·       Delivering the Inaugural Address, Mr Ajay Shankar, IAS, Member Secretary, National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council observed that while business cycles remained unpredictable, Indian businesses needed to adapt to be competitive in a globalised world. Identifying the paradox of islands of excellence that existed in some sectors like Auto and its components, he felt that there was no reason for manufacturing to fail. For this, the Small and Medium Enterprises, though constrained historically because of some earlier strategic policy errors, had no option but to transform themselves to survive. Success in the domestic market was a precursor to global ambitions. The recently announced Skills Mission, he felt, would bring about a synergy in the SME sector and act as a catalyst to transform the sector. Ambition, self confidence, less reliance on government and lots of ambition could transform Indian manufacturing and make it comparable to its IT success story. He was speaking at the CII organized 21st National Quality Summit in Bangalore with the theme “Quality as the game changer in uncertain times". The Summit will focus on how quality is becoming increasingly relevant across the organization from the boardroom to the shop floor and for players in both the Manufacturing and Services sectors.

·       In his Address, Mr T C A Ranganathan, Chairman and Managing Director, Export-Import Bank of India underlined that while India was underperforming in manufacturing and was way below its potential, it had sufficient scope for improvement. Sustainable advantage means that we need to encourage and build up our manufacturing capabilities and create a “Made in India” brand image. For this, he suggested, that the quality of output as recognized by the customer was a key differentiator for an Indian company to be a player in the global stage. Identifying the revolution in the logistics and communications sectors, he opined that excess capacity across the world would drive international competiveness and growth. These factors would pose challenges for Indian manufacturers to remain competitive.

·     Mr Easwaran Subramanian, Senior Director, Strategy & Operations, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Pvt. Ltd while delivering the Theme Address emphasized that the next frontier in Quality for organizations was to ensure that were able to provide customers with excitement attributes which, if provided, would lead to customer delight. He also released the Deloitte report “Winning with Quality- The ten top things Indian businesses should know about quality”.

·       Earlier in his Welcome Address, Mr N Kumar , Chairman, CII Institute of Quality & Past President, CII & Vice Chairman, The Sanmar Group while recalling CII’s contribution in its three decades of service to the Quality movement, expressed confidence that the Summit would not only be able to juxtapose Quality amongst the various challenges to find elegant game changing solutions but would enable participants to gain a broad understanding of the latest global trends and the impact of poor quality effecting brand erosion.  

·       Mr L Krishnan, Past Chairman, CII Karnataka & Managing Director, Taegutec India Private Limited in his Vote of Thanks indicated that the increase in volatility of business makes it imperative for organizations and leaderships to unlearn and imbibe new knowledge and skill. In this context, he recalled CII Institute of Quality’s fruitful journey in the Quality movement since 1986 and its lead role in bringing world-class operating philosophies and practices such as TQM, TPM, Lean and Six Sigma to enable Indian Industry to enlarge its focus from Product Quality to Organisation-wide Quality to aim for Business Excellence. CII-IQ he concluded would continue to play a pioneering role in identifying future trends and challenges to enable industry to gear up. 

·         The results of the CII – EXIM Bank Award for Business Excellence 2013 will also be announced during the Summit. Mr Dinesh Gundu Rao, Minister for Food & Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs, Government of Karnataka as the Chief Guest at the Award Ceremony will distribute the Awards which will be preceded by a Special Address by Mr Soumitra Bhattacharya, Chairman, CII Karnataka State Council & Joint Managing Director, Bosch Ltd. Over 40 companies will be recognized today in the Award ceremony.

·    Over 25 speakers over 5 sessions will be addressing over 500 participants in this year’s Summit. Mr Manfred H Muell, Former CEO, Mercedes Benz & CEO, Scientrix Holdings will be conducting a Special Session on Strategy & Execution. Other notable speakers at the Summit will include Mr C P Rangachar, Past Chairman, CII Southern Region & Managing Director, Yuken India ;  Mr Satish Jamdar, Managing Director, Blue Star Limited ; Mr Sunjay Kapur, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Sona Koyo Steering Systems Ltd ; Ms Anisha Motwani, Director & Chief Marketing Officer, Max Life Insurance Ltd; Mr Vishal Bali, Group CEO, Fortis Healthcare Ltd ; Mr Shashi Bhushan, Chief Innovation Evangelist, Tata Consultancy Services ; Mr R Srinivasan, Past Chairman, CII Karnataka; Mr Shyam Rajan, Chief Technology Officer, GE Healthcare India ; Mr Venkataram Arabolu, Managing Director, British Standards Institute (BSI) ; Mr Ashok Rao, Convenor, CII Karnataka Manufacturing Panel 2013 & Chief Consultant, KGK Consulting Services ; Mr S Ramasubramanian, Chief Consultant - Manufacturing Systems, Sundram Fasteners Ltd; Mr Ajay Tiwari, Director, Strategy & Operations (Manufacturing and Supply Chain), Deloitte Consulting.

·        Uncertainty- Omnipresent and across industries is not only widespread but is steadily increasing. In India it is being driven by six structural factors- macroeconomic forces, commodity-price volatility, policy instability, changing consumer dynamics, emergence of new competitors and game changing technologies. Ensuring operational flexibility through alternative sourcing options, dynamic supply chain management, lean operations and efficient working capital management would be critical in such volatile environments. Priming the organization to exploit uncertainty and prepare for multiple future scenarios shall be one of the challenges that new age CEOs will have to face.

·        This year’s Quality Summit will incorporate innovative concepts, case studies and best practices delivered by leading industry experts with deliberations on, Managing Uncertainty for Sustainable Excellence, Quality, Sustainability and Innovation - Latest Practices Quality, New Global Trends in Manufacturing among other topics.

CII organized 21st CII National Quality Summit on 8 November, 2013 at Bangalore.

The theme of the 21^st CII National Quality Summit “Quality As The Game Change: Enhancing Business Value through Systemic Excellence in Quality” highlighted that focus on quality is becoming increasingly relevant across the organization from the boardroom to the shop floor and for players in both the Manufacturing and Services sectors.  As a result, CEOs will have to focus not just on product quality, but building an organization-wide quality culture. The Summit enabled participants to gain a broad understanding of the latest global trends in this domain, cutting across various industry sectors. The sessions incorporated innovative concepts, case studies and best practices delivered by leading industry experts. The annual flagship event of CII attracts over 1000 industry captains, domain experts, top bureaucrats, senior quality and strategic planning professionals from across the nation and abroad.