Q&A session with Praveen Acharya of KPIT Cummins Infosystems

By N. Srinivas

Bangalore, India: Recession might have brought down the revenues of automotive electronics industry, but not the investment in R&D. KPIT Cummins Infosystems, Indian electronics design services company, with major stake in automotive electronics area, is fully fuelled with expertise in embedded software to serve all key areas of automotive electronics. KPIT Cummins automotive customers include 13 of the top 15 automotive OEMs and the top 30 Tier 1 suppliers.
In the ongoing ISA Vision Summit (Feb 16-17 2009), I caught up with Mr. Praveen Acharya VP, Semiconductor solutions of KPIT Cummins to discuss on embedded software and general electronics design opportunities in India.

Question: How is the global recession impacting your business?

Answer: There is little slowdown in orders, pushing the deal is bit harder, otherwise recession is forcing OEMs to focus more on innovation, and outsourcing in R&D is becoming priority to cut costs.

Question: Is there is any pressure on billing?
Answer: No.

Question: How do you foresee market opportunities in Indian electric car market?
Answer: The electric car market has not yet reached the production volumes of petrol/diesel cars, however we are prepared to serve this market.

Question: Still much of India's defense technology is not indigenously developed, giving a huge opportunity for mission critical electronic technology providers. What are your plans for this market?

Answer: Since we are in automotive electronics, aerospace and defense is the next best domain. We are looking out for opportunities and evaluating business value propositions to offer services directly to Indian organizations and also to other defense suppliers from whom India is buying complete hardware.

Question: Indian embedded companies are not doing that well in embedded software product market, what are the issues involved in products market?

Answer: Identifying market opportunities is a major issue; Indian companies are failing in establishing a proper connection between demand and supply in products market. Most of the designs are bottom-up type.

Question: Is technology change not an issue?

Answer: Technology change is now manageable by Indian industry.

Question: Your thoughts on necessity of semiconductor fab in India and the manufacturing ecosystem?

Answer: India needs semiconductor fab, if not a 45nm or lower, a fab with wider line width will itself supply much of the semiconductor components to Indian hardware industry. The price points won't be dictated with presence of good local electronics manufacturing ecosystem. The entire product life cycle can be managed in India.