Our highest priority is quality for....
What makes NKE different is our service, soft factssuch as customer proximity, flexibi?lity, technical competence and inno?vativeness, says Jasvinder Singh Bhatia, Sales Director ? India/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka, NKE Austria.Excerpts from the interview.
Tell us about NKE and its core competencies.
NKE is a medium-sized bearing ma?nu??facturer based in Austria, Europe.Despite being a relatively new brand on the Indian market, NKE has gained acceptance by some major companies in sectors like wind energy, electrical and mechanical drive technologies as well as pumps.
NKE manufactures a broad range of standard bearings to cover most industrial applications.We focus on optimising the existing products to become the best in class.Other than standard bearings, we also develop special (bespoke) bearings for specific customer applications.Currently, we have about 240 distributors worldwide. It is our goal to expand the distribution network in the coming years, also in India.
What is the market size for bearings for construction and off-highway equipment?
Since we are new in India, our market share is still insignificant.We are starting with the Indian production sites and subsidiaries of our European customers.Of course, we see a lot of potential of domestic Indian enterprises which are getting more and more international.
What is the aftermarket potential and how strong is NKE there?
The potential of aftermarket is high.When the original equipment with NKE bearings is exported from Europe to overseas markets, there is a natural need for aftermarket parts.We are setting up and expanding our distributor network in India to fulfill the demand in this business area.
What is the core strength and competencies of NKE?
NKE is not a huge enterprise, and therefore can offer more flexibility especially in terms of special solutions. We work closely together with our customers who treasure our technical competence, product and service quality. NKE provides tailored products and solutions.In addition to product development and application engineering, NKE provides a full range of technical services, consulting, documentation and training.
How has NKE performed in 2012?
Since our major market is in Europe, 2012 has been a tough year for us. We managed to keep approximately the same level of overall sales, in construction and off-highway equipment a slight plus. The global economy will not be brilliant in 2013; still, as a relatively small player, we can take advantage of our agility. We expect to achieve a slight growth.
What is NKE's strategy in the current scenario?
We have five different strategic industrial sectors as target markets. In this way, we could minimise the risks of the business cycles of one single sector. NKE has been continuously optimising our operations to reduce costs, especially in procurement and manufacturing processes. However, our highest priority is still quality, for both products and services.
What value-adds do you provide?
NKE will further establish our position as a flexible and agile solution provider. Customer proximity and technical competence are our major value-adding propositions.
NKE has been continuously optimising operations to reduce costs, especially in procurement and manufacturing.
How do you look at the weak interface between an OEM, a component manufacturer like NKE and the end user?
Though some OEMs regard bearings as a commodity, many of NKE's cus?tomers work with us from their product development stage.We provide techni?cal calculations, bearing arrangement consultancy, and very often, develop special solutions such as bespoke bearings or read-to-mount units, which turn out to be more cost-effective in the long run.
How do you differ from the competition?
NKE bearings are of premium quality and well accepted in Europe.What makes NKE different is our service ? soft facts such as customer proximity, flexibility, technical competence and innovativeness. If we might use an analogy ? NKE knows its customers very well and has the right products and services for each customer, rather than an impersonal hypermarket.
How do you look at the growth potential in the next three years?
The coming years will certainly be challenging both in Europe, our home market, and Asia.However, we are optimistic that NKE will be able to achieve stable results in Europe and see some growth in emerging markets such as India.
Tell us about NKE and its core competencies.
NKE is a medium-sized bearing ma?nu??facturer based in Austria, Europe.Despite being a relatively new brand on the Indian market, NKE has gained acceptance by some major companies in sectors like wind energy, electrical and mechanical drive technologies as well as pumps.
NKE manufactures a broad range of standard bearings to cover most industrial applications.We focus on optimising the existing products to become the best in class.Other than standard bearings, we also develop special (bespoke) bearings for specific customer applications.Currently, we have about 240 distributors worldwide. It is our goal to expand the distribution network in the coming years, also in India.
What is the market size for bearings for construction and off-highway equipment?
Since we are new in India, our market share is still insignificant.We are starting with the Indian production sites and subsidiaries of our European customers.Of course, we see a lot of potential of domestic Indian enterprises which are getting more and more international.
What is the aftermarket potential and how strong is NKE there?
The potential of aftermarket is high.When the original equipment with NKE bearings is exported from Europe to overseas markets, there is a natural need for aftermarket parts.We are setting up and expanding our distributor network in India to fulfill the demand in this business area.
What is the core strength and competencies of NKE?
NKE is not a huge enterprise, and therefore can offer more flexibility especially in terms of special solutions. We work closely together with our customers who treasure our technical competence, product and service quality. NKE provides tailored products and solutions.In addition to product development and application engineering, NKE provides a full range of technical services, consulting, documentation and training.
How has NKE performed in 2012?
Since our major market is in Europe, 2012 has been a tough year for us. We managed to keep approximately the same level of overall sales, in construction and off-highway equipment a slight plus. The global economy will not be brilliant in 2013; still, as a relatively small player, we can take advantage of our agility. We expect to achieve a slight growth.
What is NKE's strategy in the current scenario?
We have five different strategic industrial sectors as target markets. In this way, we could minimise the risks of the business cycles of one single sector. NKE has been continuously optimising our operations to reduce costs, especially in procurement and manufacturing processes. However, our highest priority is still quality, for both products and services.
What value-adds do you provide?
NKE will further establish our position as a flexible and agile solution provider. Customer proximity and technical competence are our major value-adding propositions.
NKE has been continuously optimising operations to reduce costs, especially in procurement and manufacturing.
How do you look at the weak interface between an OEM, a component manufacturer like NKE and the end user?
Though some OEMs regard bearings as a commodity, many of NKE's cus?tomers work with us from their product development stage.We provide techni?cal calculations, bearing arrangement consultancy, and very often, develop special solutions such as bespoke bearings or read-to-mount units, which turn out to be more cost-effective in the long run.
How do you differ from the competition?
NKE bearings are of premium quality and well accepted in Europe.What makes NKE different is our service ? soft facts such as customer proximity, flexibility, technical competence and innovativeness. If we might use an analogy ? NKE knows its customers very well and has the right products and services for each customer, rather than an impersonal hypermarket.
How do you look at the growth potential in the next three years?
The coming years will certainly be challenging both in Europe, our home market, and Asia.However, we are optimistic that NKE will be able to achieve stable results in Europe and see some growth in emerging markets such as India.
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