms, including Mahindra & Mahindra, for aerospace manufacturing partnerships, similar to the ones it had signed with the Tata group, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).
Jeppesen, a subsidiary of Boeing, is close to setting up an office in Hyderabad, while another, Aviall, the company’s spare parts subsidiary, already has operations from Noida.
The company would also set up additional virtual warfare centres across the country, which already has two nodes (Bangalore and Delhi). Boeing had earlier set up a virtual warfare centre in Bangalore.
10/08/09 Rajesh S Kurup & Nevin John/Business Standard

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Categories: Foreign Aug 2009