Karan Parikh, COO, Linnhoff India - “Launching New Products”

“Launching New Products” The company has acquired manufacturing rights for one of the top most concrete paver company GNZ., informsKaran Parikh, COO, Linnhoff India How do you perceive the market growth in the coming year? There has been tremendous push in the infrastructure segment in terms of projects being allotted and actual funds being released.

Karan Parikh, COO, Linnhoff India - “Launching New Products”
Construction-companies-in-India

“Launching New Products”
The company has acquired manufacturing rights for one of the top most concrete paver company GNZ., informsKaran Parikh, COO, Linnhoff India

How do you perceive the market growth in the coming year?
There has been tremendous push in the infrastructure segment in terms of projects being allotted and actual funds being released. This is reflected in the fact that we have been able to grow our revenues consistently over past 3 years and have been now pushed to work on extension of capacities. Based on market intelligence and projections from industry experts, we see the market growing at the same rate for next year. This being said, we also see a high rise in terms of competition from global as well as local players. The government so far is delivering and fulfilling all its promises. Overall, we are extremely optimistic and are gearing up for the envisioned market growth.

Mechanisation is coming in India slowly, do you believe?
There is definitely a rise in mechanisation. Catering particularly to our core sector of road building, government is pushing towards longer lasting, more durable roads. This can be achieved only if there is mechanisation in play supported by manual labour. There have been certain initiatives by government which mandates the usage of mechanized equipment enabling the push towards better quality of finished work. The safety aspect too plays a key role and there is heightened focus by lot of contractors on safety of their staff. This further encourages them to use mechanized equipment.
Has demonetisation affected yourcompany directly or indirectly?
Linnhoff India operates in four business verticals; one of the verticals which works on rental model was slightly affected but for a very brief period as lot of work on site requires day to day expenses. Overall, I feel as a company and as a progressing nation the effect of demonisation is very temporary and will cater towards a very bright future and also a security in sense of foreign investor's belief in our monetary system. “No more red tape” as we call it or at least limited to the lowest possible value.

Being a foreign company, will GST affect you in any way?
GST will bring in the unification. It will help us in a very positive manner based on the limited understanding that I have from current status of the venture. However, looking at history and at nations where it is already in practice I am sure that it will make a lot of sense for us and overall for the business fraternity.

Any new launches in 2017?
This is a big year for us, not only are we lwhich we have in market for over 15 years now but also acquired manufacturing rights for one of the top most concrete paver company GNZ. This partnership allows us to manufacture and sell a top quality product along with our asphalt and concrete batching plants. Later in the year, we plan on manufacturing and selling emulsion which will be used for patching potholes which continues to be a major problem through
the country.

What do you feel about the market for 2017?
I feel the market will continues to grow at 20% CAGR for the construction equipment industry. We like the printer and cartridge model so we have developed business verticals to sell CAPEX equipment, provide rentals and operations services and are also venturing into the pothole patching. This allows us to beat the seasonality in market where CAPEX equipment peaks in early months of the year and drops in monsoon. The add-on products will ride the wave while keeping our manufacturing busy throughout the year with this introduction of businesses and products which will be required throughout the year.

You provide training also; can you elaborate on the same?
We have a state of art technology school at our plant in Pune in Khed near Chakan, where we invite our potential customers, authorities and even site engineers to look to our existing products and products under research. The next training week we have is in May 2017. This helps us not only in educating our potential clients but also to get feedback and introduce products or make changes to our research programs based on what the market requirements. Apart from this we constantly train our manpower at all levels through year around programs and workshops.

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