‘‘With Our New Intelli-Technology, We Will Be Able To Give A Better Value Proposition’’

Subir Kumar Chowdhury,
Managing Director and CEO,
JCB Limited.

 [/vc_column_text][ultimate_spacer height=”10″] For a customer if he buys a JCB ecoXpert 3DX backhoe recently launched, he saves 1 lakh rupees every year. That is the commitment we have made,  states Subir Kumar Chowdhury, Managing Director and CEO, JCB Limited. [/vc_column_text] Could you give us your assessment on the current market conditions?

We have tremendous amount of positive hope and we are sure that the country has great potential. Yes there has been a downturn in the economy and sales have dipped. However, we have seen green shoots. The government is now moving up in road sector projects. Overall, payment cycle, new investment opportunities and a boost to road projects give us a tremendous amount of optimism. We are sure to witness a positive turnaround in April-June  2020 quarter.[/vc_column_text] How JCB India has been able to tide over the downturn?

There will be downturns, there will always be cyclical slowdowns, but if you track JCB history in India, you can see huge investments being made during slow down. In 2008-09, when there was a global meltdown we invested heavily in expanding and modernising our plant, and today we have the world’s largest backhoe manufacturing facility. In 2012-13 when there was a slowdown, we again invested in Jaipur facility, which is a jewel on the crown in JCB worldwide operations.

Again when we are on a downturn and we are investing Rs 650 crore in our sixth facility which is at Vadodara, and it will completely be an export oriented facility.  That is going to be a power house for our next growth strategy and there we like to go for 50% plus shop floor women employees.  That has been our commitment throughout JCB’s history in India. We believe that 2020 will be a good year, it will be a turnaround year but we are investing in facility, in people, in technology and products.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”6881″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”] JCB has a major focus on leveraging the digital platforms. Could you throw some light on it?

From 2015 onwards JCB has taken a leadership role in construction equipment sector on connecting our customers on digital platform. We call it Live Link which means we are linked to the customer on a live 24 by 7. We have three clear elements around that, what we call SOS – S is security, O is operations and S is service. So security means the entire machines are geo-fenced, and time-fenced.  JCB machines work in very remotes areas and there are incidents that machines get stolen.  So if a machine is stolen and it goes anywhere in the country, as soon as the machine starts working we get info[/vc_column_text] But how do you address the connectivity issues?

Network connection is very important. We have good network coverage, almost 92% of the country.  Some of the areas like North East, parts of Chattisghar and Madhya Pradesh, we face the connectivity issues. Such places we work with the police and we have been able to recover 45 machines in a few days time.  So this is the security point. Then comes the Operational issues. Here, through our solutions, everyone is put in a loop – the customer, the owner, the operator, the owner and the dealer and of course, our staff.  All of us are able to track the machine condition, battery condition, how much diesel is left, overall oil conditions in the machine, the engine temperature etc. So you can remotely look at everything. And if there is a problem in any of this an SMS goes back to the customer and owner and operator so they are alerted that there is a problem, and they take necessary actions.[/vc_column_text] You mean to say a precautionary alarm?

Yes, SMS goes to everyone in the loop. This is the third aspect, Service. Through our digital solutions everyone is able to track, and able to know the real conditions of the machine. So the customer sitting at home, the owner sitting at home can be at peace. In short, we are able to track service, how much service has been done, which service has been done. So this gives SOS. We launched that in 2015. Now we have gone one step ahead. We are now talking about Intelli brand which is the next phase of digital making the machine far more productive, more fuel efficient, better uptime etc. This is how we are leveraging on the efficacy of digitalisation. 

What are the challenges due to the proposed implementation of new emission norms?

As you are aware we have our own engine, so we are getting fully ready and we are actually going to work through a very smart solution of power management. In Excon we have displayed the new ecoXpert 3DX backhoe loader, a machine with fuel savings of up to 12% and upto 22% lower maintenance cost. So for a customer if they buy a JCB machine, he saves 1 lakh rupees every year. That is the commitment we have made. There will be a cost increase per unit and it is here we are innovating to bring down the operational cost. Yes there will be a minimal incremental cost but with our new technology we will be able to give a better value proposition to our customers.[/vc_column_text] Will the expected unit price increase impact of the backhoe market?

Yes, to an extent. But we are driving very hard to expand the backhoe market.  58 percent of what we produce is backhoe and pushing it hard to make it 65 percent. India as a market has a lot of diversity. Rural areas are coming up great so we are upbeat and hopeful of expanding the backhoe market. 

How do you address the issue of skilling up of technicians?

Each and every person in our factories is given extensive training.  Many of them are from ITIs and diploma holders. We train them in 16 weeks program on technical, behavioural aspects and make them highly qualified for plant operations. We are exporting to 110 countries including West European countries, Australia, and New Zealand, that shows the quality of our workforce. We are proud of it. So skill wise we are very well balanced. We run operator training centres with collaboration with state governments. Once the operator goes to the training centre, their value gets highly increased and many of them go to Middle East, South East Asia and all that. The more they are trained, the more the country is benefitted. Yes, there is a still shortage of talent or the skill in this sector but we are trying to push as much as possible for operator training centres.[/vc_column_text] The present numbers of your company and where do you see JCB India in next 3 years?

This year we will be doing 37000 units from domestic market, and if I add exports another 4000units, it is 41000 units. Last year was a historic high. We grew by 43%. And we were 43000 units plus.  With our focus to increase and expand the backhoe market, and also our market share in excavator there may be variation. We de-grew this year by around 16%, whereas the industry de-grew by 18%.  But I am hopeful that 2020-21 there will be a positive turnaround..

In India JCB is number one, that is a proud moment. Which country you are targeting to make India’s number one?

If you ask me most difficult country is Japan or North America. We have sold machines to Japan. So our dream is to really make a dent and this is going to happen in 2020.  In these two countries people are extremely conscious about machine delivery, product reliability etc. They say we like to take JCB India machine. That is a proud moment for us. North America and Japan are the two countries where JCB India needs to conquer as a manufacturing brand.[/vc_column_text] When do we see this happen?

North America I think 2020 will be a big volume which will be shipped.  And Japan probably we have to develop the roadmap. Right now we have sent few machines. They are working there. Probably another 2-3 years time we will be able to penetrate the market.

Throw some more light on the CSR activities.

Lady Bamford Charitable Trust is the anchor trust which does the complete level of CSR activities.. Where ever we are working we are touching the under privileged children’s lives through education. The second focus area is woman empowerment. Wherever we run our factories, we take charge of many villages around on woman empowerment, skill building, health and sanitation. We also support them to market their products.

We are very proud to say that in last November Lady Bamford has started a major initiative in trying to bring to life that art of blue indigo dying art, which is almost vanishing.  She is pioneering the efforts to revive this unique art form. We just started that initiative and have already dedicated an institution for the very purpose.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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