Ruediger Schroeder, Managing Director, talks about Karcher operations in India in this e-Interview. Excerpts.

Karcher is synonymous with cleaning equipment. What are the products available to users in India?

Karcher from Germany is worldwide the biggest manufacturer for cleaning equipment, the company is now nearly 80 years old, still privately owned and has generated a turnover in 2013 of over 2 Billion Euro. Karcher offers more than 3000 different cleaning products. Karcher India is offering to the Indian market a wide selection of the most suited products for Indian conditions divided into a professional and consumer sector.

What are the different product ranges for industry? How large is the domestic segment in India for the company?

In their professional product range, Karcher offers from dry and wet/dry vacuums, industrial vacs, single disc and polishing machines, carpet extraction machines, steam cleaners, scrubbers, sweepers, cold and hot water high pressure washers, dry-ice cleaning to car and truck cleaning systems. For the domestic market the range consists out of dry and wet/dry vacuums, steam cleaners, electric brooms and sweepers as well as pressure washers. Karcher has started in 2012 to introduce consumer products to the Indian customers and since then has developed a dense sales and service network throughout the country.

Now that the company has a direct presence in the Indian market through a subsidiary, is there any manufacturing facility in India?

Karcher India has already 10 own branch offices in India with a dedicated sales and service team as well as demo units and warehouses for fast moving machines and spare parts. The first products are already manufactured in India.

How strong/effective is the after sales service?

Karcher has spent a lot of money to build about an efficient service organisation backed by a huge spare parts warehouse in Noida. There are already 29 service locations with trained service technicians and fast moving spare parts. In the Head Office in Noida a full-fledged training centre with all facilities is available for service training and in addition 2 service trainers are travelling to all service locations at least twice per year for constant improvements and enhancement of our service staff.

How does the cost of ownership over the life cycle compare with competition?

Karcher has over 600 engineers working worldwide in R&D and holds 1300 patents. Besides the product design Karcher also engineers and builds major components in-house which have an advantage to standard components requiring less energy and giving a better performance. The main focus for new developments is on perfect function at competitive prizes, good ergonomics, low energy consumption, use of recyclable material and low life cycle cost. As 80 per cent of our products are younger than 5 years it show the dynamics of Karcher. Most of our competitors are not in the position to come close to offering of Karcher.

What is the Company's history?

Karcher has been in India for nearly 20 years and sales were done through dealers. In 2011 Karcher Germany founded Karcher Cleaning Systems Pvt Ltd in Noida as a 100% subsidiary.

With well over 200 people in 10 branch offices we are one of the leading suppliers of cleaning equipment in India today. There are at least 20.000 Karcher machines in India in operation.

Any breakthrough product launch that made a difference?

Many of our new products are very innovative, i.e., our new vacuums use up to 50 per cent less energy with the same suction performance and are much quieter, our battery operated scrubbers use the electronics in the machine for more functions to save water and chemicals as well as extending the running times and give the operator and owner information about required service intervals, performance, etc. In Europe, Karcher is testing a GPS based information system to have all relevant data for the machines on a PC in the office.

How is the present business environment?

Despite the economic slowdown in India Karcher India is growing with double-digit figures. We see that customers are willing to spend a little bit more money for better products, availability and better service back-up. Also as we are a 100% subsidiary we guarantee to be in India also in 5 or 10 years whereas buying from a dealer you never know.

What are the future plans?

Karcher will grow faster than the market as we will introduce more products to the Indian market, extend our branch operations and increase our soft services. Also we are introducing for special industries from the Karcher family Woma ultra-high pressure cleaners this year.

(Karcher Cleaning Systems Private Limited, Noida. Mobile: 093100-71081. National Service Helpline: 0120-4904949. Email: hitesh.mathur@karcher.in)