K.S Ratra, Managing Director, IMI Norgren Herion Pvt. Ltd., shares his views on the aspects of growth and nation building in an exclusive conversation with ET Insights
Growth:
What kind of growth does your company emphasise upon?
We are talking about almost growth of around 25% in 2022 because we work on a calendar year. Also, we are expecting almost a similar kind of growth in 2023.
Our growth CAGR in India will be around more than 20% in next 3 to 4 years’ time.
How confident are you about GDP growth rate?
Present megatrends—global offshoring, digitalization, and energy transition—are setting the scene for unprecedented economic growth in the country.
RBI, commitment to maintain price and financial stability to place economy on a sustainable path of growth. Yes, I think what RBI is talking about and what global arena is talking about for GDP, I am also confident that India will grow at more than 6% CAGR in next 3 to 4 years’ time, except that in this COVID scenario, which is unprecedented, that no one can predict about it. If pandemic doesn’t happen or entering direct conflict with any of the neighboring countries, then I am sure that 6% GDP growth is possible and will happen.
How is your growth linked to Indian economic backdrops?
The Indian economy is holding steady and progressing in an ocean of turbulence and uncertainty. Anyone in Indian industry cannot think of their growth without India’s GDP growth but yes, we are quite interested where we deal with our key industries.
The mega trends of those industries are slightly independent of quarterly GDP growth rates. They are definitely in sync with, when you talk about 6 to 7% GDP growth rate CAGR in India. But our industry is slightly independent of the quarterly growth rate. So, when we see quarterly ups & downs, we don’t see it as a risk. But as I said if something happened at COVID or pandemic standpoint, until then we are quite confident.
Our growth relates to the Mega trends and Mega trends don’t get impacted by quarterly growth rates. They are certainly impacted by pandemic kind of situations / geo-political conflicts but not on quarterly GDPs. So, we are very confident that this is going to happen.
To support, we all did know that commercial vehicle market will create demand because India was moving from BS4 to BS6, COVID impacted it for some time but now we see there was a pent of demand which all converted and even the implementation happened during the pandemic period that’s why I am very confident that it is going to happen.
I would also like to talk about Mega Trends like Industrial Automation, where we are quite active, we have very clear indicators and key drivers from these mega trends.
We read mega trends and we know that mega trends always remain, small hiccups don’t derail them.
What are the key growth drivers and segments that will push revenue and margins?
Mega Trends are all Industry key drivers, market attractiveness is what we are talking in Machine tool industry.
Just to name a few is that Rail Industry will be a big boost in the near future.
We are also confident about Hydrogen, battery electric and Work-holding spaces and packaging industry going to become the next boomer. As we see the kind of growth of E-commerce business that we are seeing cannot be handled manual at al. So, Industry will be move into next level of Automation.
What are the global linkages / macro-factors driving your company’s business?
We all understand that globally there are recessions, Supply chain disruptions will continue at least for some more time. We also see those things, but as I said earlier Mega trends show us directions, Mega trends will give us growth. So, I am not expecting a hit of global arena / global situation affect our company. We are very confident in how to deal / or sail out from this storm.
Nation Building:
Do you feel the government has done its bit with policies to put India on the global map for preferred-manufacturing-destination?
I do not like to comment upon government policies, and prefer to remain apolitical on this. But yes, I see this as the Government job is not to solve everyone’s problem.
The government’s job is to create an environment where people trust. And, yes, I think our current Govt. has done enough, and is doing enough whether we call about Vaccine/ diplomacy/ whether we talk about participation in upper precedency in G-20 this year.
Yes, I see what that Government can do to help businesses grow. They are trying to bring transparency, they are trying to ease things, they are establishing great relationships with business countries.
What is the IMI Precision Engineering India betting upon?
Yes, I think I have already talked about it above. Industry mega trends that we already are targeting. So once India talked about Manufacturing, make in India, and the biggest example of it is now the way we all know Foxconn is coming up with Vedanta over here and this is just the start of a change where India is talking about becoming a semiconductor manufacturing.
I am sure once this project kicks in there will be other bigger organisations who will emerge to see the success of it. And that’s what we all saw in refineries and in Information Technology 20 years back, that’s the same thing happening in electronics now.
Give some sample success stories around digital, Industry X.0, etc. that can inspire other Indian manufacturers.
It’s not “Digital products” or “Digital We”, when I talk about digital it’s about “Digital Transformation” And as an Industry where I believe we can contribute is making sure that our products and technologies are digitally enabled. Our processes when we talk about operations are digital in nature. And when we talk about Employee engagement, we have strong digital transformation activities going on, to give you some examples like we are moving from conventional or localized ERP systems to globalized ERP systems JDE version 9.2, operation excellence tool, Salesforce.com as CRM tool and for employees we are also talking about HRMS system. For products, we are making them digitally enabled. So, yes, we can say IMI is very keen on moving into digital ways of new business. Online- E-commerce, IoT enabled products etc.
How is your organization generating enough opportunities which can take care of Industry problems?
We have so many such examples, where we have provided innovative solutions, whether solving safety related industry problem, whether it is environment related problem solution, or whether it is collaborative kind of approach where we helped Govt. of India customers to implement one of the statutory guidelines of the Supreme court.
So, yes, we have been contributing and have done so many such projects, examples to name a few such as: Our Range Shift Inhibitor, which is a solution in the Commercial Vehicle Industry.
Whether it is Hinge door in Indian Railway industry, or whether it is Water pressurization system again in Indian Railway industry.
How are we contributing to globalization, etc?
For me, I am not a fond follower of Globalization. Globalization is only telling about that we want to talk about ourselves only. I use a word which is called “Glocalization” where I want to talk about localization of something which is global in nature right now. “Developing something which can be globalized tomorrow”. I am fond of Glocalization word and not globalization”.
Yes, we are doing a lot, which is about developing technologies over here which are becoming global, and we are adopting technologies from global companies to implement here in India.
