Excerpts from an interview by N. Balasubramanian with Dheepan Ramalingam, Managing Director, Ringfeder Power Transmission India (P) Ltd.
How was business for Edscha and Ringfeder in India in 2021? How have the first seven months of the current year been?
2021 was definitely a growth year for us, even during the pandemic. Though the automobile sector was hardly hit by lockdowns, some logistic players always thought about the future and they kept innovation going within their companies. This gave us growth during 2021. Coming to the first half of 2022, the year is slowly proving that this will be a fantastic year for Edscha as compared to the previous years.
How has the Indian market matured as far as adoption of curtain siders for trailers is concerned? What are the aspects in which you are seeing progress and what challenges do you think still remain that pose a roadblock for better and faster adoption?
As far as the maturity of the market is concerned, we are of the opinion that it still needs a long time to mature to the level of Western countries. Only a few players who are futuristic look for advanced roof solutions from Edscha. They have a clear idea of the benefits of this system and ROI. Such players are our customers during these years, and they are growing for sure. Nevertheless, the growth is still tepid, and we assume that the scenario will change drastically only when customers still understand better about this solution. Moreover, we feel that the government regulations on vehicle load and pollution control if adopted soon will be a big-game changer for Edscha in India.
How many curtains siders and tipper roofs have you sold in India till date? Could you share details of some of the biggest orders you have bagged from end customers and fleet operators? What were the most important factors that convinced them to go for your solution and what potential does the market hold for more such similar orders?
Though it is minimal during the last years, it picked up from 2021. We sold around 50 roofs in 2021 and are expecting to sell around 150 during 2022. Tipper roof acceptability in the market is in the nascent stage and it’s just few we sold last year. As explained before, only government regulations could bring a change in tipper roof acceptability in the market. Though the quantity was minimal, sales of tipper roof to Jayalakshmi Transports in Trichy marks our entry into the Indian market. They use tipper roof in the tippers that transport cement bags. Payload increase, lesser downtime, easy operability and overall rise in income are the factors that convince our customers to go for Edscha roofs.
Given your presence in and understanding of the Indian market over the last decade, which aspects of your products or offerings (both curtain siders and tipper roofs) do you think are your USPs over what customers currently use and also over competing (if any) in the market?
As explained earlier, payload increase, lesser downtime, easy operability and overall rise in income are the factors that convince our customers to go for Edscha roofs.
What is the localisation level of the two products you are currently offering in India? What scope do you see for further cost reduction so that you may have better traction and volume sales in the region?
Localisation plans are on full swing, and this includes products to be localised for the local market and also for exporting them to our global plants.
What are Edscha’s medium to long-term plans for the Indian market? What is your game plan to execute the same?
Since we are the first entrant in India and have the advantage of being an inventor of the roofing system, we are fully confident about the market. With increasing acceptability, the current outflow of roofs is to the tune of 5 to 10 numbers per order. We are working towards our goal of selling to customer orders to the tune of a few hundreds with each order. This is our medium-term plan. The long-term plan is definitely to see the market full of Edscha roofs.