It all started in the 70s when Mr. Guha, a graduate from IIT Kharagpur, headed to the US for doing his Masters. He then started his professional career in Canada working for an industrial company selling air springs. After spending close to 13 years selling air springs in global markets, Mr. Guha decided to head back to India. After a short stint at Tata Exports, Mr. Guha established Gibraltor Agencies in the 90s representing a leading global air spring manufacturer. From a turnover of $13,000 in the first year, Gibraltar ended 2007 with revenues of $1.5 million.
In the 80s and 90s air springs as a technology was still fairly new to the Indian market. In fact air springs were used more in the industrial market. With his global expertise, Mr. Guha, introduced the product and technology in the Indian market. The initial breakthroughs came more from the industrial segment like paper industries where this product was extensively being used. Over a period of time, Gibraltar started catering to all segments including industrial, bus and rail segment. Mr. Guha is recognised by the industry as the Godfather of air springs business in India.
In fact, it was only in the mid 90s that air springs as a product gained acceptance in the Bus market. In the mid 90s there was sudden spurt in usage of air springs in buses particularly on intercity luxury buses. I particularly the days when bus operators like KPN and Sharma travels launched buses with air suspension technology and it just changed the bus travel industry in India.
Today all the intercity buses and a growing number of city buses come fitted with air suspension systems. It is thanks to the pioneering efforts of people like Mr. Guha that the technology got introduced in the Indian market and have now become an accepted technology in the bus segment.
Gibraltar was the first to introduce the air springs technology in the bus market. “One of the first air springs fitted on an Indian bus was supplied by Gibraltar”, says Mr. Guha. In fact in the initial days, bus operators who started using air springs, went back to the traditional leaf springs due to the issues they were faced with. But over a period of time, Mr. Guha and his team helped fleet operators tide over the initial technical issues related to usage of air springs. This helped create very strong relationships with customers.
The biggest asset of Gibraltar and Mr. Guha is the strong relationship which it has established with its customers and most importantly the understanding of the Indian conditions and the customer requirement. Mr. Guha, with his engineering background, has also been able to indigenise most of the metal and rubber parts which go into manufacturing an air spring. In fact it is this engineering background clubbed with in-depth understanding of the Indian market which has helped Gibraltar in developing a range of air springs which is made specifically to suit Indian conditions.
Mr. Guha shares similar experience in introducing air springs in the rail segment and today the company has made lot of progress in this segment. “I hope we will be able to replicate the success of Gibraltar in rail segment as well”, adds Mr. Guha. The company has establish its sales and service network across and serves over 150 major customers across India.
Gibraltor launched its own brand of air springs a year back. So far the product has performed very well under Indian conditions, says Mr. Guha. We are able to offer a competitive product at nominal prices. Currently we have fitted and tested our products on buses and very soon we will introduce a complete range of air springs for trucks and trailers as well. This will open a huge opportunity, adds Mr. Guha. In the US, 70% of the air springs manufactured goes to trucks and 20% goes to buses and 90% of the trucks and buses in the US are fitted with air springs.
Currently Gibraltar is working with more in the after market and directly with fleet operators and state transport corporation. We have been getting repeat orders from all our customers who have used our product in the last one year, says Mr. Guha. The company plans to tap the OEM segment very soon for which it is in active discussions with all major OEMs. The company is also in discussions with ARAI and CIRT for getting its products approval. The company is also in discussion with suspensions manufacturers.
