Government should encourage young and small entrepreneurs
?Make in India? will be a good initiative, if the various policies, labour laws, taxes, and inflations of land finances are favourable, says Sameer Shah, Director, Hoffman Equipments (India). Excerpts from the interview...

Could you brief us on your company?s core competencies and strengths?
We are a service-oriented company with sales, services and overhauling of various engines, transmissions, cranes and other heavy equipment. We are pioneers in sourcing hard-to-get parts and provide solutions to various issues pertaining to their machines.

Which are the major verticals focused and what is the potential from these verticals for your range of products?
We are majorly focusing on iron ore mining for dumpers and heavy equipment. Other focus areas are oil and gas and shipping. A lot of players are entering into the earthmoving equipment field, but we are largely focused on the niche segments.

Is there any positive vibes from the industry that drive the rental demand?
Rental industry is going for a good consolidation. Earlier, there used to be few cranes and a lot of jobs, but now there are a lot of cranes, machines and allied materials. In fact the rental segment is going through a tough time for people who are unprofessional and who are doing business without any system. Today, the rental companies in the US and European countries have a whole set up of team of sales, marketing, and accounts. Here, you won?t find these. Even in China, the rental companies are big, with larger number of cranes and equipment in the fleet.

For an efficient rental company what needed is good equipment, good maintenance team, good billing team and take good rent. The clients should pay good rent for the people who are straight and fine. It saves time and the things will be done in time. All the people associated with systems and facility will benefit in future.

What sort of policy initiatives you expect from the Government?
For anybody to enter manufacturing, the policies should be simple, clear and less of administration. If a small player wants to manufacture a pen and if he has to face 30 administrations, he will instead import the pen from China and sell here.

What are the major challenges in supply-chain management and how do you address these issues?
This is directly related to infrastructure. If you have a system to be in place, there has to be discipline and procedures to be followed. If there are systems and infrastructure, the supply-chain will follow on its own.

Do you plan to enter manufacturing?
We would like to be in manufacturing, but it is different from being there in manufacturing. Government has to create a helping environment with finance, policy support, etc.

So I would rather wait and see about the government?s (PM?s) initiatives because talk and action are different, and getting those into paper is again different.