Deepak Chopra has been associated with Anand Group for four decades. Under his management, the company has reached new heights and expanded horizons. Speaking on the company's performance during last year, Chopra said, "We registered double digit growth and were able to grow ahead of average growth of the industry. The group recorded sales turnover of Rs. 84 billion in 2016." He further explained that the last year was not easy for the industry as a whole. "The industry had some hic-ups after demonetisation. When we started 2017, the hangover of demonetisation was still felt. Additionally, GST implementation has also affected the business adversely, although this impact is expected to be short term." In this scenario, how is Anand Group coping with the market conditions? "We were conscious about these impacts while budgeting for this year. According to me, most of the segments of the industry such as passenger vehicles, tractors, two-wheelers are bouncing back. Considering this, we expect this year to be good for the group and hope to record 8-10 percent growth."

Norms and regulations
The other aspect that impacted the industry lately was adoption of BS IV. Explaining its effect on the industry, he said, "In April commercial vehicles shifted from BS III norms to BS IV. This changeover had some issues as the clarifications came much later." Looking forward, he said that the group is getting ready for BS VI norms, as the government plans to adopt it by 2020. Elaborating further, he mentioned, "This jump from BS IV to BS VI is certainly a challenge. Although the automotive industry was keen to go through BS V stage, the government realised that the only way to cut short the time of catching up with the developed world was by jumping straight to BS VI. To enable this, lot of efforts are needed by the whole industry including OEMs, Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3. There is a huge investment that is involved in this. We are also gearing up for it and shall be ready by the deadline." Further he explained that the group works on a joint venture model. "The advantage of this model is our joint venture partners already have know-how of BS VI as they have implemented Euro VI regulations in other parts of the world such as Europe, US, Japan and Korea."

R&D
Adoption of advanced technologies demands for robust R&D facilities. "The investment that happens in India on R&D is much lower than what we know happens at the global level. And again, companies claim to put in money for R&D but the question is how much of it is actually invested in the real R&D meaning for developing new products technologies rather than application engineering," noted Chopra.

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