JCB India started as a JV in 1979 and is a fully-owned subsidiary of JC Bamford Excavators UK. An embodiment of the vision of an Atmanirbhar Bharat, the company has six state-of-the-art factories in India at Ballabgarh, Jaipur, Pune and Vadodara (Halol). It also has a design centre at Pune that works on domestic as well as global projects. All factories operate to ‘One Global Quality’, and the company’s ‘Made in India’ products are being used in over 110 countries. “JCB has been in India for over four decades, and all through this journey, we have focused on introducing innovative products based on the needs of our customers,” says Deepak Shetty, CEO and Managing Director, JCB India. “The iconic JCB Backhoe Loader today can be seen across infrastructure projects in the country, in both urban and rural India. It has become a part of our lives.” He shares more… Amid the pandemic, did you increase your sales over the previous year's same period? Despite the disruptions due to the pandemic, 2021 was the third-best year for us. This was because all through the second wave, the infrastructure development activity went ahead unabated, and we continued to remain close to our customers. Through our advanced telematics technology, JCB Livelink, we were also able to monitor equipment utilisation across India and thus plan for seamless product support. Did you manage to improve your margins with more efficient cost management? During the pandemic, we focused on integrating more digital technology into our products and services. For instance, our Parts App is today capable of processing orders and ensuring door delivery of genuine spares. We are seeing a strong penetration of digital technology for our customers who are in rural India as well. We also introduced the industry’s first dual-fuel CNG Backhoe Loader and our access range during the pandemic. Have you enhanced your market share during this period? JCB India continues to be a leading manufacturer of earthmoving and construction equipment. We today have over 60 different products in nine categories. These are made to ‘one global quality’ at our six factories in India and are used in over 110 countries around the world. What is the one thing that your customers value most about you? We feel that our customers value the trust that comes along with the JCB brand. Our products are built around innovation and technology and when our customers become a part of the JCB family, they are assured of robustly engineered, world-class products, along with the industry’s widest dealership network of over 700 outlets across the country. JCB continues to offer the industry’s finest customer support through more than 6,500 trained dealer engineers. Are your products priced higher than your competitors? Customers always look at the overall life-cycle cost of the equipment. Our products are known for their reliability and productivity. They provide a significantly higher value proposition to our customers not only in India but world over. How will your FY22-23 plans contribute to the admired quotient? Innovation has always been the cornerstone of JCB’s operations. Our Road to Zero programme will continue to develop products that operate on alternative fuels such as CNG, PNG and Electric. At Excon 2021, JCB launched products that operate on alternative fuels such as the industry’s first fully-electric excavator and the natural gas genset. “JCB continues to offer the industry’s finest customer support through more than 6,500 trained dealer engineers.”