Continuing its expansion strategy in emerging countries, Haulotte Group – the people and material lifting equipment specialist, opened its subsidiary Haulotte India in 2013. The company offers a range of access equipment and telehandlers. In an interview with B2B Purchase, Souma Ray, Director, Haulotte India Pvt Ltd shares some guidelines on the access equipment procurement.

Old is not always gold
The awareness on the advantages of using access equipment when working at heights is increasing day by day. Access equipment are not restricted to any particular industry or sector and its multifarious use finds takers in construction, infrastructure, manufacturing, maintenance, facility management, hospitality industry, malls and hospitals etc.

“As compared to the rest of the developed countries where the access equipment industry is very matured and driven by the rental companies, in India it’s still nascent and an end user driven market,” observed Ray. “The procurement of new machines is mostly limited to the end user segment and few in the rental segment. Because of lower rental rate and cross competition the rental companies still find it more viable to procure old machines. This is not a healthy sign for the access industry as a whole because, to have sustained growth there need to have more and more newer machines coming to India in order to keep pace with other developed nations.”

Attain knowledge on equipment
According to Ray, the most important aspect while procuring and access equipment is to study the application for which the equipment shall be used for. Based on this the suitable type and variant of equipment has to be selected. He said, “We at Haulotte strongly emphasise doing the application study and thus selecting the optimum equipment for our customers.”

Safety measures
Often, in a price-sensitive market like India, cost, productivity and durability remain the major influencing factors in access equipment procurement. However, Ray believes, “More than factors like pricing, productivity and durability influencing the procurement decision, safety should be the major concern. After all it is about life of people working at heights for which there can be no compromise.”

Buying beneficial for long-term requirement
It’s not always easy determining whether to rent or buy access equipment. Sharing his expertise in the domain, Ray suggests, “The decision to rent or to buy solely depends upon the utilisation factor of the access equipment. If access equipment is required only for a specific period of time then it’s always better to rent but if the requirement is on a long term basis then it’s more prudent and economical to buy the equipment.”

Why Haulotte?
Haulotte India Pvt Ltd is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Haulotte Group France and is one of the largest full range manufacturers of aerial work platforms in the world. The company manufactures machines of different variants from 6-metre to 43-metre.  “Considering our local presence in India and the sales and service support that we and our PAN India distributor Gemini Power Hydraulics Pvt Ltd provide, it gives a lot of confidence to our customers to procure a Haulotte product. It is because of this coupled to the quality machines that we offer, our customers choose us as their preferred brand. We take pride that in India, Haulotte is the leading brand in term of new machine sold in the country,” said Ray.

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More than factors like pricing, productivity and durability influencing the procurement decision, safety should be the major concern.

Souma Ray, Director, Haulotte India Pvt Ltd