Reliability, fuel efficiency and productivity are the three factors increase the ultimate productivity of the equipment.Dimitrov Krishnan, Vice President and Head, Volvo CE India Volvo CE recently concluded its 18-month long Operator Champion contest and announced most talented operator in India. On the sidelines of the event Dimitrov Krishnan, Vice President and Head of Volvo CE India speaks to B2B Purchase and highlights the company’s performance, role of fuel efficiency and the future of rental market in India. Excerpts:What are your prime objectives behind organising Operator Champion program?The Indian government has set many ambitious targets in the area of infrastructure development. These targets will remain unachieved until we increase our focus on skill development. Volvo CE organises Operator Champion program to highlight the importance of skills development in the construction industry and the vital role played by equipment operators. This time we have been able to connect more than 900 operators across the country. Our aim was to make each one of them realise the important role they play, improve their competence and confidence. We believe that the men and women who sit at the controls of our equipment have the power to deliver real change in our built environment.What are the major considerations of market other than fuel efficiency?Fuel efficiency and productivity are the two major factors. The reasons for this that is if you take mining site or a heavy construction site where the time limits are very stiff, the initial purchase value of equipment is less important because it is less than 20 per cent of the total cost. It is the operation cost which is the combination of fuel and maintenance costs is always on the higher side. However, down time of an equipment cost lot of money. So reliability, fuel efficiency and productivity are the three factors increase the ultimate productivity of the equipment. Our equipment excel in this three areas and that is the reason customers believe in us and buying our equipment.It is observed that alternative electric or hybrid fuel is an upcoming trend. Is there any such movement visible in the Indian CE segment?Use of alternate fuel in construction equipment industry is still at nascent stage as the emission norms are only at BS 3 today whereas the truck industry is heading towards BS 4. So construction equipment industry is well behind in that sense because of comparatively a lower volume with around 50,000 equipment. Hence the footprint of the industry onto the emission standpoint is lesser and that is why it is slightly behind but the next upgrade is most likely by 2020-2021 when the government starts to implement by then we will be ready with technology.Your products in market it is consider as very costly, prime price product. How do you deal with that?As a premium product player we are not niche player. Though we participate in the mass market, we target customers who can understand the total value of the equipment because that is how we design our equipment. These are not a run out of the mill standard products, are products with specific high-end features and customers who have works which need that type of features where Volvo equipment can make a business sense, they will understand and buy our equipment. That’s the reason we have a reasonable market share in the industry despite being a premium price player. Today we are within the top 5 CE players in India. How do you observe growth in the Indian rental market?Rental market for construction equipment is largely unorganised in India. However, in the last few years, the industry has witnessed emergence of a number of big rental companies who are developing good market models. The challenge for a premium player like Volvo CE is how to get value in rental where rental companies are generally earning in rupees per hour. Unless the end-consumer who is renting the equipment is seeing value in certain type of equipment, rental company will not get higher price. So for us, rental is not one step, its double step.Rental market is growing because in road construction, rental equipment plays a major part.  A road contactor cannot buy all of his equipment needs. All projects have some risks and the project planning stage the executor has to think about all this risk and then plan his equipment and how much he will invest himself, how many he will deploy rental machines. He has to have a mix and match because every project has risks and he cannot carry all the risk in his books. He has to have short term integration steps if some things do not work.