By Arjun Mohan, AGMP 2025
India has spent decades learning how to manufacture for the world. The next challenge is different: can we build the materials, technologies, intellectual property, and capabilities that the world will manufacture with?
The question is particularly relevant as India works towards Viksit Bharat@2047. A developed India will not be defined only by the size of its economy or the number of factories it operates. It will also be defined by what those factories create, the technologies behind them, the value captured within the country, and the problems Indian innovation can solve for the rest of the world.
My own professional journey has taken me through different parts of this manufacturing ecosystem—from large industrial organisations to packaging, operations, supply chains and, more recently, a young company working at the intersection of materials science and sustainable packaging. One lesson has stayed with me: building in India is rarely about one breakthrough. It is about connecting many pieces that traditionally sit in different boxes.
The first shift I believe India needs is from a cost advantage to a capability advantage.
For years, India’s manufacturing proposition has often been associated with competitive labour costs and scale. These remain important, but they are no longer sufficient. Global manufacturing is becoming increasingly demanding. Customers expect consistency, traceability, shorter development cycles, regulatory compliance, sophisticated materials, and increasingly, lower environmental impact.
Competing on these dimensions requires investments in engineering, automation, research, process capability, and people. It requires Indian companies to move further upstream—from converting and assembling products to developing the technologies and processes that make those products possible.
The second shift is from manufacturing products to creating intellectual property.
A country becomes significantly more resilient when it can design and develop the technologies behind what it manufactures. This does not mean every company needs to become a deep-tech laboratory. It means creating stronger links between research institutions, entrepreneurs, manufacturing organisations and customers.
The journey from a laboratory idea to a commercially viable product is particularly instructive. A material that performs well in a controlled environment still needs to survive manufacturing realities, customer requirements, cost pressures, regulatory standards and supply-chain constraints. Moving across that gap requires a different kind of innovation—one that combines science with execution.
This is where India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem can play a defining role.
The third shift is from “Made in India” to “Created in India, Scaled Globally.”
The ambition should not stop at producing goods for export. Indian companies have an opportunity to develop solutions here that address global challenges—from affordable healthcare and financial inclusion to climate-resilient infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and sustainable materials.
Sustainability is one such opportunity. The world needs materials and products that reduce resource consumption and environmental impact without compromising performance or affordability. India, with its manufacturing depth and enormous domestic market, can become an important proving ground for these solutions.
But building such businesses is not easy. Innovation has to cross the distance between an idea and a purchase order. It has to move from prototype to repeatable production, from one customer to many, and eventually from a domestic market to international markets.
That transition demands something broader than technology. It demands patience, capital, manufacturing discipline, strong supply chains, skilled talent and, perhaps most importantly, the willingness to keep iterating.
There is also a human dimension to this transformation.
When we speak about Viksit Bharat, conversations naturally focus on large infrastructure projects, major investments and headline economic numbers. Yet development is also being built quietly every day—by engineers improving a production line, operators solving a recurring quality problem, researchers developing a new material, entrepreneurs taking a product from prototype to scale, and professionals connecting functions that have traditionally worked in silos.
These may appear like small actions individually. Collectively, they become capability.
India’s opportunity over the coming decades is therefore not simply to manufacture more. It is to build better, own more of the value chain, develop more of the underlying technology and take those capabilities to the world.
The journey towards Viksit Bharat will ultimately be measured not only by what India consumes or produces, but by what India creates that the world needs.
The next chapter of “Made in India” could be much bigger than a label on a product.
It could be a technology.
A material.
A process.
An idea.
And, eventually, something the world cannot imagine manufacturing without.
Author Bio:
Arjun Mohan is a strategy and innovation professional working at the Founder’s Office of Bambrew Plant Fiber Technology Pvt. Ltd. With experience spanning manufacturing, packaging, R&D, supply chain, sustainability, and business strategy, he works on scaling next-generation sustainable materials, strategic partnerships, investments, and business growth.
