You've taken charge as the MD of Cummins recently. How's been the journey so far and how do you want to take it head?
At the time I have taken over, we have already started to see that the cycle of the business is trending downwards.  This business that we are in, is a cyclical business. We see the cycles vary in the different market segments, but it's a highly cyclical business. And we have a few years up and then a few years down, so we are used to dealing with cycles. Cummins actually has been very successful in dealing with these cycles. As a matter of fact, we have used every downcycle to become stronger, to gain market share and to come out of it better than earlier cycle. And this is true, not only of Cummins in India but of Cummins around the world.
So, we are working on how we do what is right for the business in terms of getting better at cost management and introducing the right products. In fact, we are getting ready for some very significant product launches.
Also, we have a very strong balance sheet. For decades, we have been investing money in India. If you see the kinds of investments that we have made in the last ten years, it's over a billion dollars into capability and capacity in India. And we are going to use the downturn to optimise those investments, and then capitalise by getting the products out before time and better than what we think competition is capable of. And we will use that opportunity to gain market share and be and be even stronger than before.

We also have this shift from BSIV to BSVI happening in the automotive industry. How has that impacted Cummins?
As far as Cummins is concerned globally, tighter and tougher emissions are what Cummins has pushed for on its own. The reason? Cummins is the technology leader as far as clean diesel, clean fuels and performance in diesel technology is concerned. And every time the emission norms get tighter and tougher, it represents an opportunity for Cummins to gain market share, to add more value, and to actually grow.
We have seen that not just in this market, but in every other market around the world that the more tighter emissions get, it gives us an opportunity to introduce technologies that we have already proven and tested as the global market leaders. To give you an example, last year Cummins produced 1.3 million diesel engines and our next largest competitor produced less than 900,000 engines. So, we have a huge scale and technology advantage.
We already introduced some of these technologies during BSIV and they have been working very well. Our market share has grown since the products have performed fabulously.
And now we are leveraging that same technology to get into BSVI. We have already put in capacities; these are technologies which are tested and running around the world. Over one million engines of Cummins, which are BSVI plus technologies have been running in the field around the world. We have mountains of data available on how to optimise, how to do it better and how to make it run. And now we are fine tuning it for the India requirements. And I am really confident that we will use this opportunity to again grow further to gain more market share and to serve more customers than we are currently.

Besides automotive, which are the key sectors that Cummins is focusing in India?
Cummins is a market leader in almost every sector at play. So, in on-highway, four out of ten trucks which are sold in India have a Cummins engine on it. Our goal is to want to take it to five and six. In the off-highway space, we have markets such as construction equipment. For example, in the excavator market, we have seven out of ten excavators in the country are powered with Cummins products.
We play a huge part in the power generation market. That's the market where we not only sell engines, but we also sell the entire gen-set and the Cummins brand is a well-known brand around the country. There are certain segments where we have over 70 percent or 80 percent market share. But overall, we have something like 35 percent to 40 percent market share.
In the rail market, which is growing very aggressively in India, we power the power cars. So, historically all the diesel vehicles never used to have power cars in them. India is trying to put air conditioning on every train and also to improve the functioning of the trains. We again have 70 percent to 80 percent share in that market.
Then, we have the marine market and the defence market. Again, Cummins has very strong share in those segments as well. So, if you look at every market segment where diesel engine technology is required, Cummins has a dominant share.

