Excellence key to survive, flourish in global market: PM

New Delhi, Feb 7 (PTI) In the face of intensecompetition, Indian enterprises need to adopt a culture ofexcellence to survive and flourish in the global market, PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh said today.

While several multi-national enterprises have set up R&Dfacilities in India, the country has a "far way to go ininstitutionalising the culture of excellence embedded into theworking processes of Indian enterprises," he said.

Singh was addressing an international conference onproductivity and quality here.

"We live in times of intense competition and rapidtechnological change...Technology is eliminating or at leastsignificantly reducing entry barriers in many industries andincreasing the number of providers of goods and services," hesaid.

Singh said the techniques for improving quality andproductivity were not only useful for private enterprises butalso for delivery of public services.

"In fact they can be used to design government servicesoptimally so that service delivery becomes much-more costeffective and reliable," he said.

Giving example, the Prime Minister said that theproductivity technique could be used to enhance agriculturalproduction and improve overall supply chain management.

"Today the use of technology in planning and supply chainmanagement has enormous potential to improve productivity,reduce cycle times as well as inventory levels drastically",he said.

India''s agriculture which feeds about 70 per cent of itspeople suffers from supply chain management, leading to boutsof food inflation now and then.

This area is receiving attention of the government afterthe weaknesses in the food supply management have come to thefore.