Earlier this year Cooper entered into a technical collaboration with Ricardo UK which will enable Cooper Corp to expand its range of engines from 3.5 KVA to 1000 KVA and cover almost 75 percent of the range of products available in the market putting the company in the same league as the biggest players in the industry in a relatively short period of time.

Cooper has a longstanding relationship with Ricardo, UK since 2008 for designing its state-of-the-art family of engines in 2, 3, 4 and 6 cylinder configurations. These Engines are designed to meet all future emission norms while delivering the best in class fuel efficiency. "This technical collaboration along with the nearly century long experience in India has allowed us to bring market competitive products that comply with regulations and norms in India," Cooper says.

At the same time, he intends to expand the Company's capacities in the cast iron foundry, aluminium foundry, engine lines etc. and achieve a turnover of Rs3000 crore in the next five years. By the way, Cooper Corporation's turnover a few years back (2012-13) was just Rs320 crore with an investment of Rs300 crore!

In 2013-14, it was Rs390 crore with an investment of Rs325 crore. In FY14-15, it was Rs460 crore with an investment of Rs44 crore. For the current FY, Cooper's projection is Rs750 crore with an investment of Rs560 crore. "In the next three year we are confident of crossing Rs2200 crore with an investment around Rs600 crore. By 2020 we would like to achieve an annual turnover of Rs3000 crore," he says confidently.

Cooper's mantra for taking Indian auto components sector to the next level is quite simple: ‘Understand the market and understand the customers'. "It is important to remember to ‘Understand before you are Understood'. Transparency is the key to build confidence. You have to have the ability to see what others don't see and then do what you have to do to get there; which means intuition, leadership and a very steady nerve. This is what will set you apart from the rest. The Indian auto component sector should know how to exploit its own uniqueness in its DNA instead of blindly following what other countries are doing or set them as benchmark," 

Cooper's personal vision for his organisation is that it should attract various stakeholders for its uniqueness in the Cooper culture, which has an amalgam of transparency, integrity, sincerity honesty and fidelity. "We aspire to be trail blazers in whatever we do, whenever we do and wherever we go. There is beautiful quote by Benjamin Franklin which says that ‘if you wish to be remembered after your life, either write something worth reading or do something worth for people to write about'. At Cooper it is our desire to do something worthy for people to write about us," he says. Well, Mr Cooper, we are already writing about you!

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