How small factories are powering Zetwerk
Tata Steel, and Bharat Heavy Electricals. These orders—let’s say to make 1,000 precision parts that will go into an aircraft—are next routed to the right manufacturers in its network. Manufacturers quote their prices and the work is finally sub-contracted.
Such a process helps Zetwerk offer competitive costs to customers and ample capacity. Well, Zetwerk also runs its own factories in emerging sectors such as consumer electronics—while it aggregates factories, the company is also a contract manufacturer itself. Being in Zetwerk’s network helped Spacenex diversify its business.
More orders started coming its way from sectors other than aerospace and defence. “We now access a variety of clients like Ferrari, Mars, Heineken beer, Rolls-Royce, and Bentley," says Guruprasad K, a director at Spacenex. Guruprasad finds Zetwerk “tech-driven".
He is particularly referring to Zetwerk’s homegrown manufacturing operating system called ZISO, which enables online selection of suppliers, real-time tracking, visual updates of products being manufactured, and quality assurance of the final product getting shipped to the customer. Just how big is Zetwerk’s network? It has aggregated about 10,000 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME) that operate factories. On the other hand, orders are generated from about 2,000 customers.
Just how large is Zetwerk in size? The company became a unicorn in August 2021, and is now valued at close to $3 billion. According to a note by ratings agency Crisil Ratings, dated 6 July 2023, the company’s scale of operations has been increasing rapidly. It generated revenue of ₹11,449 crores in 2022-23, growing at a CAGR of 220% from 2019-20.
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