Get In Touch
Dec2024 104x80.jpg
Current Issue
section
logo

R&D investments help companies stay competitive

By Niranjan Mudholkar,

Added 30 August 2016

Tarang Jain, Managing Director, Varroc speaks to The Machinist about his company, future plans and market conditions

What is your mantra for taking Indian auto components sector to the next level?
Indian auto components sector has done very well due to the high growth rates enjoyed by the market in the past two decades. Of late the slowdown, I believe, is caused by the economy not generating enough employment. The manufacturing sector's continued reliance on antiquated manufacturing using low cost contract labour has not helped improve purchasing power. This can be changed by investing in technologies to improve productivity and value added products that address market needs better and also contributing to wage growth. R&D investments also help companies stay competitive by differentiating their products in the market.

How would describe your growth strategy for 2020?
Globally we continue to invest in cutting edge exterior lighting technologies to support the needs of our customers in the passenger car segment to differentiate while expanding our horizons in newer geographies like Brazil and intensifying our footprints in China. We are the most diversified supplier of auto parts in the two wheeler market and not all of them are sold to all of our key customers. Therefore, in the domestic market we are accelerating our cross sell to our customers and
this offers a tremendous potential to almost triple our size by 2020.

With the coming safety and emissions regulations in mind, we also have an eye on preparing our product portfolio to offer alternatives to all of our key customers in the two wheeler segment. Our success will be determined to a large extent by how
we succeed in skilling up our workforce to improve productivity in the domestic market and developing products that help differentiate our customers in their local markets. 2020 in India has its own challenges of emission and safety technologies to be created in capacities of a scale never seen in any market ever; and herein lies our opportunity.

END