As projects across the country gather momentum, Wirtgen India, through its vast range of technological solutions for the road and mineral technologies business sectors will be looking to raise its participatory profile. Ramesh Palagiri, Managing Director & CEO, Wirtgen India shares his thoughts about company’s growth and his viewpoint on bauma Conexpo India 2018.
Tell us about Wirtgen India’s performance through 2017-18.
Wirtgen India has benefitted from the market conditions with our strong product line and sales and service network. We had excellent growth in the last 3 years averaging more than 30 per cent
Some details of your latest product offerings for the Indian markets. How well accepted are they?
Wirtgen Group are pioneers in the field of innovative technologies for road building, both for asphalt and as well as concrete paving, and are consistently offering new products and product variants for the CE industry.
We offer 360 degree solution for road building and road rehabilitation through our brands: Wirtgen, Vogele, Hamm, Kleemann.
Wirtgen Group products in the road technology sector are the benchmark for the Industry, in terms of innovation, performance and reliability as well as application expertise and support, and these products in most cases are a few generations ahead of competition.
Wirtgen slipform pavers are now offered with innovations like the Dowel Bar insertor system DBI, super smoother, central tie bar inserter, oscillating beam etc. We have slipform pavers paving from a width of 1.5 metre to 16 metre and all these are currently working in India at different project sites.
Similarly in asphalt paving, we have the new generation Dash 3 pavers with features like the Ergo plus operating system, Pave dock assistant, Autoset plus and multiplex.
For Cold milling technology we have the new machines like W 55H, W120 R, W 195. All our milling machines are equipped with level pro system which ensures perfect levelling quality at high operating speed and a quick change tool holder system – HT 22.
We believe that these would be the GO- TO products for our customers as all our decisions are driven by our motto – CLOSE TO OUR CUSTOMERS.
What kind of support do you offer to the customers through your sustained R&D efforts and
how it has helped in making technologically superior products?
At Wirtgen Group, we continuously upgrade our products by understanding the customer needs and the valuable feedback and suggestions received from our customers, we try to incorporate within our new products. These machines also obviously undergo a lot of testing in different conditions and even with our existing customers before they are
launched in the market. The average age of any of the Wirtgen Group products in the market is around 3 years, which means that most of our products are from the new generation and in most cases, the Wirtgen Group products are atleast a generation ahead of competition.
How well prepared are you for bauma Conexpo 2018?
bauma Conexpo India will be a platform for us to showcase our technology and innovations and also an excellent opportunity to interact with our customers. Our product managers and application specialists from India as well as Germany, would be available at our Pavilion to address all queries and impart information. bauma Conexpo India would be an excellent opportunity for us to reach out to our customers both existing and potential, where the customers can see the Wirtgen group range of products for Road building as well as Road Rehabilitation and this would help us in the long run to increase our customer base.
From a growth perspective, what do you envisage for the company? Your plans for next five years…
The market in general for the Construction and Mining Equipment in India for the last few years has been
excellent in growth of 15-20 per cent depending on the product category. However, we expect growth to slow down a bit in the coming years, in lieu of the elections and also the tight liquidity situation what is seen in the last few months. But this should come back to the original trend – once the new government is formed. There will be a little slowdown considering the upcoming elections, but at the same time – there are enough projects which are been awarded and which are in the pipeline and that should keep us busy for the next 3 years.