THE CHALLENGE
Management decision
India manufacturing was strategically attractive, but demand volume might not justify a plant.
CONSTRAINTS
What made the decision difficult
- High capex irreversibility
- Imported critical components
- State/location trade-offs
- Unknown local supplier maturity
- Ramp quality risk
TIMELINE
14–18 weeks
Staged so management can stop, modify or increase commitment as evidence improves.
EXPECTED JOURNEY
Evidence → decision → execution
Diagnose uncertainty, validate it in India, make an explicit investment gate, then execute the approved next stage.
Solution design
- Model import → local assembly → contract manufacturing → owned manufacturing
- Map BOM localization
- Compare industrial clusters/states
- Validate suppliers and utilities/logistics
- Model capex/opex/working capital
- Map incentives without assuming eligibility
- Set volume gates for each localization stage
KPIs
Localized BOM %
Unit-cost delta
Capex payback
Ramp yield
Supplier qualification coverage
Volume threshold to next stage
End execution plan
- Phase 0: imported sales baseline
- Phase 1: local service/assembly
- Phase 2: qualified contract manufacturing
- Phase 3: owned capacity only after volume gate
- Stage reviews tied to quality, economics and demand
Government / regulatory / legal
- Factory/location approvals mapped to actual activity
- State industrial incentives validated with authorities/advisers
- Environmental, labour, factory and fire requirements scoped
- FDI/entity/tax/customs structure reviewed
- Land/lease and supplier contracts legally reviewed
Control: applicability must be confirmed for the actual product, activity, entity, state and transaction by the appropriate qualified specialist/authority.
END RESULT
Decision state
A staged manufacturing decision with explicit investment gates rather than a binary plant/no-plant decision
IMPACT
Why it matters
Makes localization reversible until evidence supports capital commitment.