PRADEEP SHARMA shares the company’s growth plan to become an industry leader in the construction equipment sector.As ACE completes 25 years of engineering excellence in January 2020, we embark on a journey towards weaving the ACE-Growth Story 2.0 through a consistent focus on introducing high-quality innovative products and excellent customer service. At ACE, we firmly believe that India is the next emerging superpower and the construction equipment industry will play a stellar role in shaping the country’s future through high-tech development and upgradation of both, rural and urban infrastructure. The bullet train project, Bharatmala project, elevated roads and rail networks being developed on an advanced level, as well as an increase in focus on precast structures for enhancing the execution speed of projects, will act as a catalyst in pushing the demand for construction equipment.Growth promoting policies In FY2018-19, ACE’s revenue and profit numbers have grown steadily. With the Modi 2.0 government in power, we are confident and optimistic that its proactive endeavours to create structural drivers of rapid growth will augur well for the economy. Structural reforms, such as the Insolvency law, recapitalisation of the banking sector, and non-performing asset management are likely to help the infrastructure sector to keep up the healthy pace of growth. ACE is well poised to benefit from the various structural policy reforms along with focused infrastructure spending by the government. In the coming years, we remain optimistic in our outlook for the construction equipment business and expect the industry to grow in double digits in the long term. We have continued to reinforce our presence in all the product segments with greater customer engagement and technological innovations. Powered by our innovation spectrum and commitment to agile decision-making, we are geared to capitalise on the upcoming opportunities and are determined to innovate and grow. Mapping out future growth By 2025, we aspire to become an industry leader in most of the business segments that are part of our operations and be acknowledged by our valuable customers as a trusted one stop shop of best-in-class products. Our diverse portfolio of businesses and competencies will also simultaneously provide unique sources of competitive advantage. As we scale up, we remain deeply committed towards fiscal discipline and value creation. We have institutionalised best practices that have led to efficiency, safety, sustainability and stronger businesses. The speed and precision with which we are transforming ourselves to be future-focused while remaining steadfast to our time-tested values will weave another episode of our successful growth story. Capturing all product segments In the agriculture segment, we are looking at significant product expansions, improving market share and exploring new territories outside India. We believe that our proactive steps in providing innovative solutions to our customers and strategic moves will keep us ahead of the competition and provide the necessary impetus in achieving our vision towards becoming the industry leader in all the product segments by 2025. Managing challengesWith a continuous focus on various strategies and initiatives, we are completely geared up to overcome the existing challenges. These include consolidation of new generation NX-series cranes in the targeted market segments. In an endeavour to achieve year-on-year profitable growth, ACE is focused on bringing down cost and enhancing operational efficiencies in the present competitive business environment. The company will continue to focus on reducing the working capital levels by emphasising on speedy customer collections and reducing inventory levels.As we continue to strengthen our market position, we will also pursue our commitment towards creating a difference in the society through various corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability initiatives.About the author: Pradeep Sharma, President, Action Construction Equipment, is a veteran with almost four decades of experience in the engineering and construction equipment industry. Under his leadership, ACE has won many awards and has become number one in the cranes segment.