Fifteen years ago, he brought his long-time dream to reality – to create an institution par-excellence to skill and upskill deserving candidates and help them find placements in the automotive industry – even as the industry undergoes technological advancements. Layam Group completes 15 glorious years in April 2022 and the Group – under the able leadership of their chairman – celebrates their people, skills and their drive to deliver quality responsibly. Sarada Vishnubhatla has the pleasure of speaking to G S Ramesh, Chairman, Layam Group, to understand his foresight and vision for the future.
What began 15 years ago as an HR consulting firm serving a range of industries, including automotive, today has grown to be a successful organization with multiple fingers in even more varied industrial pies. The Group, founded by G S Ramesh, Chairman, Layam Group, is founded on the principle of increasing value for customers, investors and employees by delivering sustainable management solutions and human resources. The idea is to help their customers achieve their goals.
Ramesh states: “Since its inception, Layam Group has grown into a multi-layered organization. Each layer represents a milestone that we have achieved when we expanded into a different domain. For example, we execute central government’s NEEM and NAPS programs as registered authorized training partner with AICTE, we also undertake contract manufacturing for different OEMs, building buses for them; then, we have since added shipbuilding and power distribution sectors also to our portfolio. Now, we are poised to enter other domains such as aerospace, and health too. The pattern you can see here is that Layam Group contributes to industrial sectors that strengthen India’s economy.”
An Indian company through and through, Layam Group today employs almost 14000 people.
Building Up Human Talent
The basic foundation for Layam lies in its twin mottos – one, honesty in relationship, and two, transformation from head count to brain count. Driven by them, Layam has stepped up as a 3rd party service provider to offer manufacturing excellence to companies. Not only does April 2022 marks the 15th foundation year of the Group, the visionary Chairman is also launching their yet another new initiative in the health industry – helping companies execute their CSR activities.
He shares: “We help companies achieve manufacturing excellence that encompasses cost, quality and productivity performances. With the new health initiative, we are creating a new model of excellence while enhancing human resources, which we term as the Humane Side of Enterprise.”
Partnering Crème de la Crème
Ramesh’s philosophy in life and business is simple – ‘keep relationships alive with chemistry’, and the same is reflected in the way the Group has been serving its clientele since their inception. Layam is proud of its services to major Indian bus, truck and passenger car OEMs for whom they are executing quality, inspection and line production checks besides testing vehicles. Then in the EV sector, Layam has been helping start-ups and companies to get relevant manpower.
Ramesh elaborates: “We have been involved with India’s first electric scooter makers since they founded the company. We continue to provide them with human resources in manufacturing their vehicles. Today, EV start-ups are mushrooming rapidly across the country but they need the basic knowhow on how to establish themselves in the industry. We are only happy to extend our support.”
Since Layam Group has been actively skilling manpower in the automotive sector for long, they have the necessary database to select workers who have the relevant experience to help these start-ups.
He explains the concept of Hire, Train and Deploy at Layam: “We hire potential candidates, train them – sometimes on-the-job – and then find placements for them in different organizations as per the challenge they need resolved. EV sector is evolving well and in the near future, it will get fully structured and organized. The demand that we see peaking today in the EV sector – whether because of environmental-friendly change or due to the fuel prices hiking by the day – will level down in the next 5 years or so. This means that the industry stakeholders must strengthen themselves, which in turn will trigger consolidation. Then there are alternate fuels like hydrogen becoming more of a reality. Hence, this is the time to understand the cascading effect of all the dynamics that we are witnessing currently in this sector.”
And Layam Group is ready to help them resolve issues and truly be a partner in progress with the stakeholders.
Addressing Industry Dynamism
Ramesh believes that the evolving dynamics of any industry, especially the automotive industry, is all about the survival of the fittest and for the organizations to know where they fit in in the segment.
He explains at length: “There are 3 layers to it – the critical, the semi-critical and the general layer. The first layer involves the cream of the industry who can bring a definitive change in the sector; the second is all about those executing the operations while the general segment comprises the dynamic population. So, the stakeholders – whether early birds or those coming up now – must align themselves with the dynamic growth. It means that they will either create a bottom-up or top-down business for themselves.”
