In the last two years, changes happening both within the organisation and in the larger commercial vehicle market have been as good as it gets for JCBL. The company has taken formidable shifts in its strategies to provide mobility and haulage solutions for the changing market and diversifying consumer preferences.
“JCBL has a long tradition of innovation and robust technical knowhow, to suit any specific needs of our customers. The fact that leading OEMs collaborate with us for truck and bus body solutions affirms a lot about our R&D prowess. Nobody can deliver what JCBL can.
– Mr. Rishi Aggarwal, Managing Director, JCBL
Chandigarh-based JCBL Ltd. is a force to be reckoned with beyond any question, but the real fascination point is what it takes to be one. After all, the Indian trucking and bus industry in the last two years has been neither humble nor homogeneous, a slew of regulations and market standardization have hopped on board the bandwagon while few others are hoped for in a short while, and buyer preferences are increasingly moving in the direction of better efficiency, safety, and lower TCO.
In other words, the commercial vehicle market has never been so dynamic and strenuous as it has now become. Being a dare-saying force in this turf is not an easy task. All it has taken for JCBL to be the ‘daring one’ is to stay ahead of the industry in terms of imagination and innovation, build new strategies and capabilities, and offer out of ordinary and variegated solutions to the changing market demands, all not just once or twice but constantly forever. Because staying up in the air is far more important than taking off, isn’t it?
For almost 30 years, JCBL is at the forefront of manufacturing high-quality bus body and load carrier solutions, in the most innovative and specialised way possible. Starting its journey as a coach-builder up in the Northern India, its bus building operations were largely confined to its plant in Chandigarh, while cargo solutions like tippers and trailers were fabricated in its plant located down South. But over the years, the company has constantly spread its wings into the making of special application vehicles (SAV’s) and extensive range of cargo body solutions to trucks, thereby diversifying across segments and establishing its reach across the length and breadth of the country.
Changing Thyself for Better
More so in the last two years, JCBL has readied various applications in its three different manufacturing facilities and substantially expanded their capacities. This includes manufacturing of cargo box, load carriers, tipper, and trailer products in the Northern region as well, while also added new verticals like petroleum tankers in the existing facility in South India. All such expansions go hand in hand with adequate R&D progress, thereby aiming high for world class technology, claims the company. For instance, the newly added petroleum tanker production line is state-of-the-art and automated, it adds.
“For JCBL, it’s a vision from day one. First things first, we always like to take up those businesses in which we can show some value differentiation. We want to be different and passion-driven, rather than being regular and mundane”, says Mr. Rishi Aggarwal, Managing Director, JCBL. That’s perhaps why we consciously choose the turf where we would like to play, he adds, may it be armoured passenger cars business or built-up recreational vehicles (RV) segment in which the company is the market leader.
Finding his company at a crucial cusp right now, Mr. Rishi is quite bullish about the future of JCBL in the years to come from now on. And his reasoning is pretty convincing. Firstly, the company has established new avenues of business in the last two years or so, including armoured passenger cars and diversifying load carrier manufacturing in the Northern region. “We have planted new seeds in recent years, which are gradually taking off. Our investments on production and R&D have greatly stabilised now, our facilities are getting renovated constantly towards more efficiency”, he claims.
In JCBL’s favour
Secondly, a plethora of industry-specific economic reforms and standardisations have been rolled out in recent times. He cites gradual implementation of bus body code, truck body and trailer codes, and other safety-related mandates are helping in favour of organised players like JCBL. “A level playing field is being created for everyone, and so we can also sustainably follow industry’s growth,” says Mr. Rishi, while also cautioning about lax in their strict enforcement and uniformity across all states.
Thirdly, more specific to cargo haulage solutions, he points out the changing product preferences among fleet owners that has become more pronounced in the last couple of years. “Long-distance haulage has picked up in a big way, thanks to opening up of borders in terms of taxation, improvements in road infrastructure, the advent of e-commerce, and so on. This also means buyers put their priorities right, emphasising more on efficiency and lower ownership costs”, Mr. Rishi observes.
“Customers are no more blindly cost-conscious, they are willing to pay extra for an added value”, he adds, while noting that transporters prefer a well-engineered, light-weight load carrier that may cost a bit extra, even when a cheaper alternative is readily available. And hence, JCBL has upped the ante in the cargo bulker’s portfolio including trailers, containerized bodies, and tankers. Moreover, it has also bagged significant collaboration with various big names in the trucking cargo business and expanded its already exhaustive list of OEMs it caters to.
The Vision Thing
And lastly, with immediate relevance, the MD has high hopes for FY 2019, especially the last two quarters. “With BS-VI norms coming next year, a lot of pre-buying is expected, as buyers would like to avert a steep product price hike post-April 2020”, he opines, while assuring that his company is well prepared to leverage any level demand surge, especially in the bus segment. “Only organised players like JCBL will have the appetite to cater to such huge demand. We have stepped-up for the arising situation, which is also helping us to evolve in the best pace possible”.
On the whole, JCBL claims to be absolutely geared up for the best as always. “FY 2018-19 has been a wonderful year for us, with an expected year-on-year growth rate of about 25 per cent. We are buckled up to take this forward exponentially, as our ultimate vision is to lead the market and remain as largest application vehicle manufacturer in the country, no matter how complex the industry grows and competitive the market becomes”, declares Mr. Rishi Aggarwal.