SUCCESS STORY IN INDIA

ESI Group: Approach & learnings for the Indian market

ESI Group is a company specialized in virtual prototyping software & services with operations in India since 2003. With more than 1000 employees and an annual turnover of EUR 111 Million, ESI Group is present in more than 40 countries.

Mr. Slaheddine FRIKHA, EMEA Business Development Manager for Aeronautic & Space Industry, Mr. Jean-Louis DUVAL, former Head of R&D for India (based in France) and Mr. Marco ALOE, COO for UK, Scandinavia, India, Middle-East & Africa, all three from ESI shared their approach and learnings from the Indian market.

The Story of ESI India

Created in 1973 in France, ESI continuously expanded across Europe, America and Asia. In India, ESI started by acquiring EASi Tech India in Bangalore in 2003.

The company had 25 employees and became one of ESI’s R&D center. In 2006, ESI acquired a second company named Mindware Engineering Inc. with offices in Pune, which supported its Services Team in North America.

In 2009, ESI then started to distribute its products and services in India operating from Bangalore, Pune and Chennai.

Today, the ESI team in Bangalore counts 130 employees operating solely in R&D, and an additional 20 staff dedicated to supply the local market. The team in Pune counts another 40 employees delivering services across the world.

In a short period of time, ESI’s business in India has equaled the business ESI generates in Spain or Italy.

Approach for India

In the beginning, India remained a R&D and Services hub for ESI.

With a strong customer base in the automotive sector, ESI started by catering to its international clients present in India and slowly expanded its outreach to other Indian clients. ESI then diversified its offering to the aeronautic, defense, energy, marine, electronics and education sectors, for which demand has grown sturdily across the Indian territory.

Key Learnings from Indian Market

When it comes to staffing new territories, ESI Group’s strategy is not focused on the expatriation of French employees. ESI prefers to organise exchange programs for Indian employees to visit France and enable technological transfer between its subsidiaries. The key for ESI has been to identify, train and retain a stable mid-senior management in India. This management team has enabled the local team to become autonomous, and not only to develop but also conceive products locally, generating increased team motivation.

Location wise, Bangalore is considered as the Indian ‘Silicon Valley’ and provides an ideal setting to grow and retain great staff. Today, ESI’s Indian R&D center adds to ESI’s two other bases in France and in the USA.

Business is growing with the Indian Aerospace market so much that Mr. FRIKHA is expecting to see local numbers outperform the demand ESI traditionally sees for aerospace software and services in Europe and in the USA.

Interview réalisé par Sameer Nawani et Olivia Calvet-Soubiran, équipe du Hub ASTech SYSTEMATIC en Inde.