Globally Putzmeister invests 5% of its turnover annually into R&D

Wilfried Theissen

Managing Director (India)

Putzmeister Concrete Machines Pvt. Ltd.

The concept of ‘Make in India’ for the world seems to have caught up with most of the OEMs. Brief us on the scope and potential for export of your range of products? 

The Putzmeister factory in Goa produces concrete equipment for customers in the Indian sub-continent including India, Nepal and Bangladesh, the Middle East, Africa, APAC, Japan and Australia. Our equipment design is based on German engineering and technology. A majority of our parts are sourced locally and made to German specifications. We have been exporting since our inception in India in 2007.

Could you brief us on the roadmap and strategies initiated to become a successful player in the global markets? 

Putzmeister has a mixture between a direct sales and service model (India, Germany) and a dealer network (Middle East, APAC). We make optimum use of our worldwide network of factories and R&D support to offer our customers products in line with their required specifications, application support and by respecting the different countries legislation.

Are there separate investment / R&D efforts for this?  Do you have a separate product range for the global market?

Globally Putzmeister invests 5% of its turnover annually into R&D. We are the leader in innovation and offer customised solutions to the benefit of our customers. As mentioned above, we optimise the usage of our international production and R&D footprint to develop and offer to our customers a range of products best suited to their needs and application and by strictly respecting the specific legislation in various parts of the globe.   

As the global markets are highly competitive, especially in terms of quality of the product and backup support, how have you ensured the same to cut a niche in those markets?  

Putzmeister is the market leader in Stationary Pumps and Truck Mounted Concrete Pumps in nearly all markets we operate. We have achieved leadership by offering our customers reliable and efficient equipment that are higher in productivity and have a longer service life. This is backed up by an excellent network of dealers who support us with sales and service.       

How does the company address the logistical / policy-based challenges with reference to the global market?  Do you expect any policy reforms or incentive systems from the government that may boost the export?

There are of course challenges we need to overcome. The recent announcement of withdrawing some export incentives is not very helpful and might hamper India’s competitivity, the frequent and important fluctuations of the INR against major currencies like the USD or the Euro doesn’t help either. The industry needs consistency and stability and as simple and efficient as possible processes, frequent policy changes are not helpful and undermine the confidence.              

How do you assess the impact of the Budget 2020 on the CE industry?  Also tell us on the outlook especially the product range that you deal with?

Apart from infrastructure projects, there is not much meat on the bone and the outlook looks gloom at least until end of 2020. Measures related to boosting foreign capital investments in Sovereign Wealth Funds investing in infrastructure projects and extension of the credit guarantee schemes floated to help NBFCs and HFCs are expected to help the domestic market in the medium to long term.      

However, in terms of the export market there is no significant take-away for the sector.

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