India's manufacturing sector is embarking on a fresh chapter. With global supply chains now focusing on resilience, engineering depth, and reliability instead of just cost, India can seize the opportunity to transition from mass production and assembly to cultivating enhanced skills in component manufacturing, precision engineering, design, testing, and advanced engineering. This change could greatly benefit MSMEs, as a more robust domestic supplier network allows smaller companies to connect with global markets and gain more value from India's growing manufacturing sector. In this conversation with ET Digital, BN Shukla, Managing Director, Jabil India, discusses what it will take to make India an engineering-led manufacturing hub, the role MSMEs can play in building the missing component ecosystem, and the skills, technology and supplier capabilities needed to compete globally. Edited excerpts:
Economic Times (ET): India’s electronics manufacturing story has so far been driven largely by scale and assembly. What will it take for the country to genuinely move up the value chain into engineering-led manufacturing and innovation ownership?
BN Shukla (BNS): Scale has been important because it brought global manufacturing attention to India. The next stage, however, will be defined by capability: design-for-manufacturing, component depth, advanced testing, process engineering, and the ability to industrialise complex products consistently.
At Jabil, we see that shift in practical terms. Our Pune operations support high-complexity, multi-capability manufacturing across electronics assembly, precision injection molding, tooling, automation, testing, box build, and final assembly. That combination matters because it allows engineering, quality, supply chain, and production teams to work closer together, earlier in the lifecycle.
Policy support has helped create the conditions for investment, but moving up the value chain will depend on execution over many years: deeper local supplier networks, stronger industry-academia pipelines, more hands-on manufacturing talent, and continued investment in advanced manufacturing systems. India has clear advantages in market scale and engineering capability. The opportunity now is to convert those strengths into repeatable manufacturing ownership and higher-value participation in global technology supply chains.
ET: Much of the current policy conversation focuses on production-linked incentives (PLI) and export numbers. Are we paying enough attention to deeper capabilities such as design integration, prototyping, advanced testing, and systems engineering?
BNS: PLI and export performance are useful indicators because they show that capacity is being created. But capacity alone does not determine long-term competitiveness. The more important question is whether India can build the capabilities to design, validate, launch, and scale complex products consistently.
That includes design integration, prototyping, advanced testing, systems engineering, and manufacturing involvement before a product is finalised. Early manufacturing input can improve manufacturability, component selection, cost, quality, and ramp readiness. In high-reliability sectors, those capabilities often decide whether a product can move from a good design to a stable, scalable manufacturing programme.
ET: Global supply chains are being restructured around resilience and regionalisation rather than pure cost efficiency. Where does India realistically fit into this new manufacturing map, and what advantages does it still need to build?
BNS: Global supply chains are no longer being designed only for the lowest unit cost. Customers are looking for resilience, proximity, supply assurance and the ability to respond faster when demand or regulation changes. In that environment, India has a meaningful role to play because it brings together a large domestic market, engineering talent, competitive economics and growing policy support for manufacturing.
Realistically, India should be viewed as an increasingly important node in a multi-region manufacturing network, not as a single-country replacement for any other hub. That is also how Jabil looks at footprint strategy. We have focused on diversifying manufacturing and supply chain capabilities across regions, with many programmes operating on a local-for-local or regional-for-regional basis so customers have options without compromising standards, process control or execution discipline.
To become more central in global value chains, India will need to keep building the practical fundamentals: deeper supplier ecosystems, more efficient logistics, stronger component availability, workforce readiness, regulatory predictability and continued investment in advanced manufacturing. The opportunity is significant, but the differentiator will be how consistently those capabilities scale across sites and suppliers.
ET: India has emerged as a strong destination for electronics assembly, but high-value components continue to be heavily imported. Is the missing middle in the component ecosystem now the biggest bottleneck for the sector?
BNS: It is one of the most important constraints, especially if India wants to capture more value from electronics manufacturing rather than only final assembly. Assembly capacity has expanded, but many high-value components and specialised inputs still depend on global supply networks. That creates exposure to supply disruptions and limits how quickly complex programmes can be localised.
Closing that gap will require sustained investment in component manufacturing, stronger participation from micro, small and medium enterprises, supplier quality development and closer integration with global technology supply chains. It also requires discipline in process quality and reliability, as component localisation only works if customers can trust a consistent supply.
The priority should not be localisation for its own sake. It should be targeted localisation where India can build reliable, competitive and scalable capability. That is how the component ecosystem becomes a source of resilience and value, not just a cost consideration.
ET: Jabil operates across highly regulated and high-reliability sectors globally. From your experience, where does India currently stand in precision manufacturing and quality engineering compared with competing hubs in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe?
BNS: India has made strong progress in precision manufacturing, particularly where engineering talent and complex production requirements come together. The country has a strong base to build from, and the pace of capability development is encouraging.
Compared with more established hubs, the gap is less about talent and more about ecosystem maturity. Mature manufacturing regions have built deep supplier networks, process discipline, quality systems, and production experience over many cycles. India is building those capabilities quickly, but consistency at scale across the broader ecosystem still needs time and investment.
