Nagendra BK, Director, Pneumec Kontrolls Pvt Ltd, on the company’s past, present and future in India.

Please tell us more about Pneumec Kontrolls and its journey over the years.

We started in a very small way in the year 2000 in Bengaluru, and now after 17 years, we have had a very good growth. From our Bengaluru office, we have expanded our network to Chennai, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Coimbatore and Pune.

What is the scope for pneumatic products in India?

We have been representing many Japanese products. We have seen many Japanese companies investing in India and producing a lot of automotive products. I took it as an opportunity and started to import Japanese products and have been fairly successful in promoting our products. We are still in our initial growth stages in India. We can grow as there is tremendous scope for development.

What are your views on the composed market segment in India?

Currently, we only handle southern and western parts of India. In the South, we started with Honda, Toyota, Volvo, and now we have Hyundai and Suzuki. Yamaha is in Chennai and Isuzu has come up there as well.

Tell us more about your parent company and its working culture.

Basically, we categorise into automotive, construction and steel industry. In the automotive segment, we represent Japan-based Nitukuki, who are pioneers in manufacturing quick couplings and have very good tower controlled screw drivers. They have plants all over the country. In fact, we had an opportunity to visit them and get to know their working culture. I was very impressed with their culture and the way they handle their production. Each and every employee thinks it’s his own company and I want every Indian to develop that quality.

We have another Japanese company, Wessel, who are into pneumatic screw drivers, screw driver bits and sockets, and anti-static solutions. They also have gasoline impact wrenches used when there is no access to pneumatic or electrical connections. If you are laying a railway line, you will not have any access to pneumatic or electrical connections, instead gasoline impact wrenches can be used. A lot of railway links are coming up in India, so that presents a good opportunity for us.

What are the major application areas of your products?

We are mainly focusing on the automotive industry and infrastructure construction. There are a lot of metros, industrial buildings and stadiums coming up all over the country, so we hope to achieve that.

What are your views on GST?

Now that GST is implemented, I think it will be a revolution for SSIs. We have been facing a lot of taxation hazards for many years, I hope it gets cleared with GST.

Any new product launches in India?

We already have some new products. We have product tie ups with Wothake for screw feeders and from Nakatomi, Japan for smart coolers, used by industries with high temperature areas of operation.

How do you market your products?

Everybody knows the way the Japanese maintain the quality of their product. We do not see it is a competition but rather as an advantage. We do not sell the product, we sell the concept and therefore the solution, which is our strength. We are an engineering company with a team of engineers and experts, we go to the customers and provide solutions. That is how we stand apart from the others. We participate in many exhibitions like Intec and there are a lot of publications with our advertisements. For instance, Industrial Product Finder, we use it to display our products, we have many things similar to that.

What’s next?

We are trying to expand our business. We are currently limited to about four to six cities. We want to expand to all corners of the country and hopefully in another two to three years, we will be able to achieve that goal.

Inputs by SRIPATHY B