India is at the cusp of developing and making products for the world, with quality that is of international standards, especially in the electronics and semiconductor industry, and MSMEs and startups have huge potential. It is not a distant ambition but a fast-emerging reality, but does India have the hunger to speed to reach out and achieve it?
(L-R) Sunil Sinha, Founder & CEO, Ignite Excellence DMCC and Soumitra Bhattacharya, CEO & Director, IFQM at IFQM Symposium 2025
The IFQM second annual symposium brainstormed on the core issue of MSMEs’ challenges of adopting, practising, achieving and developing a quality culture and their immense potential to contribute to various industries, especially in IT (Artificial Intelligence), Pharma, Health, Education and Automobile. A galaxy of senior industry leaders explored the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and areas of engagement and improvement.
The broad questions that IFQM posed to the experts during the two days included: How does India ramp up to World Class Quality? What is Total Quality? What lessons for business are from the disciplines of fine arts? What does it take to succeed globally in the electronics and semiconductor industry? How can India improve access to quality healthcare and superior infrastructure? Transforming the MSME sector through Quality, Innovation and Excellence. How to rise in the Pharma Value Chain. How does the learning from Quality plus Innovation in Design and Manufacturing help MSMEs face and manage their challenges? Can a crisis act as a catalyst for National resurgence? What actions are required to integrate the Academia – Industry ways of work?
The sessions also examined the strategies to strengthen India’s global competitiveness across critical sectors, like advancing pharmaceuticals through innovative therapeutics and health sciences, scaling electronics and semiconductors, and expanding access to quality healthcare and infrastructure. Dr. Noriaki Kano emphasised that lasting innovation must be anchored in quality and continuous improvement. In a participative engagement through historical context, Dr Kano shared insights as a creator of a Quality Model. He informed that more training sessions on TQM will be undertaken for the MSMEs, including visits to the JUSE institute in Japan.
The biggest takeaways from the second annual IFQM Symposium 2025 focused on a central theme, “Quality & Innovation to Make India Globally Competitive.”
Mr Soumitra Bhattacharya, CEO & Director, IFQM, said “We just concluded the IFQM Symposium, which to my mind is a remarkable step forward from where we started. A confluence of all stakeholders, nearly 450 of them – from policy makers to Business leaders from organizations both large and small, Leaders from the Academia consisting of Deans and professors from reputed educational institutions, students representing the future talent and many others who have India up in their minds. We all have a unified intention to carve out a path for India to be globally competitive. IFQM is fast evolving as an Industry led-Nation first movement, gaining pace and momentum by the day. The Symposium urged organizations to invest in the future, adopt Quality as a strategy, and thereby create value that makes India an economic super power, a place it richly deserves to be. The Symposium has fueled ambition, promise and confidence for IFQM to grow multifold, atleast 5X in the following year, with newer platforms, programs and projects that integrate these stakeholders, by adopting Digital as a force multiplier.”
A unique session on the lessons industry and businesses can incorporate from the disciplines of Fine Arts highlighted the methods to develop empathy, excellence, ambition, collaboration, discipline, mentorship (guru), and sensitivity.
Commenting on the importance of investment by the industry, in the sectoral growth — Surinder Singh, Advisor, Technology India Semiconductor Mission ISM stated that the industry has a bigger role in innovation, quality and talent growth. Dr Devi Shetty, chairman and founder of Narayana Health, suggested that the way forward is for employers to push employees to have health insurance partly funded in India. That must happen with the organised and unorganised sectors. He said that India could become the first country in the world to dissociate health care from wealth and prove that the nation’s or family’s wealth has nothing to do with the quality of health care its citizens will enjoy within the next decade.
The two-day symposium was attended by government leaders, global experts, industry champions, and academia to deliberate on an action agenda for positioning India as a trusted, world-class player in global value chains. IFQM is led by a Governing Council* consisting of top industry captains.
About IFQM
Instituted in the year 2023, IFQM is the Indian Federation for Quality Management that is committed to the promotion of transformative changes across Indian industries. It seeks to institutionalise a culture of quality that meets and exceeds global standards. It is about bringing in continuous improvements of both products and services, thereby elevating the perception about Brand India. Committed to the prosperity and quality of life of all, IFQM functions as a catalyst in making Indian businesses globally respected with cooperative trust, respect, empathy, and mutual sharing. Through its initiatives, IFQM supports India’s journey towards becoming a developed nation by 2047, with an emphasis on innovation, excellence, and stakeholder engagement across sectors.
*The IFQM Governing Council: • Mr. N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons • Mr. Dilip Sanghvi, MD, Sun Pharmaceuticals • Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Executive Chairperson, Biocon Biologics • Mr. TV Narendran, CEO & MD, Tata Steel Limited • Mr. K.N. Radhakrishnan, Director & CEO, TVS Motor Co • Dr. Randhir Thakur, CEO & MD, Tata Electronics Pvt. Ltd. • Mr. Salil Gupte, President, Boeing India & South Asia • Mr. SN Subrahmanyan, Chairman & MD, Larsen & Toubro • Mr. Venu Srinivasan, Chairman Emeritus, TVS Motor Co & Chairman, IFQM • Mr. Vivek Chaand Sehgal, Chairman and Co-Founder, Motherson Group.
IFQM on Web: https: ifqm.org.in
IFQM Events: events.ifqm.org.in
IFQM on social media: www.linkedin.com/company/ifqm
