Being involved in the business of construction equipment for the past 27 years, Navin Group still maintains a track record of excellent customer service and a healthy market share of satisfied customers, says Navin Bhandari, Managing Director, Navin Infrasolutions. Excerpts from the interview....

Could you brief us on your company and the services provided?
Navin Group, comprising Navin Infrasolutions, Bhandari Technotrade and Navin Techsolutions, started its activities with the establishment of Navin Traders in 1986 with dealership of Ingersoll-Rand for western Madhya Pradesh. Navin Group is the oldest active dealership of construction equipment in Madhya Pradesh. Over the years, other distributorships were added and the territory was increased to cover the whole of Madhya Pradesh with offices at Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Satna, Gwalior and Singrauli. Moreover, the group always worked as per the guidelines of its principals and has maintained an excellent financial discipline. As of now, Navin Group is serving more than 1,000 customers.

Being in this business for the past 27 years, Navin Group still maintains a track record of excellent customer service and a healthy market share of satisfied customers. We ensure that the premium products are backed by professional services provided by our well trained engineers and service team. Our service team comprises more than 70 engineers who are given adequate training of TCL level by the respective principal companies at their well equipped training centres by highly trained instruc?tors. We regularly conduct Operator Trainings and Customer Meets as well.

Could you elaborate on the various equipment/brands you deal with?
Navin Infrasolutions Pvt Ltd is the authorised dealer for Volvo CE, Volvo Penta and SDLG. Navin Techsolutions is the authorised dealer for Atlas Copco, Miller and Sandvik Asia (crushing and screening) (refer to the table for details).

What is the demand-supply scenario for the equipment from the market?
Navin Group caters to various segments like quarry, coal, granite, marble, limestone, bauxite, manganese, irrigation and real estate. The demand is picking up from various sectors.

What is the customer approach on sophisticated and advanced features in equipment vis-a-vis cost?
Nowadays, the trend is changing and customers are looking for durability and advanced features in equipment. The concept of cost per tonne has become very relevant along with total cost of ownership.

What are the challenges you face in the current industry scenario?
Payment issue with the contractors is a major challenge as funds are not being received as per credit days. Arranging finance for new machines is also a big challenge.

How was your sales performance last year? What is the trend in 2015?
Our performance was good last year and we bagged the ?Best Dealership? award from Volvo CE. We also achieved the highest sales in Atlas Copco products. Our customer Dilip Buildcon became the biggest customer for EC 210 in India. This year, the first three months have been good.

How do you look at the demand wfrom various infrastructure sectors and mining?
This year should be better than 2014 as a lot of new works are being tendered in roads and coal mining sectors. The government has also allocated plenty of funds for road projects.

What are the financing options you provide for your customers?
Volvo is starting with its own financial services in the name of Volvo Financial Services. We also help customers with financing from nationalised banks or NBFCs and private banks like Srei Equipment Finance, Sundaram Finance, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Induslnd Bank, Axis Bank, etc.

How do you assess the future potential/opportunities?
There is a lot of scope in infrastructure projects. Smart cities, fast railway corridors, cleaning Ganga project and other big projects will offer a great opportunity for infrastructure companies.

What are your future plans?
We aim to be one-stop-shop for all equipment needed in construction and mining industry.

We aim to be one-stop-shop for all equipment needed in construction and mining industry.

Major Customers

• Dilip Buildcon
• RM Enterprises
• P.D. Agarwal Infrastructure
• Path India
• Agro Infrastructure Developers
• Aneesh Ahmad Khan
• B R Goyal Infrastructure
• Prathavi Infrastructure

Equipment range available from Navin Group
Volvo CE	Range
Crawler Excavators	14 to 70 tonne
Soil & Asphalt Compactor	10 tonne and 11 tonne
Wheel Loaders	5 tonne to 35 tonne
Grader	15.8 tonne
Pavers	5.5 m to 13.5 m
SDLG	Range
Wheel Loader LG936	3 tonne to 7 tonne
Grader	15.8 tonne
Atlas Copco	Range
Surface Drilling Equipment (Pnuematic & Hydraulic)	Hole range 23 mm to 203 mm in DTH and TH
Portable Compressors	140 CFM-100 PSI to 600 CFM-200 PSI
Hydraulic Rock Breakers	4.5 tonne to 100 tonne
Sandvik	Range
Cone Crushers	80 to 1160 TPH
Jaw Crushers	25 to 1050 TPH
Feeders	Grizzly feeders, Pan feeders, Reciprocating plate feeders, HF-series standard belt feeders
Cone Crushers	Grizzly screens, Circular motion screens, Linear motion screens, Free-fall screens, Roller screens