With a presence in over 140 countries, Servier combines a long-term vision with patient-focused research. Its journey in India emphasizes ethical, value-based innovation and the expansion of oncology care. India represents tremendous potential—not only as a market, but also as a partner for global manufacturing, R&D, and sustainable healthcare innovation.
Managing Director, Servier
Beicip-Franlab was working in India in bits and pieces, but via an agent model. This led to communication gaps and mistrust with the clients. Beicip-Franlab wanted to solve this issue and go long in the Indian market. Further, Beicip-France recognized that India has one of the highest quality technical staff pools, and with such immense talent blended with the head office expert, Beicip-Franlab can cater to both Indian and global markets. Beicip-Franlab India was conceived in the summer of 2019. The strategy was simple and two-tier:
When preparation meets opportunity, you look like a lucky person or the person destined for it. I became director of Beicip in India because I had good 10 years’ experience with Beicip on both the technical and management side. I had experience in Petroleum Systems Modeling with Reliance Industries, which led me to a technical position at Beicip in Kuwait (onsite at KOC). This was followed by Beicip trusting me with the Country Manager position in Kuwait. In early 2019, our key KOC contract finished, and Beicip-Franlab requested that I move to HQ. During my stay at HQ, I got an offer to join full-time in the technical team at HQ. However, I was feeling a strong attraction to be back in India. During my Years in Beicip-Franlab, I saw how the Beicip-Franlab experts drove projects around the world, leading to major Oil & Gas discoveries. I was talking to myself, why such high-quality studies are missing in India, and why we are not making new discoveries that could be compared to big fields of the world or even India… fields like Mumbai High, Gandhar, KG-D6, Mangala, etc. It’s long since such discoveries have been made. I discovered my ultimate inspiration. The inspiration that will keep me going every day. Help India find Energy! My fresh goal was to ensure that the highest quality studies and technologies coming from IFPEN and & Beicip-Franlab are easily accessible for India and Indian companies like ONGC & OIL and big private companies like Vedanta Cairn, RIL, SunPetro, etc. With this motivation, in May 2019, I proposed to Beicip a dedicated business development effort in India. Beicip management had a clear vision for India; they were quick to form a team consisting of me, our sales and marketing director, and one of the senior sales team members. We were given the responsibility of making the Beicip-Franlab India business model and showing market potential. Between 2019 and early 2021, Beicip made good progress in India and did some big projects. Courtesy this progress and my ultimate motivation of serving the Indian Energy sector, Beicip-Franlab India was born on 29th June 2021. I was having confidence in myself, and most importantly, Beicip had confidence in me. I was one of the three directors defined at the company registration, and then I was chosen as the Managing Director.
As a service and technology provider, Beicip believes in selling solutions with satisfaction. As MD, I want to ensure we connect well at all levels of the client. A solution can’t be delivered effectively if you don’t deliver it at all levels of the client. You have the client’s top management, technical team leaders, and working-level team. Everyone is working for a big common goal, but their reception of the vendor’s solution may have different objectives. Sometimes they are not communicating well between different levels, and it is the vendors’ responsibility to communicate the solutions well from the right perspective. Another key factor is your honesty; you must make sure that your proposed solution solves clients’ challenges and does not oversell your products/services. If your client trusts the quality of your solution and realizes that you can be a long-term partner, it will share with you the short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals of the company and seek your advice in phasing the solutions and keeping up with the market advances. Lastly, your corporate strategy should factor in three components:
The core of Beicip’s business model is client satisfaction. Beicip is a French public sector company, and our uncertainty avoidance is at the highest level. At the same time, India is relatively low on uncertainty avoidance. Indian clients are demanding and have expectations beyond the scope. Understanding that each client is different and needs to be cared for in a specific way is important. Balancing the expectations and managing risks simultaneously is a big task at hand. This calls for a good blend of both Indian and French mentality. With this blend, we can deliver both volume and quality. Further, we understand that India needs “Make in India”; therefore, we are gradually assimilating technical experts in our Beicip India team, training them well with HQ experts, and making a good balance of experts between India and HQ. This mixing of experts is ensuring we remain Indian at core and at the same time provide the well-polished Beicip – IFPEN quality. In addition, we are ready for the knowledge and technology transfer by ensuring training of the client’s technical team. The client’s ultimate gain from a project is when they get the best deliverables together with better-trained internal experts. We have global experience and R&D which which will keep supplying new top-notch services, ensuring continuous evolution of the system. This business model is highly focused on the common goals we have with our client… Finding energy for India!
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