Sunil Vachani

Category winner: Manufacturing

A brand behind brands

A second-generation entrepreneur and a veteran of 29 years in the electronic manufacturing industry (EMS), Sunil Vachani is the Chairman and Managing Director of Dixon Technologies, India’s largest home-grown contract electronics manufacturer.

Sunil, a young graduate from the American College in London, returned to India to engage in his family-run business. His father, Sundar Vachani, had started and built the Weston brand of TVs, a market leader in the era of B&W TVs in India. However, he soon realized the vast, untapped opportunity in outsourced manufacturing and wanted to start his own venture.

With some borrowed money from his father and a lot of motivation, he established Dixon in 1993 at a small, rented facility in Noida with just one factory. Back then, he serviced only one customer — Goldstar, now LG Electronics — and started exporting to Europe.

Sunil took one step at a time and has grown Dixon into an electronics major with manufacturing capabilities in 11 state-ofthe-art facilities across India. Last financial year, Dixon registered net revenue of INR6400 crores, a growth of nearly 47% from the previous financial year.

A firm believer in the concept of “Make in India, consume in India,” Sunil has been working with industry bodies to create a robust ecosystem vital for making manufacturing more viable in the country. Reflecting his beliefs, Dixon today manufacturers a vast range of home appliances, lighting products, smartphones, LED bulbs, and washing machines. Dixon’s unique design capabilities and low-cost manufacturing techniques earned it the title of “Best Indian EMS” by multiple trade journals and industry bodies.

“This is only a start,” says Sunil. His bigger plan is to bring about a mindset change that global manufacturing can happen in India.