We have progressed quite a bit, but we are not going to get into the crowded space of excavation and haulage. We are looking at something unique,” explains R. Nandagopal, CEO, Construction Equipment Business, Greaves Cotton Ltd.

Greaves Cotton Limited, established in 1859, is one of India’s leading and well-diversified engineering companies. Its business operations are divided into various business units strategically structured to ensure maximum focus and yet retain synergy.  At EXCON 2013, Mr Nandagopal shares his views on Greaves new product launches and the makeover on the look and feel of the products.

What are the major developments that happened in 2013?
We have meticulously focussed on evolving our product strategy this year. One of the first steps to this was to rename our construction vertical as Greaves Infra, which signifies that we are moving into infrastructure segment, not just road and concrete. Then we went through the complete rebranding exercise where we changed the colour and look of the machines. We wanted to communicate a very clear message to the market of a bolder Greaves where we will aggressively increase our market size and share and venture into new customer segments.

When is Greaves going to be a complete infra player as you said your vision is to be huge infra player?
It’s an evolving roadmap. We are in construction, but we aren’t having presence in either earthmoving or mining. There are a lot of things we can do outside the construction space, and we are looking at mining segment.

When can we expect your footstep in the mining segments?
Within 3-4 months, we will announce it.

That means everything is settled?
Well, we have progressed quite a bit, but we are not going to get into the crowded space of excavation and haulage. We are looking at something unique.

Why did you feel that there is requirement of launching such kind of products?
We always wanted to enter into the segment of larger machines and the mining equipment industry is a good opportunity for the same. However, mining is also an area where you have got the global competitors. So we didn’t want to follow the longer way, duplicating the same products.

Are you going to make any further investment for that particular product range?
Yes, we will make some investment in terms of human resource and support for those machines. Otherwise, there would no investment for capacity-related terms. We are going to restructure the complete sales and marketing organisations as we have developed product-based divisions.

Brief about the new equipment that you have launched at EXCON.
We have launched Greaves’ first boom pump which has a maximum vertical reach of 37 metres. We have technology partnership with a Korean company, named Samil Korea Co. Ltd. This new product, being considered as game changer, is completely fabricated and assembled at Greaves facility at Gummidipoondi near Chennai. The first point that we talk about is that it has 37-metre boom; the industry usually offers 36 metres. Hence, we have created that differentiation to start with. Additionally it comes with mature hydraulic system, world-known component and extremely convenient operational system with control and so on. We expect this machine to do well in the market.

Your financial year ends on 30th September. What is your target for this fiscal year?
Our Road and concrete divisions have felt the heat of the economy crisis this year. This growth has helped us to keep steady and not decline. If we had been able to maintain our concrete equipment volumes, we would have been grown over the last year. However, our market share has improved quite significantly from last year.