Make for India - A laptop blueprint
In an earlier article (Laptop Manufacturing - what does it mean to localise?), I touched upon the complexities of a typical laptop BOM and why localisation requires sourcing options to be built into the product at the time of design. Also, as a country, if we are to create something for ourselves and for the world, it is important to innovate on new features, experiences and use cases that will drive consumer acceptance for the product. Adding new features also gives an opportunity to differentiate from the existing product and thereby give rise to a new supply chain.
One of the challenges in the laptop market is that it is a product that has been around for few decades now and hence the major components that go into it has an established supply chain that operates at high volume from China and Taiwan. They create a generic product for the global market with common features and attributes. The laptop that is sold in India is only different by its power plug from others.
How can we change this?
Below is a first attempt at evolving a high level blueprint for an IndiaBook - an innovative rethinking of a laptop that adopts the best of Indian innovation over the last decade.
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When deployed in use cases where security of data is paramount, the device can also be offered without any external data ports that will ensure physical data protection in high security installations like government labs and offices.
I will not dwell into the "how" part of developing the IndiaBook in such a way that it becomes the best in class device for accessing India's digital assets and services. That is for our industry and innovators to work together and create the best from India for the world. However, for a product to be classified as an IndiaBook, we should set few clear guidelines.
With the device being the access point for a whole host of digital assets and services across education, SMB and Govt. that the government is already investing in, the strong linkage between user experience and the device design will ensure that the product is always designed with an "India First" paradigm. This will give Indian industry a chance to offer more to the Bill of Materials (BOM) of this product class.
One way forward is for India to develop and open source the specification for such a device and incentivise a local Independent Design House (IDH) ecosystem to design products to this specification for local and global OEMs to adopt for their IndiaBook products. By holding the IP for the designs in country and opening up opportunities for maximising Indian content in the BOM, we will move towards true localisation. If Make in India has to truly be based on localised BOM, we have to "Make for India" first and then offer to the world.
Disclaimer: All views expressed are personal and do not reflect the opinion of the author's employer, academic associations or industry affiliations.
Joint Director at Trade Promotion Council of India | Leading trade research and industry outreach
1 年Super thought process Sidharth N. Thanks for sharing your experience and invaluable insight.
Engineering Vertical head, Votary Softech Solutions
1 年This is a great
Corporate Communications Leader, currently heads site communications for India & Malaysia, APJ at Intel Corporation
1 年Great insights around the Concept of IndiaBook, Sidharth N. . Thanks for sharing
Director , DCSMAT Institutions & Hon Professor - International Center for Free and Open Source Software
1 年COCONICS , thank you for all the effort and support sid Sidharth N.
Small Business Consultant/Investment research analyst/Quickbooks consultant
1 年Do you think it is equaly important to create a people stucture that will not lead to the abuse of these powers and there should be random audits and changes in roles that have authority or power after 3 years etc so that no single person can misuse or abuse the power and curruption can be minimised to some extent.