We plan to hold a two-day conference focused on Global Manufacturing and Service Networks in the campus of the Indian School of Business (ISB) on August 2-4, 2006. It is jointly planned by researchers at Purdue University, New York University, Indian School of Business and Deloitte Research.  For the academic sessions on August 4, the day we seek travel related funding for US researchers from NSF, we plan to invite academics from the US and Asia to describe their research on how supply chains in emerging economies have built the ability to compete globally. Different researchers with different backgrounds, such as in new product development, R&D, logistics and customer care will bring their perspectives to the conference. The conference will provide an avenue to share data, experience, research methods and access to firms amongst researchers in the US working in this area. The impact of this will be a deeper understanding of how capability is getting built in supply chains in emerging economies and how to conduct further research in this area. On the previous day, August 3, we plan to invite speakers from the industry and government to describe the competitiveness of firms and industries based on personal experience either with decision making or policy analysis. Our aim is to share information, ideas, data and questions amongst a number of researchers who can further use this input in their studies.