Siemens will focus on digitisation and smart infrastructure: Sunil Mathur

Siemens India managing director and chief executive officer Sunil Mathur speaks about digitisation and its contribution in an interview with Swati Khandelwal.

What is your view on innovation day and digitisation?

The speciality of innovation day is that we are talking about digitisation that is based on use cases that have been implemented. So we have the ability to talk about the factually overused cases, and not just talk theoretically. This innovation day, we will be showcasing what we can do in power, digitalisation, industrial scenario, cities and infrastructure and mobility by introducing and adopting new technologies. 

How would digitisation help in job creation?

Digitisation will increase employment because its arrival in an area will increase the productivity of the area, which in turn will bring growth in the area. Growth will increase employment opportunities. But, it will bring change. People will have to change their skills and leave behind the skills that they have been carrying till date. Eventually, digitisation will increase employment. 

Digitisation and mobility products have performed well. How do you see this segment contributing to overall revenue?

Digitisation will have an important contribution in almost every segment. It will benefit the most in the industrial space as it will help in increasing productivity and competitiveness. It will bring the ability to grow because more products can be developed at the same cost. In smart infrastructure, an average person benefits a lot from it. It can also have a great contribution to mobility because it increases efficiency in infrastructure space. 

You have revised your strategy and have a special focus on short-cycle orders. How many such orders do you have and its impact on your margin when compared to long-cycle orders?

There is an increase in our short-cycle orders, but it doesn't mean that we are just concentrating on them. We also have long-cycle and infrastructure orders and we are concentrating on them too. But we will have a major focus on the bottomline. Thus, we will concentrate majorly on projects that can provide bottomline benefits. Infrastructure projects are also important because we want to grow, and it will come from those projects. But it doesn't mean that we will concentrate largely on short-cycle projects. We will focus on both infrastructure and short-cycle projects. In fact, we have concentrated on those in the last four-five years and it has helped in increasing our topline as well as bottomline. 

What kind of order inflows are expected from the new government?

Infrastructure is going to be the focus area of the new government. In the past years too, they had their focus on the segment and the continuity will be maintained. We are planning to participate in future infrastructure projects. 

What does the industry expect from the government in capital goods sector and digitisation?

Continuity of policies is an important expectation and the new government will stand by it. It will continue with the policies and reform programmes of the past years.

Which of the verticals/divisions will act as growth drivers for Siemens? 

We will have a focus on every segment, primarily on digitisation, energy distribution and smart infrastructure. I think ample opportunities for growth are available in these segments. Opportunities are also available in mobility, power generation and industrial segments and we will concentrate on all of these. We will focus on mobility, digitisation and smart infrastructure.