Our global entity Sany allows us to do some exports to the entire Africa and some parts of South East Asia from India

– Dheeraj Panda

Chief Operating Officer – Sales, Marketing & Customer Support, Sany Heavy Industry India

What was your focus for IIME this time?

We at Sany strongly believe that mining in India, as we have seen for the last couple of years, is doing good and is likely to do better in the coming 3 to 5 years because of the overall energy demand and the kind of pipeline built specifically in terms of coal and other minerals. The focus in IIME, therefore, was to introduce some of the large excavators and add to the existing truck line that we introduced about two years ago. We have a 60-ton SKT90S dump truck which we introduced two years back in 2020 and we have been able to get a sizeable market share out of the existing market that we were operating in. There are about 450 machines already in the field. We want to expand this range now. This is in line with the expansion plan, this truck SKT105S which is getting launched. This is a 70-ton machine similar in terms of design, what we call white body design. But there are some significant improvements in terms of the shock absorbers, improvements in terms of the overall transmission life, improvements in terms of the overall integration of the product and customization to the Indian mining application.

How do you feel that IIME gives value to your stakeholders? How do you capture on this?

I would consider myself a new player in mining, not exactly a new player in terms of our worldwide presence but in terms of our India presence and considering that we introduced these machines maybe about 3-4 years back. So, exhibitions like IIME gives us a platform to showcase. We had some of these distinguished visitors at IMME, including Chairman of Coal India, Mr. Pramod Agarwal; our MD could have five minutes of his time to run in through the machines. We have a plant in Pune, Chakan, an 86 acre manufacturing center and the majority of the products where we have a sizeable volume are assembled or manufactured in-house now. So we have a fairly good amount of localization level now across the models that we produce. We are number one in piling rigs; we are number one in all kinds of cranes be it truck cranes or crawler cranes or digging cranes. We have a sizeable presence in port equipment, we are in the motor grader market as well. We are one the largest player in the excavator market. Therefore, the focus is to localize to make something for Sany Bharat, contribute wherever or whatever is possible to build the infrastructure in Bharat. So we have kind of retwisted ourselves as Sany Bharat. That is something which goes with the philosophy of improving the localization levels, creating a larger vendor base and dealer base here.

India is a price centric market. How do you balance between quality and cost in your machines?

We need not balance between a feature and quality. Quality is something which is hygienic now. So the Indian customer as you rightly said maybe a little price sensitive but they understand the value of quality. You stay in a hotel when you travel. You have a hotel of Rs. 500 to Rs. 10000 per night room charge. You would expect a clean bedsheet, a clean towel, a clean washroom. So these are some of the basic hygienic features that are built-in now. So no matter what could be your price point or what could be your price positioning in the market, so there is a bare minimum of quality which the customer expects. We are there and we are much beyond that now. So it is not necessarily a choice between quality and price.

How do you look at the concept of hybrid and electric machines in India?

For the larger operations or MDOs or large mining operations of larger sizing contracts, fuel is one key component which is close to roughly 50 to 60 percent of the overall expense. So all the OEMs, the contractors and even the energy companies, they all look for savings. I think, it is time we switch over to electrical. But as we are looking at the CV or the commercial car experience, the other para familia, the charging ecosystem is not ready as of now. I feel it will probably take a little more time for India to create that infra but on a global level, there will be a strong push to get into greener energy like electrical or battery-operated dump trucks. With our parent company in China, they are already operating battery operated machines. If things go right, we might also introduce an electrical or battery operated 60-ton dump truck to the Indian market very soon.

Can you brief us about your export market presently?

For our South Asia operations, we have our neighboring countries which is our addressed markets; Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives, these are some of our directly addressed markets and we have the manufacturing facility at Chakan Pune. Other than that, we also export to the Africa and some part of South East Asia from India. Overall revenue per se, my exports today would be about 15 percent of my total revenue. These are some of the retail products that we export. So we export majorly the smaller range excavators which is from 8 ton to 24 tons that we export to all these markets including Africa, the entire sub-continent.

What are the challenges and future you see for Sany Bharat?

To put it very simply, the future looks optimistic and bright with the overall infra markets doing well, with the kind of focus that the government has brought in with national monetization pipeline, funding the national infra pipeline with a connector or an adapter in between which is Gati Shakti, which de-bottlenecks many of the projects and their approvals, requirements etc.  We are already witnessing that in roads, in metros, in irrigation sector, in mining. The overall infra market is going to grow strong, that’s something that we are looking forward to and at Sany, obviously we are geared for it. Our promoters are quite bullish about India. We have had a sizeable investment in Chakan which is an 86 acre factory which was established in 2007. It’s about 14 years now in operation and there are new lines getting added, like we would be introducing the asphalt line, then we are also introducing excavators and other products in between. So we are here to stay, we look forward for a brighter future for us and for India in general.

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