Ramesh recommends for the stakeholders to be high on competence which comes with proper knowhow of the business, have the confidence to deliver the solutions and to create out-of-the-box solutions for the clientele. Another recommendation he has for his customers is that they be financially strong enough to be able to sustain unpredictable economic environment, namely, the COVID pandemic and such.
He shares: “The market is always riddled with uncertainty but companies must be able to sustain themselves through tough times so that they do not get shot down. And, we help them maintain sustainability and consistency.”
Contract Manufacturing – Ace Up Layam’s Sleeve
Layam Group has always considered contract manufacturing or job contract model as a pathway to success. If the bottom line for any industry is cost-efficiency while delivering quality, performance and productivity, Ramesh has a course of action planned out for them: “I would recommend applying these parameters keeping them people-centric. When talking about cost, we help our customers do more with fewer people. It translates into employing manpower who are skilled since they contribute more than others. And that is where we exhort brain count over head count.”
The human resources trained at Layam are able to deliver higher productivity enabling the company reduced overheads. Layam believes in offering relevant human resources to their clients and that is why the Group’s popularity has increased exponentially in these many years and that too purely by word-of-mouth publicity. The testimony of their success lies in the fact that its oldest clients – including major Indian auto OEMs – are still seeking services from the Group. Today, some of those clients have given Layam the responsibility to execute end-to-end supply chain, logistics and warehousing too.
He adds: “We are also now conducting vehicle testing for 2 home-grown truck and bus majors. We offer them trained drivers and people in other capacities all over India wherever their vehicles run and are tested. We collate the reports, document the performance and also vehicle validation.”
Auto Trends To Look Out For
Talking about the trends to look out for in the automotive manufacturing sector, Ramesh highlights AI playing a big part – though not so in the near future – and quotes EVs as a major disrupter.
He points out to a current trend which is strategic outsourcing: “Automotive manufacturing embraces multiple layers of operations within it, which includes both core and non-core activities. The latest trend that is picking up slowly is that non-core activities are getting outsourced to 3rd party service providers. This allows companies to now focus on their core activities. And Layam Group is perhaps the very first such service provider to companies.”
For any auto manufacturing company, non-core activities comprise roughly 60% of their business. In these times when AI, electric mode of transportation and digitalization are the hot topics, the industry is bound to soon witness the next level in the way human resources will be trained, to take on newer responsibilities and deliver well. A major disruption will come in the form of reduced need for human resources when AI and ML will truly become more of a norm in the Indian auto industry, and Layam Group is studying this already in-depth.
Ramesh thinks aloud: “We have to prepare the human resource when it will become limited with AI and ML in the picture. That will also be the time when more consideration will be given to the brains behind the skill rather than the number of people – which is what we call brain count over head count. We have to prepare the manpower to be ready for the future. We will need to upskill and train them with relevant skills while also understanding the AI domain specialization and tie everything together so that we are all a part of the growth.”
Ramesh is convinced that AI will become part of Indian automotive industry but not in the near future though exceptions are always there.
Layam’s Talent Academy Foundation
Layam’s Talent Academy Foundation currently is executing central government’s twin schemes of NEEM (National Employability Enhancement Mission) and NAPS (National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme). Coming close on its heels is the launch of Layam’s own e-learning platform and mobile app soon.
Ramesh offers details: “These will allow us to train candidates for both blue- and white-collar jobs remotely also. We are still working out the details and creating the curriculum of the programs.”
For the youth of today, Ramesh has a single piece of advice – Stand Up and Deliver and Romance With Stress.
He explains the nuances: “If we can understand and accept stress in life, it will give us the strength and the drive to deliver with confidence because we would have prepared for such situations and that is exactly where Layam comes into the picture because we deliver skilled and upskilled human talent.”
In a nutshell, Layam Group’s whole endeavour is to prove to the world that, time and again, Indians are highly capable of creating history and, G S Ramesh is right at the forefront leading the company to success!