We intend to continue to live up to our mantra of ‘Close to Our Customers’

Ramesh Palagiri 

Managing Director & CEO

Wirtgen India Pvt. Ltd.

The concept of ‘Make in India’ for the world seems to have caught up with most of the OEMs.  What is your take on this? Indian CE industry taken as whole what is the current growth and expected CAGR in export? 

The last 5 years have seen an exponential growth in the Road infrastructure in India due to the proactive policies and initiatives of the MOST (Ministry of Surface Transport) at the center and also by the Road development authorities in various states throughout the country. At the MOST level, from around 12 km /day – the road projects had peaked to 30 km/day and similar growth has been achieved at some of the states. This had resulted in an CAGR growth of 30% for the Road construction equipment industry in last 5 years and the Wirtgen Group being the World Market & Innovation leader in Road building and Rehabilitation technologies; has also benefited, as we were able to offer equipment – both from our local production in Pune and from our plants in Germany.           

With the return of the same government and the same minister in the Highway sector, there was naturally a very high expectation from the Industry. However, we have witnessed a slowdown in awards & construction of road projects in the last one year as NHAI / MOST is trying different ways by which funding can be arranged for the growth of the highway sector- due to the tight financial situation with the government. The Ministry is looking at ways to monetize the existing operational highways through the TOT (Toll Operate Transfer) model and also to rework on the BOT model to make it more attractive. We feel this is the right approach as the government will not be able to fund all the highways required, in the country.              

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

The Wirtgen Group has been continuously innovating its products and all our road technology brands – Wirtgen, Vogele and Hamm are not only global market leaders but also innovation leaders, the average age of a machine being not more than 3 years.     

The Wirtgen Group has been consistently developing products which offer better efficiency in terms of fuel consumption and this helps in sustainable development and less carbon emissions, lower lifecycle costs and better productivity of these machines. We are ideally placed with regard to offering the integrated service support to customer with regards to not only supplying the most innovative machines in the market, but also backing it with experienced application support team. 

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?  

On the Sales & Customer support front, we intend to continue to live up to our mantra of ‘CLOSE TO OUR CUSTOMERS’ by our Direct sales & Service model. With our Centre for Training & Technology centre in Pune and a strong Application specialist team in the field, for catering to the requirements of both Bituminous & Concrete roads we are well placed to help our customers for the upcoming growth. We would also be introducing some more new technologies across our product brands “WIRTGEN / VOGELE / HAMM / KLEEMANN “ to India, which would help to speed up the construction and improve the ride quality of the roads.   

What do you think are the major challenges that you face in the global markets and how do you address these challenges?

In India, the major challenge continues to be – To Remain Profitable in a highly competitive industry even though it is growing, and it’s a continuous effort required to optimize your costs while maintaining your product innovations, productivity and service levels.

Also one of the challenges that this industry is still facing, is the financing for construction equipment, especially for getting into the leasing sector. And if these issues are resolved, then the growth can increase many folds as more and more companies are now keen to go for leasing, rather than owning of equipment; what is required to be done is to have stringent prequalification norms for awarding of contracts which would ensure that the companies which are awarded the jobs deliver in terms of quality and product, within the targeted time.

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