79
People advantage
India’s large base of skilled manpower, with skill sets ranging from design and engineering to manufacturing, is a key advantage that the company plans to leverage.The plan is to develop India as a base for new applications and products, which are suited to Indian and Asian markets.
Seeking to build upon the strong technical background of Indian employees, Kluber plans to use them internationally.
Global strengths and customised delivery have enabled success
Klüber’s success in the Indian market can be attributed to several factors.While leveraging the global parent’s strengths in terms of product range and know-how, the company has adopted a
collaborative, customer specific approach to deliver these to its Indian customer base.
Wide product range to meet diverse customer needs in India
One of the key success factors for Klüber has been its wide range of special lubricants and know-how backed by more than seventy years of experience in research and development. Its product range includes oils, greases, waxes, emulsions, pastes, and coatings. India’s large market with diverse needs has given the company an opportunity to introduce most of these products in the Indian market, which it has done with great success.
Klüber Lubrication, headquartered at Munich, is one of the world’s leading speciality lubricant suppliers.The company was started in 1929 and currently has 15 manufacturing facilities and over 50 sales groups throughout the world. In India, the company was founded in Mumbai in 1998.
Global sales of Klüber Group in 2004 were US$ 359.6 million out of which 79 percent was from international sales, based on customer origin.
The company employs about 580 people in Germany and around 1500 worldwide.
India is an attractive growth market for Klüber
Market size and growth
Klüber products find application in a wide variety of machinery. India’s well established manufacturing base and expected annual growth of over 12 per cent in the manufacturing sector over the next ten years, make it a very attractive market for the company.This was the key consideration for Klüber Lubrications to invest in India, and the performance in recent years has vindicated this. From revenues of US$ 2.11 million in 2003 the company expects to achieve US$ 5.65 million in 2006, a CAGR of 71 per cent.The company now considers the Indian operations critical to its global strategy.
In fact, the key challenge for the company today is scaling up in terms of capacity and human capital to address the growth opportunity the market has to offer.
KLÜBER
LUBRICATION
80
Customised approach
Klüber follows an intensive knowledge based approach in India where the entire offering is specifically customised to cater to the specific customer requirement.This collaborative approach that seeks to leverage the company’s expertise to meet client specific needs has been a critical differentiator for the company in the Indian scenario, where the market is extremely price sensitive and customers can switch easily.
Services
Klüber provides comprehensive services that are tailored to the needs of customers, to supplement its range of lubricants.These services range from application consulting by engineers and field staff to complete plant lubrication charts. It also offers a comprehensive range of training seminars designed to keep the customers up to date on lubricating matters.
Support from parent company
Klüber Lubrications’ Indian operations have been well supported by the parent company, in areas such as product development, technical and sales training.The company has a global intranet, which acts as an effective knowledge-sharing forum and enables the Indian company to keep abreast of the latest developments globally.
Future plans
Klüber views India as a very important market with a great growth potential and the company has aggressive growth plans, to grow by at least 40 per cent year on year for the next few years.
Considering the growing domestic demand and the need for customised products and applications, the company is aiming to increase the share of localised production.The plan is to manufacture more products from India in the future.The company is also looking at opportunities in outsourcing R&D and IT services to India.
Klüber Lubrications: At a glance
• Global turnover of over US$ 359.6 million in 2004.
Over 1500 employees worldwide.
• For Kluber, India is: A strategically important, key growth market
• Factors for success:Wide product range, customised approach, support from parent company
• Future plans: Aggressive sales growth, Increase localisation of production, outsource R&D and IT services from parent company.
