CHENNAI: Ford Motor Company announced plans for a new Global Technology and Business Centre in Chennai, which is expected to open in early 2019. This will its third global product development centre in Asia Pacific.
It will serve as a hub for product development, mobility solutions and business services in India. The company will invest Rs 1300 crore ($195 million) and add 3000 highly skilled employees in Chennai to staff the 12,000-employee facility. Chennai will become its second-largest centre of employment globally after Dearborn in Michigan in the US.
“India is not only a vibrant market for cars and new mobility ideas, it is also rich with talent, technical expertise and ingenuity,” said William Clay Ford (Jr), Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company.
The centre will meet the highest environmental standards. “Designing a sustainable campus is as much about protecting the environment as it is about creating a great place to work,” Ford Jr said.
This centre will also house Ford’s second-largest IT organisation outside the country’s global headquarters. “We are going to add design and develop the already flourishing make in India story with the announcement of the product and development centre. Global Business Services (GBS) which started in 1990 with 20 people will have 12,000 people by 2020,” said David Dubensky, ED, GBS.
GBS teams working in India provide business solutions to every Ford location around the world in areas of information technology, finance & accounting, manufacturing, marketing, sales and service and data analytics.
The centre which will stretch across a 28-acre campus with a 2.5 acre sq ft floor space has been designed for three specific functions, topmost of them being to bring employees from all functional teams under one roof. GBS employees now working across six different facilities in Chennai will work together.
Harley-Davidson unveils 2017 models
Harley-Davidson on Tuesday launched two new motorcycles Roadster and Road Glide Special in India priced at H9.7 lakh and H32.81 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), respectively, while announcing its fresh model line-up for 2017. With the Road Glide Special, the company also introduced its all-new Milwaukee-Eight engine -- the ninth edition of the Big Twin since its inception, which is also the most powerful collection of cruisers in the brand’s 113 year history. Besides, the company also launched anti-lock braking system (ABS) equipped Street 750 Motorcycle priced at H4.91 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), which now comes with a new tank badge and optional two-tone schemes. With this, Harley-Davidson India said all the 2017 edition of the 13 models it sells in India will now be equipped ABS.