During Donald Trump’s Presidency, his ‘Make America Great Again’ initiative was the first step with regards to the change of outlook towards china. And, that triggered the U.S investors and companies to look at a China de-risking, especially from an economic stance. And, looked out at other sourcing bases.

Thereafter, we saw the Covid -era which not only caused a lot of disruption in the global economy, but also made things worse when some of the larger economies started to open up their business.

Now  if you wonder how ?

Well, as soon as the bigger economies came out of the pandemic, there was an immediate rise in the demand for ODM, at that very moment China’s position globally became that if an anti-west, as China’s Zero-COvid Policy meant there was an Industrial lockdown in China, which prevented the Chinese companies to have a smooth supply chain. Straight away that resulted in an increase of the lead time between countries, and the reliability factor with China took a nose dive.

As by then both US & Europe were forced to look at other countries for the supply that would guarantee both availability and reliability, and also make business sense when it came to cost.

Thereafter, many other countries & global companies followed US & Europe, and resulted in a China +1 strategy.

So, how can China+1 strategy be a boon for India & its manufacturers ?

Given the magnitude of exports from China, and the advent of China + 1 strategy, India has a big if not the biggest opportunity in its hands, but we need to be cautious of the fact that to have a share from the biggest Chinese -Pie, we will have realise as to what went right for China in the first place, and if we take a deep dive into it we shall find factors such as :

1. Lower cost
2. Good Quality
3. Reliability &
4. Timely Delivery

That made the major global companies comfortable to have a tie-up with the Chinese companies.

So, Indian companies need to review them, and also come out of their shell, because till now a large number of Indian firms looked at Indian domestic market for their share of the business-pie and export came into the scheme of things only when they had surplus things. Moving forward, this will now have to seen as a separate business opportunity, where-in they will have to invest solely in increasing their export capacity to give their global customers the confidence that they can produce on higher scales, as that would make an economic, as well business sense to them.

Then, in order to gain the trust of credibility,  ‘Quality of Work’ will have to be one that matches the global standards, but there are challenges in that as well, and for that Indian companies need to gear up themselves- because a global supply chain for China wasn’t built in a day.

Indian companies too will have to spend a good time on understanding the various quality benchmarks and expectations of the global consumers across different countries, along with the timely delivery.

And, they might have to go a step further in assuring their to-be- export countries on an uninterrupted supply, even if it has to be at the expense of not meeting their domestic demands.

Lastly, India’s biggest advantage in this lies in the growth of its economy, and it is stated to grow faster as compared to any other optional country which the larger economies would be looking up as their source for the ODM, which is why we at Ekkaa feel that India can not only  be the next global hub for companies across the globe, but also mirror the success story of China.