‘B-schools should cover sales as a separate subject’

What kind of skills are critical to the manufacturing sector?
Skills are very specific to a role in question. But at a broad level critical thinking and interpersonal skills are important.  
What kind of leadership qualities do you look for in your employees?
Ability to hold self and others accountable; ability to lead while there is uncertainty and ambiguity; leading with inclusiveness and in diverse environment.  
Do you offer any specific training programme to your employees?
We believe people develop most through experiences and exposure. So we invest a lot of time and energy in ensuring that people get those opportunities. Class room training is used more as a support to those efforts.  
Are there specialised degrees for these roles? Please give examples.
There are no specialised degrees in our type of industry as such. But we do hire Mechanical and Electronics engineers and related specialisation for our manufacturing, engineering and sales functions and management degrees for roles across various functions and businesses.
What kind of courses should the universities include in their curriculum to prepare students for this industry?
In case of business schools I feel they should cover sales as a separate subject and should have special focus on services selling as well as B2B selling. In many business schools there is far too much emphasis on marketing and that too FMCG marketing. Business schools need to go beyond that to make their products more relevant for us.  
What percentage of your hiring is done through campus recruitment? What kind of colleges/universities do you usually recruit from?
Traditionally we were not doing a lot of our hiring straight from universities. We have changed that in the last couple of years. Now we hire 15 – 20 % of hires from universities. We hire from engineering and business schools and we also hire trainees in commercial functions.  
What has been the hiring trend in the manufacturing industry so far?
The industry has seen robust growth for the last few years. We are witnessing certain amount of stagnation in 2012-2013. But things are going to pick up from the next year. Hiring has followed the same trend and I am anticipating higher level of hiring next year. 
What are some of the best practices for retention of talent in your industry?
We invest heavily in creating a great and consistent employee experience. Consistency is very important. To that end we invest a lot in developing our people managers. Because the company can say what it wants to say but at the end of the day for any employee the employee experience manifests itself through their immediate manager and their business unit or functional managers. If those people managers cannot manage and treat their people well every day of the year the employee is going to be unhappy. So I believe outstanding people managers are the key to retaining good talent.  
What are the ongoing challenges as far as recruitment is concerned?
Attracting diverse talent to our workforce, finding talent for operations and finance functions.