Critical success factors and challenges to develop new sustainable supply chains in India based on swiss experiences

Growing global competition requires companies not only to offer high quality and innovative products with competitive prices, but also to understand and identify new business opportunities wherever they may be and to develop the sustainable supply chains necessary to take advantage of these opportunities. These latter trends suggest that countries need to maintain their competitiveness both by having efficient national innovation systems but should also be very active to link with external systems, especially to take advantage of the potential markets in emerging countries. One objective of the SwissMAIN applied research project is to develop new international collaborations among SME´s and research institutes in Switzerland, China and India to design and co-develop products that are adapted to the specific needs of the future global markets. In particular, the Indian economy has experienced an unprecedented growth in the last years. At the same time, the government has updated some regulations to decrease barriers to entry. This suggests a high potential for Swiss companies to take advantage of this growth opportunity in India. Within the SwissMAIN project, the Indian pilot was defined to identify collaboration opportunities among Swiss and Indian companies in the machine tool and machine building industries to develop new win-win relationships. Therefore, the objective of this paper is twofold: 1) present the importance of supporting the evolution of supply chains into sustainable supply chains considering sustainable development elements (economic, social and environmental) and 2) share the results of the SWISSMAIN Indian pilot focusing on identifying the Critical Success Factors (CSF) and challenges based on case studies of Swiss manufacturing and services companies with operations based in India.