Q.4. Discuss the consulting opportunities in east African region.
Ans. East Africa includes Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Burundi Geographically, the region is well known for its magnificent physical features. The region is witnessine economic development initiatives at various levels in a number of countries.
Considering the potential for consulting opportunities Ethiopia and Uganda have been selected for the study. The country profiles of both the countries are given in the following way:
Uganda : Uganda is located in the heart of Sub Saharan Africa with one-fifth of its area covered with fresh water (Lake Victoria).
In 2004, the GDP of Uganda was US$ 7.7 billion, with a real GDP growth of 5.9%. Sector-wise contribution to the GDP in 2004 was 38.8% in agriculture and allied sector, 19.5% in industry and 41.7% in services.
The sectors, which show maximum potential for consultancy services in Uganda, are infrastructure, energy, education and IT enabled services, agriculture and rural development, manufacturing sector, health and demography, geology and mining, transportation, energy and information technology.
Ethiopia: Ethiopia is located in eastern Africa in the southern Red Sea region. It borders Sudan on the west, Eritrea on the north, Djibouti and Somalia on the east, and Kenya on the south.
The sectors, which show maximum potential for consultancy services in Ethiopia, are Agriculture and Rural Development, Tourism, Manufacturing sector, Geology and Mining, Transportation sector, , Energy, Water Management, Telecommunication Construction and Health.
Recommendations and Action Plan : Growth potential for consulting services is envisaged to be high in South East Asian and East African countries as these countries are pursuing fast track development plans across diverse sectors. In the CIS countries, although all of them have development agenda, they are comparatively not as fast paced as the east African countries and the development potential is limited to a few sectors. The key strategies and action able plans are broadly categorised into following four categories :
(i) Market understanding includes conducting field based exploratory studies in the target
markets, creation of database of local consultants, setting up the mechanism for gathering
market intelligence.
(ii) Promotion includes organising “Consultancy Trade Marts (CTM)” in the target countries,
organising delegations of Indian industry to target countries, creating awareness of Indian consulting capabilities within the Indian Embassies in these countries, tax benefits. identifying and empowering a nodal agency for sustainable promotion of Indian consulting
business and developing closer ties with bilateral and multilateral institutions.
(iii) Focused marketing includes strategic alliances with local consulting firms, creation of
Consultancy Development Fund (CDF) and merger and acquisition. (iv) Quality assurance includes appointment of a regulator for quality assurance.
Q.5. What is engineering design offshore services? Explain in detail.
Ans. Engineering design offshore services transfers ideas and designs into functional components that can be manufactured and marketed in a short time period. The common composition of team for engineering design offshore services include Design Leaders, Design Engineers, Program Managers, Detailers, Technicians, Specialist in Tooling and Die design and manufacturing.
With this trend, Indian engineering design consulting organisations are increasingly looking to potential locations like USA, UK and Japan. Keeping this in view, these three countries have been identified for studying the export potential of engineering design services.
Concept of Engineering Design Offshore : The engineering design offshore requires the understanding of international projects and availability of IT infrastructure and engineering manpower
Clients : The clients for the engineering design offshore consultancy services include large international companies operating in the sectors of Engineering services, Automobile and manufacturing, IT and software who directly outsource their design and development requirements to have a competitive advantage of cost and benefits of different time zones.
Size of the Indian Engineering Design Services. The engineering services organizations have a keen interest to capture the design services from overseas due to their expertise in segments such as automotive, aerospace, engineering designs, etc.
The total world wide revenues for the engineering services are estimated at about $170 billion International Development Centre estimates that the world wide market for outsourced engineering services was worth $69.8 billion in 2001, with a forecast to grow at a five-year Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.2 per cent, to $123.9 billion in 2006,
NASSCOM assesses that outsourced engineering services to India have a market potential of $7-12 billion. The present value of work undertaken by Indian vendors in ET services was about $500 million.
Services Offered: Almost all design services such as preparation of component drawings and designing, operations process parameters, detailed engineering designs, and drawings can be outsourced to India.
Competitiveness of Indian Organisations : The five countries where major services are being off-shored are India, the Philippines, Canada, Ireland, and Russia. Canada and Ireland are on the high coast side, while the Philippines, Russia, and India are on the low coast end.