Tennyson Anthony, General Manager – Construction Products, Husqvarna India Products, speaks on the present size and growth rate of the concrete equipment market in India. What is the present size and growth rate of the concrete equipment market in India? How has the concrete equipment market evolved in the last couple of years? The concrete equipment that we deal in has an addressable size of Rs 100 crore in India and the growth rate is anywhere above 20 per cent year on year. With more and more emphasis on concrete roads by MoRTH, the acceptance towards quality and advanced products have increased amongst the Indian customers. The customers have become more demanding towards new cutting-edge technologies, which will make their downtime lowest and give high productivity, this is a happy problem to have for us. What are the new products and solutions offered? We offer the broadest range of products under concrete placement range like Concrete vibrators – electric, mechanical, electronic and pneumatic range, Screeds – manual and electric, Trowels – manual and ride-on-trowel, Under compaction range, we have double drum rollers, forward and reversible plate compactors and earth rammers. Apart from the above, we also have demolition related products viz. demolition robots, wall saws, wire saws, power cutters, floor saws, and its accessories related thereto. Our products can be offered in all the stages of the construction and sometimes beyond. We cater to segments like construction industry, infrastructure industry, bridges, airports majorly for concrete placement products and other products serve to cement/steel/sponge/iron industries, mining, tunnelling, rescue and security operations and metal process industry. In India, the use of advanced automation and digital technologies in concrete equipment is still not as per the requirement. What are the measures needed to improve the utilisation of automation and control technologies in concrete equipment? There definitely needs to be a forum wherein all the manufacturers within the industry can come forward and take the initiative to educate their customers on new technologies and automation that they provide. If the customers are made to understand the benefit of using quality products and solutions then there will definitely be an upgrade towards how the customers get their job done. So seminars, technical meet-up, industry associations would be a way forward in this endeavour. With the government focusing on the vision of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, how would it catapult growth for the concrete equipment market? Applications within the concrete segment are highly dynamic in nature i.e. the jobsite conditions are not the same across India. In fact, there is a huge impetus from the government to complete the projects on time. There is then a huge requirement for tailoring the products and solutions as per the ever-changing needs of the customers. This is highly possible under the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative because our operations are then much closer to the customers. We have already seen great benefits out of making our products in India, we in 2020 inaugurated our state-of-the-art facility at Nasik, which is gearing up to being a global hub for the entire emerging markets. We are constantly developing new products to deliver better customer experiences. What can be the possible challenges in the post-Covid scenario? How do you look at the opportunities for the concrete equipment market? Challenges: The only challenge that we see during post-Covid world would be the virtual reach to our customers. There definitely has been a huge improvement in the digital space with meeting the customers, attending events online but we don’t reach out to the entire TG. The way of working has definitely changed due to Covid and we also need to adopt to the customers preference. Speed of response is all the more critical going forward Market opportunities: India’s growing need for advanced machineries and automations are an advantage for us, we replace the conventional modes as we provide the best productivity by decreasing the downtime, increasing safety. We have a strong distribution network, expert sales and service engineers with relevant product experience and our noble approach towards creating awareness will yield us great results.