Chris Holman welcomes back Tony Vernaci Vice President of Global Business Development, MEDC, Lansing, MI to the Michigan Business Beat. 

Tony has just returned to the office from a trip to India. The State of Michigan continues to receive a significant amount of interest from companies in India that would like to establish a business presence here and take advantage of Michigan's strong business climate.

As you may know, the best way to address the demand in the market was to hire a resource to represent Michigan on the ground in India.  One of the reasons for Tony's trip was to take new contractor MK around to introduce him to some of the most important business leads and contacts in the country.  They were following up on the results of the global business summit, which was held in October of last year with Lt. Governor Calley.

Tony also used the trip as an opportunity to visit headquarters for some of the existing Indian companies in the state.

Companies such as Mahindra

• Have an existing operation in Ann Arbor to build their new GenZe electric scooter
• Mahindra also has a technical center in Troy that houses approximately 200 engineers.  Surprisingly, much of the design work these engineers are working on are for products that will be sold in India.
• They also have about 3 other major projects in the pipeline that could end up creating 100’s of new jobs in Michigan.

 Meeting with SMR Automotive

• SMR has a 500,000 sq. ft. production facility in Marysville that produces external rearview mirrors for the auto industry.  This is another great story for Michigan because much of the product from this facility goes to Hyundai Motor in Alabama.
• They made the decision to set up the operation in Marysville after conducting a very detailed cost analysis that showed Michigan to be more cost competitive than states in the southeastern US.
• Since their initial investment SMR has continued to grow their business in Michigan and provides over 1,000 jobs in the community.
• SMR’s engineering team in Michigan supports their operations in India, Mexico and Brazil.

Both of these companies are a great testimony to the quality of talent Michigan has to offer.

Besides the company visits during our trip we also met with officials from the US Commercial Services in New Delhi and Mumbai. They had meetings with 2 of the country’s leading industry organizations and the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation which is similar to the MEDC.  All of these organizations have provided tremendous support for our efforts in India.

In total, the trip covered 3 cities and over a dozen meetings in the span of 5 days.  Very packed agenda with a great return on investment for the State of Michigan.  The main industries on the agenda for this trip were automotive, agriculture, aerospace and medical equipment.

For more knowledge, news, and insights visit:
www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com