From 40 to 1000 crores of rupees in 3 years – Dynaspede aims to reach the target under the leadership of Arijit Dutta Chowdhury, as its CEO and President. The supremely charged leader meets N. Balasubramanian at Dynaspede’s Hosur plant and shares with him their strategy, vision and the clear road map to achieve this ambitious goal.
This is the story of an MSME that dares to dream big. It is a shout out to the aspiring ones too. Right about now is a good time to be born as an MSME in India because of relentless efforts made by the central government to encourage the small and medium enterprises to thrive and take big strides. And Dynaspede has an inbuilt advantage. Arijit Dutta Chowdhary – CEO and President, Dynaspede is determined to take the company forward from its current revenue of Rs. 40 crores to Rs. 1000 crore in 3 years. Born in 1978, Dynaspede is synonymous with mechatronic solutions and has garnered trust across the world for offering innovative solutions in component designing which are used in diverse industries.
Arijit has previously spent a valuable 28 years at Ashok Leyland as their head of international business helping him become well-versed with international operations, gaining in-depth technological expertise, besides making him adept at building relationships and setting up facilities overseas.
Birth Of A Spark
Pioneering is in the DNA of Dynaspede. Its founder, Balgopal, was a visionary who nurtured Dynaspede into becoming an ‘embodiment of import substitution’. Roughly 3 decades ago, he opted to build machines which were usually imported from Netherlands, Germany, UK or the US by the industry.
Today, Arijit, with full backing from the company’s new promoters, is working on several projects and the company is actively taking part in Make in India program.
Arijit shares: “Our vision is to help Dynaspede grow from being a company worth Rs. 40 crores currently to Rs. 1000 crores in 3 years. We are clearly committed to launch our IPO in September 2024.”
Dynaspede was born to become a leader. Recognizing the superlative talent that the company possesses inherently, the new management is making strategic investments in human resources, and focusing on building new and relevant technologies. The company is 300-people strong and has 7 regional offices in Gurugram, Lucknow, Pune, Baroda, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai. Their Hosur facility primarily houses a dedicated R&D team, manufacturing, design, assembly, panel and powder coating units besides heat treatment plant. The company is planning to establish a software development division soon besides working exclusively on developing EVs.
He says: “We are working on building India’s first privately-owned and operated state-of-the-art advanced simulators for defense. Currently India imports these simulators, it will become a demo center for customers at its completion. Further, we have successfully finished preliminary work in converting existing vehicles into EVs and have conducted trials. Currently, we are working on the chassis design and the architecture of the product. For this purpose, we employ our own 3d scanners and printers so that we can monitor the applicability of each component to the service design. We are working towards solidifying all our plans by mid-2022.”
Delivering Satisfaction
Dynaspede believes in the philosophy of ‘getting it right the first time, every time’ so as to offer utmost customer satisfaction. The company majorly caters to tier-1 suppliers. Automotive vertical of the company contributes 40-45% to their business share, while the rest comes in from defence and aerospace sectors. If earlier, they were only making test machines for the customers, now they are also able to build workstations for them. Further, Dynaspede is continuously making improvements – be it with regards to the speed of their backend processes or on the work floor.
Arijit explains: “We have a robust validation team instead of a quality team which ensures that every machine that is built is up to the specification, delivers finesse and is foolproof because we believe this is one surefire way to keep our customers happy. Solutions wise, we are working on offering automated solutions in parking, warehousing, and e-commerce. Our aim is to prove it to our customers that they have a dependable partner for design and development.”
Exploring Niche Business Segments
It is the combined strength of Dynaspede’s intrinsic expertise and the extensive experience of the new management in the automotive segment that brings the company much-appreciated traction today.
He shares: “We want to enter niche segments such as super luxury cars for highly specific target industries. We are looking forward to take out the first prototype by June 2022. We want to become a big solution provider to EV manufacturers with focus on battery management systems, niche electric vehicles, besides growing our existing verticals.”
And what best way but to start building their own electric car to prove their expertise. Dynaspede is looking at possible investments in aluminium air batteries as against the popular lithium-ion ones because of its inherent advantages.
The Road Map Ahead
Dynaspede will be opting for both organic and inorganic growth in their bid to fulfill its target of reaching Rs. 1000 crores by 2024.
