ECEL - Enhancing Market Leadership Through Innovation
World-wide high performance self- erecting, telescopic and crawler as well as truck-mounted cranes are increasingly manufactured and used, how ECEL, one of the pioneers in the manufacture of cranes in the country, is bracing itself up to induct latest developments in its Crane product range?
Hydraulic Mobile Cranes that it manufactures, namely Pick-n-Carry type as well as 360 degree Slew Cranes. While in Pick-n-Carry Crane range, models with higher capacities / higher reaches and innovative features, which enhance utility of Cranes, are being launched every year, the innovation on Pick-n-Carry range will continue. Also in Slew Crane Range, the capacity band has been expanded from 4 models in 18T-40T range to 10 models in 10T-40T range over the last three years. While the range in this category will continue to expand, plans are also afoot to introduce cranes in crawler, all-terrain and truck cranes. We are also actively considering manufacturing of other type of cranes/lifting equipment. The objective is to provide a comprehensive solution with “an end to end range” for maintaining the dominance in the market.
Along with the manufacture of Cranes, ECEL also manufactures many other useful construction equipment, what are those?
We also manufacture Vibratory Comapactors for Soil and Asphalt application and Front End Loaders. We also carry out trading activity of Forklift Trucks and Articulated Boom Cranes.
In technical collaboration with HAMM, Germany, ECEL launched Model 2420 Soil Compactors last year. What has been the market response to the new compaction equipment product line?
The response to 2420 has been very encouraging. In a short span of time, with its excellent performance on productivity and lesser maintenance requirement, it has achieved a premium product position in 12T segment.
What is the market share of ECEL product range including exports and company presence in the neighboring and other countries through its products?
ECEL continues to be the world’s largest manufacturer of Pick-n-Carry Cranes. On account of a robust domestic demand for our equipment, the domestic sales accounts for over 90% of our total sales. However, in the last two years, our presence in the export market has expanded geographically and we added new markets in African and Asian Continents. We have a very effective dealership network in many countries of Asian, African and Latin American continents.
Competition in the construction equipment sector is hotting up with players going in for expansion. What are ECEL’s expansion plans and new marketing strategies to take on the emerging competition and consolidate its position as one of the front runners in construction equipment sector?
While the plans on Cranes highlighted above, we also have firm plans of entering into the construction and material handling equipment other than our existing range. Over the years, we have followed a very simple marketing strategy of being a customer focused company in a real sense with an organization that is structured around the customers needs and locations. This has resulted retaining the loyalty of our huge customer base. We have also used innovation in product offering as a tool to retain and enhance our market leadership. This will continue.
What are various technical after sales services of ECEL for better customer focus?
We have started offering customized and innovative after sales service packages such as comprehensive maintenance and operation contracts and annual maintenance contracts. Also in order to bring a seamless man-machine integration, we put emphasis on training in operation and maintenance for our customers at our Faridabad Training Centre. We also conduct training at customers’ locations and sites. Special Training programs have also been formulated on application engineering to enable the customers to extract the optimum output from the equipment.
How ECEL looks at the current Budget as related to construction equipment sector and ECEL Wish List to put the sector on fast track?
The current budget continues to give the impetus to infrastructure building in both urban and rural areas which will be beneficial to construction equipment industry. The special packages for underdeveloped areas such as North East states and notification of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) across the country will spur the construction activity. However, a lot needs to be done on modernization of ports.
NBMCW May 2006
