NAME: BABA N. KALYANI AGE: 57 DESIGNATION: CMD GROUP: Bharat Forge Ltd

The Indian auto components industry is aiming for the skies. the goal: to become a $25-billion (Rs 112,500-crore) sector by 2015. Ask the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association (ACMA), the apex industry body, if the target is realistic and it points to the success of Baba Kalyani and his company Bharat Forge Limited (BFL), the world's second largest forgings company and a serious pretender to the pole position. It has bid to take over the global numero uno, Germany's ThyssenKrupp, jointly with a group of as yet unidentified private investors. If the bid succeeds-the Mahindras and some other overseas companies are also in the fray-it will mark the first instance of a domestic company emerging as the Global No. 1 in a manufacturing industry.

But it wasn't always this hunky dory for Kalyani and his empire. When India's automobile market tanked in the mid-1990s, Kalyani took a calculated gamble by deciding to expand capacity and aggressively tap business opportunities abroad. The strategy paid off; Bharat Forge now supplies components to global biggies like Ford, General Motors, Volvo, Toyota, Honda and DaimlerChrysler, among others, and has eight manufacturing units spread across India, China, Europe and the us. Kalyani believes that this international strategy gives his group several advantages-it brings it closer to its customers and allows him to practice 'dual-shoring', which he describes as marrying high-technology (particularly from its European acquisitions) and low costs (in India). He acquired a unit in China, he says, not to send cheap exports to the US and European markets but to give BFL a large foothold in the world's fastest growing automotive market.

Kalyani, a Mechanical Engineer from the bits, Pilani, and an MSc from MIT, US, has turned what, in the 1960s, was a small family business, into a global leader. In the process, he's become one of the country's richest individuals, making it, this year, to the Forbes list of billionaires with a personal net worth of $1.4 billion (Rs 6,300 crore). But he's far from done. "We want to be the world leader in our business," he has said on umpteenth occasions. If his bid for ThyssenKrupp succeeds, that position will be his for sure.