You take Perkins products to any part of the world; there is a distribution network of 90 distributors across the world and 3500 touch points.

– Pankaj Jha

General Sales Manager, Perkins India

What is your focus for Excon this year?

We have the engines in the industrial side and we are showing three platforms there – the 2.2, 4.4 and 7.1 litre. And the emission technology if you look at what they are showing from stage III to stage V. What we are trying to target are the customers who are in India as well as outside, travel customers who use India as a base for manufacturing and take it outside India. There are engines that we have showcased which are made at our Aurangabad facility and that are electric powered engines. That is targeting the Genset customers. It is a combination of industrial and Genset platforms. That is what we are targeting at Excon.

With electric vehicles making a foray into the industry, how do you see the market sentiment and impact to engine business?

The foray is in electric side and the battery side in the off-highways, it is just starting now. There are some manufacturers who are putting machines in that. But if you look at construction side, what is the bucket load that it can take, how hydraulics are going to behave. We are still far off from commercial applications and acceptance in the market but I think EV as we are talking about on the highway market, lot of transmission will be happening in construction side also and in Power Gen side also. Power Gen side, it might be in 250 kVA and below, but slowly if requirement comes it is going to be cost driven. Battery pack is giving 400 kVA will be much more costlier than IC engine. If somebody is ready to pay for that and that will be regulatory in fact. If those are coming to picture on government side or because of social economic side, then we will see that.

From end users point of view what are your after-market initiatives?

We sell to the customers. In India, I talked about customers who are taking mostly are using engines for manufacturing it here and taking it out of the country. If you look at our electric power side, we are presenting from 400 kVA onwards to 2500 kVA and we have two facilities in India – one in Hosur which manufacturers 400 to 605 kVA and Aurangabad manufactures 750 to 2250 kVA. About the customer case, we have all cross India. Industrial side like backhoe manufacturers who are using it and telehandler manufacturers who are using it and some of the skid steer loader manufactures who are using it. On electric power side, it is all the way from rental side, real estate, and commercial real estate to data centres to IT space and also across the hospitality sector. Those are customer base that we cater to with our engines.

What is the outlook for the next 5 years?

Five years is a tough question. Lot of things are going to change. The reason I say it is a tough question is that a lot of dynamics will change. One will be electric power side. It is going to come into picture especially for 800 kVA. So, what is going to happen is the engines are going to become cleaner and they will have after-treatment like on highway market or off highway market, you will start seeing after-treatment. That is going to change dynamic in terms of the market of how engines are maintained and how they are treated in after-market service point of view as well as total cost of ownership. Those factors will come into the picture. Price concept will also change. Price points we have today will go up by 50 – 70 – 80%. The market is going to decide it. We will have to see how these things are going to play in the market and those are the uncertain external factors which are going to come to play. If you look at industrial side, some players are good at BSIII side and now norms are coming in BSIV and BSV side. So, the players are changing and the PINS is also changing. These are the factors which will come to play. While those external factors are going to be for anybody what we are striving for is to cater to the market requirements in the right price point, right product, right value proposition in terms of the fuel consumption and in terms of ownership cost, upfront cost and capex cost.

What differentiates Perkins from other companies?

It is the overall approach. We have 90 years of heritage business. If you look at the investment that we are doing on product side, the engine 4006 it is currently CPCB2 engine it is going to start in CPCC4 plus market where it gets implemented next year. That is the product investment and globally we have the technology. It is adapted to the market in many ways. Localising it, even after-treatment part and that is what we are striving for. What we do is, even when we are in the stage in CPCB2 now, we understood the Indian market that is the market and these are the players, what is our space. I think we have done a significant journey in the last 10 years or so. So that is the value proposition we have got. Other than that, anybody who is buying Perkins products gets the same product worldwide, the same warranty worldwide. You take it to any part of the world there is a distribution network of Perkins with 90 distributors across the world and 3500 touchpoints. Like in India, we have two distributors one in northern side and one in southern side. There are multiple touch points across India. Same distributors and OEMs if they choose to go to Nigeria, they have a distributor there, if they choose to go to Dubai they have a distributor there, if they choose to go to Australia there is one there. It is service, it is the upkeep of the engine which we go and guarantee in the market and availability of parts and services.

Any other information that can add value to the readers?

India is a very important market for us. We came to India with a goal to actually be here forever. That market I will say when we started journey in India, we took approach that first to understand the market, and then we took a leap forward. We made an investment of 150 million dollars in Aurangabad. So that was a 100 crore investment that we did in Aurangabad. Plus, green field facility and now it is state-of-the-art facility and I can guarantee that no other facility in India is of that capability. The investment on quality side and product side is something we keep on striving for. Dynamics are going to change in the market, landscape is going to change, external factors like emissions and socio-economic factors are going to change. All those things we are undeterred with. You invest in our product and we will meet the requirements.

2022 is a very special year for us. Next month is our 90th anniversary. We were established in 1932 sometime in the month of June is our 90th anniversary. It is a new milestone and it comes with a lot of heritage. So, 90 years of experience in the customers globally and variety of different applications. Together we have manufactured over 22 million engines worldwide. We serve over 5000 different applications, 800 different OEMs.

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