Arijit explains the nuances: “Dynaspede is our flagship company and all our other business aspects will be grown around it. In alignment with that, late last year we acquired Space Age which offers warehousing and other related solutions. The combined strengths of Space Age and Dynaspede will come in the form of warehousing concepts and automation skills respectively. Holistically, it will work right from the deployment of sortation systems to automatic conveyors, Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) to RFID systems and complex warehouse management systems (WMS). Automation in the warehouses is largely used to improve speed, accuracy, consistency, efficiency, and ultimately save cost. This is why organizations are profoundly investing in automation and robotics in their warehouses. The sensor-based robots avert accidents and the inherent algorithms aid in the decision-making process. We have multiple options in automation that help eliminate repetitive, process-based, and error-prone tasks in warehouses. We have the capability to build machines with no reference at all. We are working on expanding to global arena and our promoters already have presence in the Middle East and Africa.”
Dynaspede has embarked on their operations near Sharjah in the UAE where they have set up a furnace for aluminium smelting to make aluminum ingots which then will be exported. They will commence manufacturing in early 2022.
He shares: “The 1st phase of business was purely about trading, followed by the 2nd phase which was to put up the furnace and start manufacturing the ingots. We will move into the 3rd phase with buying copper concentrates and converting them into cathodes. Post this, we will have multiple streams of business up and running which will be in metals, and their conversion into machines which will be followed by accessing global markets besides feeding the domestic market too.”
He further states: “Dynaspede’s USP is that we design highly capable and unique machines. We are looking at building up scale and developing more products in-house. For example, our new vertical for automated products will make consumables like telescopic conveyors, stacker cranes, automated guided vehicles. Since, these are white-labelled in India, we will be one of the first companies to make these. This is how we plan to touch Rs. 1000 crore mark.” In alignment with it, the company aims to touch a revenue of more than Rs. 300 crores by March 2022.
Tech Capability
Dynaspede is known for being in sync with current market trends. With technology as their mainstay, the company is working on 3 key products – one, autonomous mobile robot; two, battery technologies and three, hub motors.
Vishwanathan K, CTO says: “We are witnessing a global mind shift that is acknowledging the high capability of Indian companies and it is happening primarily because the education system is also becoming transformative. There is more thought going in to bridge the skill gap between the industry and the academia. And Dynaspede is making a difference with innovative engineering. Our journey is defined by the fact that we deliver what the customer wants.”
Spearing Challenges
Dynaspede, today, boasts of new processes, ideas and innovations while being frugal yet fast. In the same breath, Dynaspede has redefined their corporate vision, mission and quality policy. The most interesting fact about the company is the management believes that quality as a concept is the responsibility of every member of the company. This is so because ‘our clients rely heavily on us to deliver a machine which will meet their purpose’ and quality plays a big role in building relationships that will continue into future.
But a primary challenge – be it for Dynaspede or any MSME – is being pitted against big and established companies because an MSME is naturally constrained for finances, capacities, in international knowledge and tie-ups. Fortunately, Dynaspede brings forth international exposure and traction to the business, owing to both Arijit’s own experience and the backing that the promoters are offering.
He feels: “MSMEs are the powerhouse of the Indian industry. And I want to bring a perceptional change in how they are looked upon. A major challenge is the evaluation criterion which allows big companies to lap up the cream while MSMEs are left with the leftovers which may or may not be rewarding business wise. Another important challenge is that finances get blocked mainly due to the projects being offered via tenders and banks needing guarantees. Due to this, MSMEs are constantly under tremendous pressure. We feel that the government can help MSMEs to get out of this rut by doing due diligence and identifying capable companies. Government should also look at offering subsidized loans, term loans and working capitals.”
As per Arijit, MSMEs have the potential to be a game changer for all major industries because they are best placed to be frugal in their manufacturing costs, provided they are given their own level playing field.
Dynaspede has taken to several platforms to represent MSMEs seeking reforms. On its part, the company is walking the talk by continuously improving their own performance and proving to the clients, banks and industry in general that they are trusted partners in success. Engineering excellence is inherent to Dynaspede. So, even if the stakes are high, the roadmap is crystal clear for Dynaspede to become a business worth Rs. 1000 crores by 2024.