Provided the future waves (including the new Omricon scare) don’t cause severe disruptions, the CE market shall continue in its revival path of growth.
Souma Ray Director, Haulotte India The economy is on the slow growth path. What will be the impact of this on the construction equipment market? The onset of the pandemic in March 2020
– Souma Ray
Director, Haulotte India
The economy is on the slow growth path. What will be the impact of this on the construction equipment market?
The onset of the pandemic in March 2020 brought the whole world practically to a halt. Businesses all across suffered a major setback with the lockdowns and restrictions that ensued. India in no way was different. Even after the gradual opening up from June 2020, everyone was skeptical and measured. It was only by the last quarter of 2020 that the business sentiments started improving. There was again a major dip during the severe 2nd wave in April 2021, but thankfully there wasn’t a complete stoppage. Since then, the economy has been on a steady growth path which is an encouraging sign. Provided the future waves (including the new Omricon scare) don’t cause severe disruptions, the CE market shall continue in its revival path of growth. However, we must take note of the current supply chain crisis of components, semiconductors and hydraulics, etc. coupled to the erratic increase of shipping cost which has not only increased the manufacturing costs but has also extended the delivery lead times. These factors are affecting all equipment manufacturers worldwide. As per current indices this situation is likely to remain unstable till 3rd quarter of 2022.
What do you think is the demand drivers for construction equipment and how geared up are you to meet this demand surge?
It is an encouraging sign that stalled infra projects have restarted and newer investments in infrastructure & roads sectors are being announced, which are acting as demand drivers for the Construction Equipment Industry. Despite the challenge on supply chain side, we at Haulotte are trying our best to meet the upsweep demands of our products.
How advanced have you been in digitalizing your processes and product portfolio to ensure a better market share?
At Haulotte, we always believe in innovation and being ahead with times. All our new range of machines feature ‘Haulotte Active Screen’ which is digitalized onboard diagnostics system, Active Lighting system, Haulotte Diag which can be downloaded on our smartphones and tabs and synced with our machines etc.. This also helps in running diagnostic checks on our machines.
Further, we also have ‘myHaulotte’ our brand-new service portal which is one site that covers – Fleet inventory, Telematics Datas, Safety campaigns, Technical library, Service Requests, Periodic Inspections, General Part Store, Notification Centre.
What are your initiatives in skilling up people, especially in this post-pandemic scenario?
We lay great importance in continuous development and upskill of our employees. We have different online platforms that not only increases the product knowledge, technical acumen of our people based on their function of work, but also, we use popular training platforms like ‘Linkedin learning’ for general development of our employees in various other subjects based on their area of interest. Furthermore, we also run an in-house program name YELO which is for enhancing the culture of operational excellence amongst our employees at Haulotte.
What are the challenges as a major player you face and what are your suggestions to iron out those challenges?
Today, the major challenge that any major equipment manufacturer faces is purely related to supply chain issues and erratic and high shipment costs. These are factors that are completely out of our control. Yet despite the rising cost, most manufacturers like us are taking the major hit and passing on some of the portion of price increase to our customers. As per indications, the situation should hopefully stabiles around 3rd quarter in 2022, but it would certainly be at a higher level than in the pre-pandemic periods.
The other worrying factor is the import of cheap Chinese machines that has again increased in the past few months. Unfortunately, these suppliers find a market amongst those very price conscious customers who aren’t concerned about quality, reliability & safety of the product. On our part as a major manufacturer, we continuously strive to educate the customer and build up their confidence in going in for branded equipment that are reliable.
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