How's the business been for Walter from the global perspective?
Mirko Merlo: From a global perspective, we are reasonably happy. What I mean with that is that we have achieved a great majority of our targets last year in 2016. For the fourth year in a row, we have executed our strategies successfully. This is the part that makes us happy and satisfied. We have been reasonably successful. I use the word reasonable is because I feel that we could have done it better and we want to do better. But the market is getting tougher and tougher for us. The environment is very challenging. Competitors are all doing well. So we need to put more efforts to stay ahead, which I think we will do in 2017.

How do you see the India operations from the global point of view?
Mirko Merlo: India is playing a strategic role within the Walter Group in a sense that India is one of the countries where we see growth. In our business, we see a kind of stagnation market wise for the last couple of years overall. But India is one of the markets where we see growth and we are constantly surprisedby the number of opportunities in this market.

Considering the market conditions, manufacturing companies need to be both agile and flexible. How does Walter Tools help in this scenario?
Brajesh Kumar: Value proposition is one thing that everybody expects. In the metal cutting and manufacturing industries they need some value to be added to their operations on a daily basis to remain competitive. That is where Walter Tools helps them as partner by providing them with value proposition through innovative cutting tool technologies, product quality and expert engineering services.

As far as mutual understanding and cooperation is concerned, customers always see us as a long term partner and we see them as a long term partner. We believe in being a partner; not just being a supplier. That's always a long-term relationship.

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