Founded in 2004 by a Dubai resident of Indian origins from Hyderabad, Telangana, Eiffel Lubricants as a brand was established a year later. The business began with a single component called the viscosity index improver at a time when no such product existed in the market. And with that Eiffel found its roots and became known as a brand that stood apart from the crowd.
Mr. Syed Sadath Hussain, Technical & Marketing Director, shares: “We began at a time when the market did not know how to blend polymers, or how to make greases. And the process of solubilizing polymers requires state-of-the-art technology which we already had. So we were the ones who were blending polymers as a service to the major companies more than two decades ago. Gradually, when the market caught up with it, we began focusing and investing more on our brand.”
With more than 175 companies in the fray now in Dubai, Eiffel is continuing to diversify and differentiate itself. It is now manufacturing fully synthetic products, which again is not being made by many companies in Dubai.
Says Mr. Hussain: “We believe in consistently introducing new initiatives so that we are always known by our innovativeness. Another thing that differentiates us is that most of our products are API certified and OEM approved.”
World-Wide Presence
Eiffel Lubricants is currently present in 30 countries across the globe with its largest blending plant in Dubai. Their second biggest plant was opened in Hyderabad, India, a couple of years ago besides the third one that was opened in Kenya in East Africa, also quite recently.
Mr. Hussain explains: “Currently, in India we are already producing more than 300 metric tonnes a month. And from our Kenyan plant, we supply to our customers in Angola, Rwanda, Tanzania among others.”
The company has built its own research department and a laboratory to control the quality. The formulation is controlled by them and the top officials conduct surprise checks to test if the product meets their recommended specifications.
Expansion plans are firmly afoot with the company having trained its eye onto Europe, especially France, since the country is already a big market for Eiffel and the officials feel it is the right time to set up a physical presence there also. He endorses: “We have a good distributor there and with the market growing, we will definitely enter into a JV with him by investing in setting up a plant.”
Strong India Network
Eiffel Lubricants’ network in India is going from strength to strength with 14 distributors now, which is a huge development in the last two and a half years. As a supplier of quality products, Eiffel ensures that each of their carrying and forwarding agent is assisted by their sales or territory manager to offer the required support with the dealers.
Mr. Hussain adds: “We believe in more than mere selling of our products to the distributors. Our aim is to help him to sell the product to the end customers. We help fill any gap in the knowledge about our products that our distributors may have.”
The company’s network is strengthened further by the fact that the top brass ensures that their products do not get counterfeited.
Mr. Hussain says: “In the next five years or so, with the kind of mileage and acceleration that we are giving to our business, we plan to give our growth a double-digit push in terms of the number of countries that we are present in. Currently, we are present in 30 countries and we hope to be in 60 countries in the next three years or so.”
Success Mantra – Customization
Eiffel Lubricants have created a name that is synonymous with reliability, quality and more importantly, customization. Mr. Hussain explains: “If it is a commercial fleet of trucks, ours would be a B2B model. A commercial fleet owner will be highly focused on reducing his total cost of operations. So we tailor-make our solutions for him and other customers according to their needs and challenges. Most customers look for a lubricant that will save fuel. They look for extending the drain intervals because that is going to save costs. Our customer testimonials have revealed that with our products, they are now changing oil only after 20,000 km which is roughly double the distance they were changing at when they were using other oils. Our competitors, especially the big companies, cannot customize like we can. We sit with our customers, understand their challenges and then do our research and come up with a solution for trial. When they try and test it and ultimately when they feel satisfied, only then do we start a business relationship with them.”
Essentially, it is the trust that matters supreme for Eiffel. It is termed as Proof of Excellence, he shares with pride. And this is possible for Eiffel only because they are focused on solving problems and overcoming challenges for their customers instead of eyeing volumes.
Eiffel has launched two new products specifically meant for heavy duty trucks, 15W40CK4 and 10W40CK4, for the European market quite recently. Though not yet launched in India, it is soon going to be introduced in the Malaysian market.