At Jabil’s Pune operations, the focus is on execution discipline: standard operating systems, structured performance reviews, cross-functional collaboration, and globally aligned quality and compliance expectations. That is what matters in high-reliability manufacturing. Precision is not only about equipment. It comes from repeatable processes, trained teams, strong supplier controls and the ability to identify and correct variation early.
ET: There is growing discussion around India becoming an engineering-led manufacturing hub, especially with the rise of Global Capability Centres (GCCs). Do you see Indian operations increasingly influencing product development and design decisions globally, rather than just executing manufacturing mandates?
BNS: I think the shift should be viewed as an evolution rather than a sudden move from manufacturing to design. The more important change is that Indian teams are increasingly participating earlier in the decision-making that determines whether products can be manufactured, tested, scaled, and successfully supported.
We are already seeing this influence in areas such as design-for-manufacturing, prototyping, test strategy, process engineering, component selection, quality planning and product lifecycle support. These decisions directly impact product performance, ramp speed, quality, and manufacturing stability, which is why engineering and manufacturing must work together rather than operate as separate functions.
At the same time, India is no longer viewed solely as an execution centre for global manufacturing. The combination of world-class engineering talent, rapidly maturing Global Capability Centres (GCCs) and expanding advanced manufacturing capabilities is positioning India as an increasingly important contributor to product architecture, platform development and innovation programmes.
Looking ahead, sustaining that trajectory will require continued investment in applied R&D, specialist manufacturing skills, supplier engineering, intellectual property development and stronger collaboration between industry and academia. GCCs and engineering centres will play an important role, but the real advantage will come from directly connecting engineering knowledge to manufacturing execution. Organisations that can integrate design, engineering, industrialisation, and manufacturing into a single ecosystem will have a significant competitive advantage, and India is well-positioned to become one of those global centres.
ET: The next competitive edge seems to lie in tighter design-to-manufacturing integration. How is this changing the relationship between OEMs and manufacturing partners like Jabil?
BNS: The relationship is becoming more integrated and more outcome-driven. For complex products, manufacturing partners need to be involved before the design is locked in, because decisions on manufacturability, component strategy, automation, testing, and sourcing can directly affect quality, speed, and resilience.
At Jabil, that means bringing engineering, supply chain, and operations together around the product lifecycle. Our engineering teams support customers from prototype to production, while supply chain teams bring market intelligence, supplier visibility, and forecasting into the development stage. On the manufacturing side, standardised automation and quality processes help validated solutions move more consistently from one programme or site to another.
A practical example is the use of digital and AI-enabled tools to strengthen inspection, diagnostics, and shop-floor response. AI-supported visual inspection can improve defect detection and process control, while diagnostic tools and connected data help teams identify issues faster and apply learnings more consistently. The value is not technology for its own sake; there are fewer handoffs, earlier risk visibility, and a smoother path from design intent to manufacturing execution.
For OEMs, this changes the role of manufacturing partners. The expectation is no longer only to build what has already been designed. It is to help make the product manufacturable, scalable, and resilient from the beginning of the product lifecycle, while staying aligned to customer requirements and market demand.
ET: India’s talent advantage is often described in terms of software and digital engineering. But does the country have enough deep-tech manufacturing talent for areas such as automation, semiconductor-linked electronics, silicon photonics, and AI infrastructure?
BNS: India’s software and digital engineering base is a real advantage. The next challenge is building a deeper pool of manufacturing talent capable of industrialising complex technologies such as automation, semiconductor-linked electronics, silicon photonics, and AI infrastructure.
This is broader than HR. In advanced manufacturing, skilling has to be managed as part of the operating system: how teams are trained on the line, how technicians build troubleshooting depth, how engineers learn from production data, how supervisors manage changeovers, and how knowledge is transferred across shifts, sites and suppliers. The talent pipeline has to connect classroom learning, applied training, shop-floor exposure and progression into higher-value technical roles.
ET: Jabil India has been expanding capabilities in areas such as AI infrastructure, data centres, and advanced manufacturing systems. Which emerging technology segments do you believe could become India’s strongest electronics manufacturing opportunities over the next five years?
BNS: Over the next five years, AI and data-centre infrastructure are likely to be among India’s strongest opportunities because they require the same combination India is building: engineering depth, manufacturing scale, supply-chain development and quality discipline. The opportunity is not only in final assembly. It sits across high-performance compute, networking, power management, thermal systems, and the broader electronics ecosystem needed to support AI infrastructure.
Jabil’s recent Pune expansion is aligned with that direction. The facility strengthens our India manufacturing capacity and supports industries including telecommunications, AI cloud data centres, automotive and digital commerce. More importantly, it enables us to build in India for local, regional, or global demand, depending on customer needs, programme requirements, and supply-chain design.
Beyond AI infrastructure, India can build strength in semiconductor-linked electronics, advanced networking, industrial automation, automotive electronics, medical electronics, and energy technologies. The common requirement across these segments is not just capacity. It is the ability to scale reliably, serve different market requirements, and respond as customer demand shifts.
