Coordinated Capitalism: India’s Quiet Industrial Revolution

There is something quietly transformative happening in India’s industrial landscape — a shift that may not grab headlines but could shape the next two decades of growth. A small example appeared recently in the Economic Times: Reliance Consumer Products’ foray into bottled mineral water, in partnership with local bottlers. On the surface, this looks like just another product diversification. But it actually reflects a much larger industrial pattern taking shape — one in which partnership replaces ownership as the dominant model of production and distribution.

This phenomenon isn’t limited to Reliance. Consider the array of partnerships already defining India’s industrial economy: Suzuki and Maruti, Toyota and Kirloskar, Apple and Tata Electronics, MG Motor and JSW, GE and Wipro, Vivo and Dixon, Ericsson and VVDN, Vodafone and Idea, Reliance/Jio and BP, Coca-Cola and Jubilant Bhartia; among many others. In almost every sector — automobiles, electronics, telecom, energy — India is becoming a hub of joint production ecosystems where established local players and global brands combine their respective strengths.

From Brand Entry to Industrial Integration

In the 1990s and 2000s, global brands entered India largely by selling finished products and building distribution networks. Manufacturing was secondary. The goal was to reach the Indian consumer, not to root production in India. What’s happening now is far more significant: India’s manufacturing base itself is becoming integral to global value chains.

The difference is subtle but decisive. The foreign partner brings design, IP, or brand prestige; the Indian partner brings operational competence, cost efficiency, and deep local understanding. Together, they create an industrial hybrid — globally competitive yet locally grounded.

This model mirrors what East Asia achieved during its rapid industrial ascent — but India’s version carries a distinct democratic and federal flavour. It is less about state planning and more about voluntary coordination between private entities with shared long-term interests.

The Squandered Opportunity 

This trend also invites reflection on what could have been. In the 2000s, Indian IT giants like Wipro and HCL exited their existing computer manufacturing businesses, preferring to chase high-margin IT outsourceeing work. At that time, manufacturing was considered 'dirty' and low-status, while services were seen as sophisticated and global.

In hindsight, this was a strategic loss. These companies had strong domestic brand equity amongst the aspirational middle class, and could easily have adopted a “design-and-brand + third-party manufacturing” model — much like Apple’s relationship with Foxconn. Had they done so, India might have developed a competitive hardware ecosystem decades earlier, nurturing dozens of contract manufacturers across the country.

Partnership as National Responsibility

Today, the opportunity to build that ecosystem has returned — and this time, it carries a deeper sense of purpose. Contracting out manufacturing or construction should no longer be treated as mere convenience. It should be seen as a national responsibility.

When large, established brands — both Indian and foreign — collaborate with credible medium-sized manufacturers, they can create a powerful economic multiplier. Such partnerships enable localised and regionalised employment generation across the country — something every government seeks today — while maintaining uniformly high standards of process, quality, and compliance.

In effect, they distribute economic opportunity without diluting excellence. Each partnership site becomes a microcosm of modern industry, uplifting local skill levels and embedding better practices in: -

Product and process quality

Worker safety and welfare

Green energy adoption

Waste management

Regulatory compliance

Use of AI and automation

Social responsibility

This is how industrial modernisation can occur without centralisation — by distributing excellence, rather than concentrating it.

Beyond Manufacturing: Towards A Broader Partnership Economy

This partnership model is not limited to factories. It can be extended across sectors that combine brand, infrastructure, and human skill:

Food and Agritech: Large FMCG brands could co-produce ready-to-eat or dairy products with farmer collectives and regional cooperatives, as Amul pioneered decades ago.

Renewable Energy: Solar and EV companies could form local production partnerships to decentralise green technology manufacturing.

Hospitality and Tourism: Branded hotels could franchise out not just names but construction and management models to regional developers, ensuring uniform quality and training. This model, to be sure, is somewhat mature in India. But it can be expanded further. 

Healthcare and Pharma: India’s generics ecosystem could evolve through partnerships with medical device makers and biotech startups.

Defence and Aerospace: Co-manufacturing between DPSUs, private majors, and local component suppliers could create regional supply clusters.

These are all federated models of production — where innovation, capital, and employment flow together, rather than in isolation.

The Sociological Progression: Towards Coordinated Capitalism

On a wider arc, this is a sociological evolution. India is inching toward what might be called coordinated capitalism — a system in which markets remain free but production becomes cooperative. It’s not the state planning of the socialist era, nor the chaotic individualism of pure capitalism. It’s a networked economy of shared accountability, where brand power meets local manufacturing muscle.

Such a model suits India’s temperament: diverse, federal, entrepreneurial, and socially embedded. It aligns profit with responsibility, and growth with inclusion.

Closing Thought

If India can consciously nurture this model — through policy encouragement, institutional support, and social legitimacy — it can achieve what both state socialism and neoliberalism failed to deliver: diffused, broad-based, and locally-rooted industrial growth.

Because, ultimately, India’s next industrial revolution will not be built by lone giants or tiny startups, but by federations of trust — where global design meets Indian production, and economic growth becomes a shared national enterprise.