Make in India for the World: Scale, Innovation and India’s Global Manufacturing Ambition

What will it take for India to move from being a large domestic market to becoming a true global manufacturing powerhouse? In Episode 7 of India for the World, a leadership podcast by Mint and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), host T. Surendar is joined by Dr. Anish Shah, Group CEO & MD of Mahindra Group, and Dr. Janmejaya Sinha, Chairman of BCG India.

The conversation unpacks what “Make in India for the world” truly means in today’s geopolitical and economic context. It goes beyond exports to examine competitiveness, infrastructure, supply chain resilience, R&D intensity, demographic advantage and value creation through innovation and IP.

Watch Episode 7 on YouTube

Beyond Exports: What “Make in India” Means Today

For decades, exporting from India was seen as an aspirational milestone. Whether it was automotive components in the 1990s or compact discs in the early 2000s, export success signalled progress. But the context has fundamentally changed.

Today, according to Dr. Anish Shah, “Make in India for the world” rests on two pillars:

1. The ability to produce world-class products.
2. The ability to produce them competitively at scale.

Without these, exports are merely symbolic. With them, global integration becomes inevitable.

Mahindra’s own journey reflects this shift. The company has invested heavily in R&D, improved quality standards and benchmarked itself against global peers. As Anish notes, the challenge today is not whether Indian products can compete globally, but whether capacity can keep pace with domestic and export demand.

Scale, however, remains India’s biggest hurdle. While competitiveness is improving, India has yet to match the manufacturing scale of China or major Western economies.

Infrastructure: The Decade That Changed the Base

Dr. Jamejaya Sinha offers a historical perspective. Post-1991 reforms lifted growth, but infrastructure lagged. Early public-private partnerships in infrastructure struggled, contributing to banking stress and stalled projects.

The turning point came after 2014, when the government made a decisive push to directly build public infrastructure. The results have been transformative: massive highway expansion, airport construction, housing development and logistics improvements.

Infrastructure, once a bottleneck, is increasingly becoming an enabler. With the implementation of GST, labour reforms, improved creditor rights and digital public infrastructure, the structural foundation looks markedly stronger.

India, as Janmejaya describes it, is “a site under construction”, a work in progress, but one with unprecedented momentum.

The Indian Consumer as a Global Force

For decades, global growth rode on the American consumer. Now, India’s expanding middle class is emerging as a megatrend.

India is projected to add nearly $5 trillion to its GDP within a decade, which is an economic leap achieved historically only by the US and China. This transformation shifts India from being less than 2% of global GDP to a far more consequential share.

This domestic scale creates a powerful pull. Foreign companies are not merely coming to “help India grow”. They are coming to serve a rapidly expanding consumer base.

But, as Anish cautions, domestic success alone is insufficient. If Indian firms are not globally competitive, foreign players will dominate the Indian market. Competing globally is no longer optional. It is a defensive strategy.

Supply Chains: From “Just in Time” to “Just in Case”

The pandemic and geopolitical tensions exposed vulnerabilities in hyper-integrated global supply chains. Rare earth magnet shortages and export restrictions became stark reminders of strategic dependence.

China’s dominance, as it controls roughly one-third of global manufacturing, has raised concerns worldwide. The classic Ricardian model of pure comparative advantage is now tempered by resilience and risk diversification.

Anish points out that India has deposits of rare earths and refining capabilities that can be scaled. While self-sufficiency will take time, policy direction is aligned toward reducing strategic vulnerabilities.

Janmejaya frames it differently: global trade is not shrinking, but its nature is changing. Countries now seek balance by remaining integrated while avoiding overdependence. This shift presents India with an opportunity. Firms looking to de-risk supply chains are actively evaluating India as an alternative manufacturing hub.

Boardrooms Rewriting Strategy

Boardroom attitudes toward India vary widely, from skepticism rooted in past disappointments to bold strategic bets. Some global corporations see India as marginal. Others, like Apple, have rapidly scaled production in India as part of supply chain diversification. In just a few years, India has emerged as a significant production base for global electronics.

Indian companies, too, are becoming more ambitious. There is growing recognition that scale and competitiveness must be embedded into long-term strategy. As Anish notes, if firms are not bold enough, they risk being left behind. But ambition must be disciplined. Mahindra’s export strategy, for instance, focuses on carefully chosen markets with targeted share goals rather than indiscriminate expansion: “Think big, do less, execute flawlessly.”

Demographics: Dividend or Disaster?

India’s median age of 28 positions it uniquely among major economies. China, Japan and Europe face ageing populations, while India’s workforce will continue expanding for decades. Yet demographics are not destiny. As Janmejaya bluntly puts it, a demographic dividend is only an opportunity, unless skills and education convert it into productivity.

India’s internal labour mobility, which refers to workers moving across states, provides flexibility that many developed nations can only achieve through immigration. But skilling remains the decisive factor. Without education reform and human capital investment, the dividend could become a liability.

From Manufacturing Volume to Value Creation

Perhaps the most critical part of the discussion centres on value addition. Manufacturing scale alone does not guarantee wealth creation. IP, branding and innovation determine who captures economic value.

India’s IT services success story generated global respect, but arguably missed opportunities in product innovation and IP ownership. Janmejaya is candid in his critique: cost arbitrage cannot substitute for technology leadership.

For India to truly become indispensable, R&D intensity must rise significantly. Capital and talent are essential ingredients. India already produces world-class talent, which is evident in its dominance of H-1B visas and leadership roles in global technology firms. The challenge is attracting that talent and the capital it commands back into the domestic innovation ecosystem.

Capital, Talent and the Next Leap

Janmejaya highlights a striking imbalance: the US holds trillions in foreign liabilities and assets, with massive pools of risk capital circulating globally. Even a small fraction of that capital flowing into India could dramatically accelerate industrial growth.

Combined with infrastructure expansion and demographic advantage, capital and talent inflows could create a multiplier effect, propelling India into a higher orbit of manufacturing sophistication and innovation-led growth.

Final Thoughts: Making Quality, Competitively

In the end, both leaders converge on a simple but demanding principle: Make top-quality products, at scale, competitively. Whether those products serve Indian consumers or global markets will naturally follow from competitiveness.

“Make in India for the world” is less a slogan and more a systems challenge, requiring infrastructure, policy reform, boardroom ambition, supply chain resilience, R&D intensity and demographic alignment to work in tandem.

India is not yet at peak manufacturing maturity. But as Episode 7 makes clear, the ingredients are in place. The next decade will determine whether India merely participates in global supply chains or becomes indispensable to them.

Note to readers: This article is part of Mint’s paid consumer connect Initiative. Mint assumes no editorial involvement or responsibility for errors, omissions, or content accuracy.

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