Background

                    The Pune auto components cluster consists of around 500 SMEs. Of these, 25% firms are exporters, while 10% firms fall under the medium enterprise category. The cluster caters to both the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) as well as the replacement market. The annual turnover of the cluster is around INR 10,000 crores (Excluding automobile majors like Bajaj Auto, Bajaj Tempo, Kinetic Engineering & Tata Motors.) The key competitive strength of the Pune auto components cluster is the Pune-Mumbai knowledge corridor and the presence of established automobile manufacturers at Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad and Nagpur. Besides, the strong presence of the engineering sector, and local availability of large skilled labor base adds to the cluster’s economic strengths

It has been observed that Tier I suppliers at the Pune cluster are providing greater emphasis on e-business intervention in their business planning through demand Planning & management, engineering design, and procurement and are into heavy investments to support their e-business plans. However, ICT absorption for Tier II & III suppliers is generally low end with computers used for Accounts, Stores & Order acceptance and delivery related activities. The existing ERP systems supplied by the local ISVs were found unable to meet the emerging changes in the market by most players, who are therefore now looking to upgrade their ERP. The survey has revealed that ICT awareness among units in the cluster is quite high. Most office computers are networked and internet connectivity easily available with many ISPs offering broadband services.

Action Plan

The action plan to improve the ICT engineered competitiveness of the cluster includes action at two fronts, i.e., improving the overall software eco system at the cluster level, and secondly, firm level initiatives in order to induce the SMEs for a higher level absorption. A large number of the respondents have acknowledged the important role of ICT in improving information sourcing related to technology/ market, improving customer relations, reducing communication time, research and development, improving production efficiency & quality, and reducing product delivery time to the market. The general consensus in the cluster is that considering emerging market developments, functional automation and cross functional process integration are the need of the hour.

Institutional Support

There are a quiet a few support institutions present in the cluster. They come from various technical aspects such as education, management, computer technology and applications, research institutes, and associations. A list of the same is given below: