Indian construction equipment industry is expected to grow by 12 per cent. The current scenario is encouraging as we can see lot of projects are now ‘live’, and there are positive vibes across the industry. Shreejesh Mohan explains how current trends in procurement are equally easy and difficult at the same time.
Current trends in procurement Talking about the ongoing procurement trends in ECE sector  Mr Shreejesh  says, “From a buyer’s point of view, nowadays purchasing has become equally easy and difficult. Easy for those people who are upgraded their knowledge with latest equipment and its technology and difficult for the people who are still in the era of taking 3 quotations and making comparison charts.”
 Mr Shreejesh observes, “Awareness about the latest machineries and technology are well known to the most of the smart buyers. This helps them to look beyond the cost of equipment. Also awareness on safety is taking its height after a long time.”  Challenges Mr Shreejesh describes the major challenges as follows:• Financing: OEMs have limitations to offer financing options to customers. The result is that access to financing prevents many prospective users from buying• Renting: Renting is a good option for user, as it can limit their large capital expenditure. However, renting penetration in India is much lower than in other large ECE markets because of a tax regime that makes moving equipment across the states unviable• India’s secondary market for used equipment is under developed• Recovery and availability of skilled manpower.  Supply chain “We have a strong presence all over world, through our channel partners. Also we have zonal offices which are managed by respective heads. Our channel partners are spread over, and it increases proximity to our customers,” explains Mr Shreejesh.
Its channel partners are trained on servicing and they carry the required stock of spare parts to make sure that the down time at customer end is minimum in case of any break down.    “We have capable and robust system for inducting any supplier. The evaluation of the supplier gets done by a team of design, quality and value stream team,” informs Mr Shreejesh.  Customers’ point of viewAccording to Mr Shreejesh, “While procuring construction equipment, customer should look out for its reliability. It describes everything about its performance, safety and life. This will be above the cost of equipment. “ What needs to be considered while costing is the total cost the customer is going to incur for its (equipment) lifetime. Mr Shreejesh adds “In many of the cases the initial cost and landed cost will look much bigger, but the total cost of that equipment when it calculated for its lifetime, can be cheaper than equipment which was less costly when calculated for its landed cost.”——————————————————————–From a buyer’s point of view, nowadays purchasing has become equally easy and difficult. -Shreejesh Mohan, Chief Marketing Officer, Esquire Machines Pvt. Ltd.