Shell Lubricants launches value-added solutions for Indian industry

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Shell Lubricants launches value-added solutions for Indian industry

Shell Lubricants launches value-added solutions for Indian industry

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Sep 18,19

The company is looking at providing a consolidated portfolio of products and services to rapidly evolving Indian marketplace, says Manish Pant.

Shell Lubricants launches value-added solutions for Indian industry

The company is looking at providing a consolidated portfolio of products and services to rapidly evolving Indian marketplace, says Manish Pant.

If necessity is the eternal mother of invention then its child disruption is always the rationale behind any evolution. Take Shell Lubricants, for instance. The subsidiary of one of the leading energy companies globally has launched a consolidated portfolio of its next-generation solutions for B2B sectors in India.

According to the company, the portfolio provides customers in sectors such as mining, construction, infrastructure and manufacturing with a slew of technologically advanced solutions to optimise performance across value chains. This means that Shell Lubricants will be providing products as well as services like predictive maintenance and optimisation of cost-efficacy to help OEMs to maximise savings.Speaking to IPF in New Delhi, Praveen Nagpal, Chief Technology Officer, Shell Lubricants India asserted, “Today we don’t see ourselves as merely a products provider but also a solutions provider that is helping customers reduce their overall operational costs.”

The newly launched portfolio consolidates Shell’s lineup of solutions, including LubeAnalyst, LubeAdvisor, LubeChat, LubeCoach, MachineMax, LubeMaster, LubeMatch, Lube Management Programme and LubeExpert. By offering these services under a single portfolio, the company claims to enable customers to unlock efficiencies and enhance agility by augmenting their competitive advantages.

The company proposes to achieve that through a three-pronged approach consisting of monitoring and productivity, maintenance support and real-time, automation-enabled digital services. Although the company has presently reached out to only leading industry players, it would gradually also start targeting medium and small enterprises.

Gareth Flood, Chief Marketing Officer, Shell India Market Pvt Ltd, said, “At the moment, the level of awareness about lubricants isn’t very high in the Indian market. The interesting thing is that if you are running a big operation in a B2B business, the actual cost of physical lubricants might be 2-3 per cent of your total operational cost. But if you put in a wrong or cheap lubricant that could result in a shutdown or downtime and that becomes a colossal loss.”

Indian market’s uniqueness

Indian market is unique since it is still evolving in terms of lubricant consumption. Unlike in the developed Western economies, most customers in the country don’t like to spend much time in understanding the complexity of the wide array of products available, associated safety risks and their proper storage and handling. Therefore, players like Shell Lubricants are often required to offer the right expertise to guide customers through the right products and maintenance practices.

“The customer is not only interested in understanding the parameters on which our product is better they are also keen to learn on how they can help them in reducing their cost of production,” observed Nagpal.Besides, companies with a global presence or those eyeing overseas expansion also have their requirements.

“In the last ten years, we have seen a shift in the Indian market from the lowest price to value-for-money lubricants. A lot of Indian companies are now looking to export markets in Africa and South America. You have great companies like Mahindra that are expanding into Europe and North America. We can help with that,” opined Flood.