With the domestic market slowing down, you have increased your attention to exports. In fact, you have been striving to establish the Indian machine tools brand in the overseas market. What is the business strategy behind this and how are you taking this to the next level?

From the world market perspective, the Indian machine tools industry is extremely small. And this boils down to questions of capacity and having a good domestic market. We at the Ace Micromatic Group have consciously endeavoured to increase the capacity over the last seven to eight years at a rate much faster than the average rate in the market.

Secondly, we need to understand that every country has a certain brand image globally when it comes to different industries. Unlike the software industry, the machine tool industry still has a lot of distance to cover. Let's not even talk about Japan and Germany; even Taiwan made machines are immediately recognised globally and accepted. But when it comes to India made machines, there is a lot of talk about trials and proofs. We need to change this perception. And unless and until, we project the image of the industry as a whole, we will not be able to change it. As an industry, we need to work towards brand building. I am working towards this objective both in my individual capacity (through Micromatic) as well as through the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers' Association's (IMTMA) Export Development Cell.

Providing training through Ace Micromatic Technology Centre has also been a key focus area for you. Tell us more about this.

The Ace Micromatic Technology Centre (AMTC) happened about 4-5 years back when we were talking to our customers and trying to understand the reasons for downtime of machines. And we realised that the major reason has been the unavailability of sufficient number of good operators. Particularly in the SME sector, there is a lot of problem due to lack of trained manpower and this directly affects productivity of the company. Today, with the boom in the services sector, it is difficult to attract the youth to the manufacturing industry. Moreover, there are not enough training avenues available in this segment as well.