Reflecting the dismal performance of the automotive industry, the auto component manufacturing sector too has had a bad year. All players, small and big, have been impacted by the recession. As Piyush Munot, MD, ZF India says, "The economic slowdown and resulting downtrend of the automotive industry has been quite a trying phase for the entire industry. For ZF, the OEM side of the business hasn't grown as per expectation." 

Anshul Goel, MD, Duroshox, too says that the slowdown has affected his firm's current domestic business. Additionally it has deferred introduction of new technologies. "Duroshox is a niche player in the field of industrial suspensions. The slowdown has impacted the introduction of new technologies in this area."

Dealing with it

Of course, despite the challenges, they aren't giving up at all. "Like the OEs, we still have faith in the long-term growth prospects of the Indian market and we are gearing up to meet the next uptrend by investing into a Greenfield plant. The Aftermarket side of the business has been an outperformer and ZF Services is systematically increasing its product and service offerings based on the market requirement," says Munot. Goel too says that Duroshox has made up for the significant drop in domestic sales by increasing its focus on exports, where the company has seen some growth.

ZF India has been continuously reviewing its processes to optimise the cost levels within our organisation.  "An immediate measure has been the tightening of our inventory by realigning the production planning according to the customers' product strategy. We are also in the process of increasing localisation while maintaining the global ZF quality standards for some of our product offerings in order to remain competitive," says Munot. Goel says that while looking at new markets, Duroshox has continued its focus on operational efficiency which is also leading to substantial benefits.