'Companies need to focus on end users'

Q&A/N. Srinivasan

N Srinivasan, the new director general of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), has been with the chamber since 1974. He has headed CII's UK office, CII Western Region and led the Automobile Components Manufacturers' Association as executive director for five years.

Srinivasan spoke to Business Standard about his new role.
Excerpts:

What will be your main focus as the new director general of CII?
CII will have a three-pronged approach. First, the chamber will concentrate on consumers and will urge companies to focus on the end users.

Second, it will bring innovations in terms of new services and offices. We will open branches in Pakistan and Turkey. Third, CII will focus on institutionalisation and improvement in management. We will focus on policy formulations, competitiveness, global networking and social development.

Along with Boston Consulting Group, we are planning to change many things in CII to make it more responsive to the changing needs of industry.

Will CII look into the technological aspects of the industry also?
We will be starting a technology development project called CIITDB.NET. This will look into the quality aspects of companies. Also, we have identified 18 professors from different educational institutions who will provide their expertise to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

What will the body do for the SMEs?
We have already started a project in which industrial clusters in Mohali, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu will work on total quality management (TQM) and help the SMEs. A group of 20 companies is already working on the project.

What are the social development activities CII is taking up?
CII is taking up the issues of HIV and AIDS and will bring out a special report soon. It will rope in major industrial houses to create awareness about the disease. Also, we have identified industrial clusters in Mohali and Andhra Pradesh for work on backward linkages and to develop the regions.

What is CII doing on the education front?
We are preparing a detailed paper on education. CII feels that the bulk of the resources should be allocated for primary education.