AHMEDABAD
Ahmedabad is the largest inland industrial
centre in western India, and has historically enjoyed a reputation as an important
base of commerce, trade and industry. Its steady governance has proven to be
a strong catalyst of change and progression, silently and steadily consolidating
this city's industrial leadership. Of course some confidence is shaken when
terrorist actions hit this otherwise peaceful metropolis. .
Locationally, Ahmedabad has asserted its supremacy in industrial domain, providing
support to Mumbai and also as an alternate to Mumbai in western India, skilfully
applying the diligence and professional work ethic of entreprenurial Gujaratis
in general. It enjoys good patronage from the investing NRIs with roots here.
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Ironically, it is ranked last on factor conditions in the set of 10 cities studied.
Like Chandigarh, it has good spending pattern but lacks large demand conditions.
Even the support industries it offers are weak. It has excelled all Indian cities
in the context for strategy and rivalry (rank 1). It leads the pack in providing
the best of incentives for business, and again in business complexity. .
It has gained by putting across capital functions to Gandhinagar, while the
move afoot to bring back such infrastructure to Ahmedabad may prove counter-productive.
It would gain by emerging as services centre, if it steers its limited educational
infrastructure towards high-end specialities. .
It needs a visionary master plan that makes it expand the right way, while providing
the MRTS soon. The old parts of the city got rebuilt to an extent after the
tragic earthquake but more work awaits in that part of the city. It can really
boost industrial tourism and tourism centered on Porbander and Sabarmati. But
it seems still wedded to conservatism and conventionality, a dichotomy that
doesn't vibe well with industrial advancement. Quality of life is hardly acceptable,
a poor 6th in the ranking. .
Ahmedabad is at the inflection point all well managed cities face, when a massive
wave of expansion is the only step forward in its life cycle. It should encourage
higher value stream incubation: engineering design services, industry consulting
and venture funding. It has also to sharpen its innovation capabilities and
on factor conditions, must also broaden its outlook, for instance, by smarter
application of capital in other better opportune regions of the world. In parallel,
it has a significant ground to cover in shaping its educational infrastructure.
It can also sponsor superior managerial talent that not only drives diversification
elsewhere but also gives leadership in assuming higher value chain roles: to
ship-breaking industry by taking up shipbuilding, to pharmaceutical sector with
better R & D, to clusters of Baroda and Surat in slicker management of world
markets via technology and channel management. .
COMPETITIVE STRENGTHS .
Great business incentives .
Attractive income spending
pattern Low business costs .
COMPETITIVE WEAKNESSES .
Least developed markets .
Demographics unsupportive of demand conditions
Skewed diversity of firms .
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