There's a huge focus on e-mobility not just in India, but also globally. How do you look at that development?
Cummins has been investing quite significantly in automotive segment. Today, you need to look at automotive in the context of CASE, which stands for Connectivity, Automation, Subscription, and Electrification. We have been looking at all four aspects of it.
As companies are spending more money on certain technologies, they can't afford to spend money on all technologies. Whereas Cummins is a very focused power train supplier. One, it gives us an opportunity to consolidate and grow even further.
As people spend more money on other technologies, our core business is growing even faster.
But we are leveraging the growth in the powertrain to also invest in the digital space and in the e-mobility space. So, Cummins has since early 2016-17 been investing huge amounts of money in that space. We have acquired quite a few companies, a few battery manufacturers, and battery technology manufacturers. We bought a battery company which is the largest supplier of batteries into the forklift market.
We are also converting the company from just an engine company to a complete powertrain company. We formed a joint venture with Eaton, called Eaton Cummins which is highly successful and has already become a billion-dollar company. And by doing that, we are able to bring much better TCO improvement to the vehicle manufacturers.
As you move from one technology to another, the powertrain still is a powertrain. You still need to understand how the vehicle works. So, we are also buying a lot of companies which we do the integration between the hardware and software to make them work better together. So, we have also been investing into and buying many of those technologies.
Actually, the battery represents a very small portion of the e-mobility market and there are multiple paths to electrification. We also have presence in hybrid technologies, where instead of using a very large engine, you use a much smaller engine that burns less fuel. Then, you combine that with batteries and power the vehicle. Again, you need to do a lot of integration.
Then, you have what we call the alternate fuels right. So, you have gas, methane, alcohol and so on. So, all of those technologies also play a big part in the journey towards the eventual hundred percent electrification.
One of the big directions where we think the market is moving is the fuel cell market, which is the hydrogen market as we as we call it. Very recently, Cummins acquired one of the large players in hydrogen technology, which is company called Hydrogenics. So, significant play is happening on every aspect of technology.
Also, we are doing a lot of work in the integration space. When the customer approaches us there are multiple things we can do. We can do full system integration of the powertrain, we can give you bits and pieces of where you already have some technology. Where we have better technology, we can integrate that or look at the whole piece and look at the complete hardware software integration. So, we offer a complete suite of products.
And we are using the growth from the existing core markets to fund the research and development into some of these new markets. So, we feel we are very well placed for future growth. For example, India is a lagging market as far as electrification is concerned in terms of availability of the right kind of infrastructure and the right kind of clean energy. But Cummins is already in place for India's electrification drive. Our tech centres and our engineering centres are already doing R&D work not only for India but also for markets around the world. We will be ready when the time is right.

How has been the business in terms of numbers for Cummins?
The year 2018 was a record year. So, as compared to 2018, 2019 has been much weaker. Cummins in India has multiple entities. We have one listed entity which is CIL, which is what everyone talks about. But we have many other entities like the automotive business, a big chunk of it is with a joint venture with Tata Motors called Tata Cummins. Then we have the Cummins Technologies India, where the tech centre and a few other component businesses are housed within that business, which is 100 percent Cummins owned subsidiary. Looking at the overall 2019, it has been a very, very weak year. The largest business which Cummins runs is automotive. And we are also highly dependent on infrastructure. If you look at any of our other markets like construction, power generation, compressor and so on, all these markets are dependent on infrastructure development. And there has been a slowdown in the infrastructure spending due to various factors. I think everyone's aware of those factors. Now the infrastructure spending will slowly start. So, in the long term, we are all optimistic that the India growth story is there. It's just a short term that we are concerned about.

Do you believe that 2020 will be a better year compared to 2019?
I think we need to continue to improve. The government needs to ensure that infrastructure spending needs to continue the way it was in 2018. And if that happens, I think all the other things will trigger off each other. I am a great optimist as far as India is concerned.
As I said, 2018 was a record year for Cummins, which means all markets were up. And that's how we became a $25 billion company. So, when all markets were up simultaneously, there's very high likelihood that sometime all markets are going to be down. But fundamentally, Cummins is very, very strong company. We have already made huge investments in India and we have a very, very strong balance sheet. We are a debt free company and we have cash in hand. When times are bad, we actually look to use our investments, our capabilities, and our technology leadership to actually grow market share. I am optimistic that we will be able to do that. With the tightening emissions and the technology becoming more and more difficult, our investments in people and in technology in India will pay off. For some of these BSVI products, we are going to be at over 90 percent localization. Nobody else in the market has that kind of scale and capacity. For example, the entire truck market in India last year was 450,000 vehicles in the medium and heavy commercial space. Cummins alone has invested capacity of 300,000 engines. So, we have invested very heavily in India and as I said, we have the scale and capacity. When the next cycle comes, when the next growth spurt happens, we are already ready. And that gives me a lot of confidence.
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