CETCO Eyes Biz Opportunities in India's Infra Development

Sensing a big business opportunity in the growing infrastructure development in India, CETCO, a subsidiary of Amcol International is gearing itself up to avail the same, said Mr. Bob Trauger, Vice President CETCO in an exclusive interaction with S.K Khanna on his recent visit to India. Mr. Trauger has been with the company for more than 20 years, handling various responsibilities from technical, operations and sales to his current position of Vice President handling global markets for the company.

CETCO's important business areas are Lining Technologies, offering a full  range of  engineered environ- mental liner systems including Bentomat geosynthetic clay liners (GCL). Its building material group features a wide variety of active and passive waterproofing membrane technologies for application in protecting the building envelop above and below grade. Its roofing products include recycled rubber underlayments, fluid applied roofing membranes as well as complete green roof systems addressing sustainability requirements.

CETCO made its presence in India through a joint venture Ashapura Volclay Ltd with manufacturing facility at Bhuj, Gujarat. In 2011, its presence in India was upgraded with its own entity, CETCO India, based in Mumbai, with Mr. Bart Rowland, Country Manager and Mr. Suresh Kalra who recently took charge as its Managing Director.

Giving an overview of developments leading to the formation of this new entity in India, Mr. Trauger said that existing scope of operations of the joint venture has been enlarged for CETCO India to manufacture and market CETCO, products range. Having tested waters in Indian market, the new entity has plans to raise the  production capacity of this joint venture including plans to set up further manufacturing facilities pumping in further investment depending upon market demand. Speaking about this new development, Mr. Kalra, said that joint venture partnership with Ashapura has been operating successfully since 2006 it was set up. The new arrangement following widening the scope of the joint venture would definitely augur well for the future growth of CETCO India. Mr.Kalra believes, it is the best time to create value in this segment not only for CETCO but also for our customers, suppliers and industry partners.

Talking about the market size in India for CETCO's products range, Mr. Trauger said that internally the size of the market has been assessed and it is expected to grow rapidly in the near future on the back of ongoing infrastructure development in the country and we hope to cater to this demand, garnering a good share of market in the next two–three years. Plans are in place to enlarge our distribu- tion channel, enlisting qualified applicators, their training and related after market initiatives to enable us to achieve our market targets.

On how different is the Indian market scenario for the overseas marketing experts like Mr. Trauger, he said the scenario is marked with lot of commonalities as well as differentiations. Differentiation in terms of quality and price. But we are aiming to focus on quality attribu- tes of our products as well as on economies of scale to maintain our competitive edge to ensure affordability of our products range.

Commenting on the present lackadaisical and lukewarm approach to waterproofing problems and their technical solutions, he said the issues need to be addressed holistically in terms of quality waterproofing products, expertise  in the application of these products and a change in the mind so that the problems are not postponed for long.

Adding to the views of Mr. Trauger, Mr. Bart Rowland, said that somewhat skewed approach to the waterproofing problems being witnessed today is universal which make building and structure in distressed state much before their life cycle all over the world. There is a need to create an enabling environment for promoting healthy technical solutions available today to take care of waterproofing problems confronting the construction industry. Creating such an enabling environment, would be the prime focus for Cetco India. With over 60 years of waterproofing experience, we are known for quality, performance and reliability offering a wide variety of active and passive waterproofing solutions, he added.


Summing up the discussion, Mr. Trauger in his forward looking statement said, ''We are here in India to improve the quality of life through our diverse products offering and integrated products approach."