Gates business in India is really interesting. It partners with most of the global brands. Its strength lies in teaming up and working closely with original equipment makers and the replacement market. It leverages on brand, network and global R&D to drive growth in India. Mr. Rajesh Bhandari was recently appointed as Managing Director for both the Power Transmission and Fluid Power business.
Having a strong global R&D capability for product development has enabled Gates India to have dynamic and competent presence in the country. With support of India’s functional technical expertise, it enjoys a substantial footprint in the market today. Working closely with customers and providing the right product available at the right time for the right application is the key to drive success. One of the major strategies to support the company customers is through amalgamation of both businesses.
In the automotive space, Gates India is at the initial development stage with two top OEMs in the two-wheeler segment. In the industrial segment, capital equipment is another rapidly growing area along with the excavator space in India, which the company is looking as an area of focus.
Looking ahead, Gates will be pursuing a range of new growth initiatives, ranging from refining the quality and variety of products, streamlining customer service and focusing on globalisation to cater to customer expansion, while still maintaining regional excellence. In India, it has been servicing industries like energy, exploration & extraction, infrastructure & agriculture, transportation, automotive and processing & specialty. Moving forward it would be focusing on stationary equipment as well as mining and construction equipment markets.
Having its presence in heavy duty equipment on the fluid power side, the company is parallelly working with automotive makers on two-wheelers and four-wheelers. On the automotive side, the belt starter generator (BSG) technology is one and there are a few more coming in.
Gates is also able to bring the global technology to India in alignment to the products and price as per local market conditions. It does not compromise on quality in order to have the competitive pricing but use its technology to drive cost down.
In the automotive industry, it is indeed setting benchmark on longevity of replacement of belts required. As a technology leader, it is getting into the BSG technology to support the OEMs. For high-end vehicles, it offers specialized QMT belts where it has the first-mover advantage on technology differentiation.