Martin believes in total solution to customers.

Anup Nair, Managing Director, Martin Engineering

How do you look at the growth of Martin Engineering?

India has now become the fifth largest economy in the world and is poised to grow to become the third largest economy soon. So infrastructure development in India is important and that depends on a strong and steady supply of essential raw materials like steel and cement. Now, as far as companies like Martin Engineering are concerned, our innovative products and solutions support the efficient and safe production of steel and cement. So, we see a very good growth potential in the next few years in India.

Tell us something about products that you want to launch in the next few years? What are the products you are aiming at?

There are multiple products in our basket – some are still in development whereas others are coming to market very soon. One of the products that we are going to formally launch is our remote monitoring system for conveyor belt cleaners called N2. This ensures that our customers’ maintenance teams do not have to go near to hazardous conveying equipment to assess the condition and performance of their cleaner blades – instead they can get monitor belt cleaners on their mobile phones or desktop dashboard from any location. This saves time and effort, and is safer and productive.

It’s also worth mentioning our unique CleanScrape® belt cleaners, equipped with tungsten carbide tips and guaranteed to last up to 4 times longer than standard belt cleaners. The revolutionary CleanScrape® primary and secondary cleaners apply minimal pressure to the belt and so are safe for use on mechanical splices, and they are the most versatile belt cleaner on the market.

India is a very cost centric market. How do you balance equilibrium between cost and bringing these technological advancements?

Rather than cost sensitive, I would suggest that India is a value sensitive market. Indians are not always looking at the lowest-cost items alone. For example, you see most premium cars sell in huge numbers in India. At the same time, like in many markets, the lower end variants are also available. So in our experience Indian people look for value. They want the best quality at the lowest cost. So, we have to strike the balance and that is what I believe we are able to do with our products.

Now, there are with growing awareness in safety, growing awareness in productivity and reduced availability of manpower, whilst the demand for good quality products is increasing. So, that gives us a big opportunity to promote our products, showing the value that is created from fitting a Martin Engineering product rather than going for a cheaper product. Though we are working hard to keep our costs optimum, there are some things like imported costs and international freight costs which are not in our control. Nonetheless, we are doing our best to keep the cost under control and also our focus is on giving more value to customer. If our customers see the benefits of using Martin products, there is no problem with selling our products in the Indian market.

The price of raw materials are increasing. How do you look at that?

Raw material prices during covid went through the roof and supply chains were severely impacted. At the time I remember our prime minister’s speech in which he repeatedly talked about supply chains. And that has continued to be a challenge with the Russia Ukraine war pushing up global commodity prices. Things had started stabilizing but now with greater volatility in west Asia we simply have to manage the challenges that we face. Nobody has a ‘crystal ball’ as to what costs will be tomorrow.

How is Martin different from its competitors?

Martin believes in total solutions for our customers – we don’t just sell products, we understand the specific problems our customers are facing in their materials processing and we make recommendations based on our decades of experience. Martin also believes in good service for our customers – we do what we says we’re going to do and our customers value that. Our slogan is “problem solved, guaranteed”. So, if we identify a solution and the customer puts their money on a Martin product, they can expect the problem to be solved. That gives them total peace of mind – that’s how Martin stands apart from our competitors. Many companies out there can sell products, we provide solutions. That is the difference.

Are there challenges or bottlenecks in sector you are in?

Yes, there are many challenges, especially in the current market. In India for example, our infrastructure, systems and processes are not yet developed or organized like many parts of the western world. So, for example, there is still a lot of dependence on manual or labour-oriented work. And there is also low awareness of safety hazards compared to many other parts of the world. That means people do not take their safety seriously until it’s too late and harm is caused. At Martin we are trying to help our customers to change their attitude toward the safety of their maintenance and service teams but it’s a slow process of education.

With elections scheduled for next year, how do you look at market for your products?

Elections can be an uncertain time for businesses but our products go to typically large customers in foundation industries like steel companies and cement companies – these businesses do not change their production plans overnight. So, we do not see sudden jerky movements that are likely to impact our business. For example, even during covid we did not have significant instability in the market. We were stable during that period except the first April of 2020 where we had to shut down because of lockdown in Pune – but there was barely a part of the world that wasn’t affected at that time.  Of course, we rely on government to maintain stability and support growth but it’s not likely to impact our business or the markets for our products.

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