The Crushing/Screening industries in India are facing a recessionary trend due to taxation and pandemic in the country. Has it affected your company?
It would not be appropriate to blame only taxation for this trend but yes, the pandemic has definitely led to a recession like situation for the Crushing & Screening Industry. Last year we made huge losses due to Covid lockdown and we expected that 2021 would be a better year. However, the second wave struck us even harder as compared to last year. Our business in India as well as International markets are hugely affected due to the ongoing pandemic.
How do you deal with the challenges?
We always try to look at any challenge as an opportunity as it brings the best out of you and makes you think out of the box. Covid for the past one year has opened a pandora box full of challenges which are unique in nature and always require a different approach. We had to make a lot of changes in our existing processes to adapt to the new working conditions and our teams came up with innovative methods which led us to overcome the challenges.
Last year our biggest challenge was to keep the factory operational as we had many obstacles right from labor to logistics to raw material availability and so on. But we overcame all those challenges and made sure that our operations were not hampered, and we provided a safe working environment for all our workforce.
The second wave, however, has brought a new set of challenges. A large part of our production process involves the use of Industrial oxygen and due to the ongoing shortage of oxygen in hospitals for Covid treatment, we decided to divert our supplies for the same. Our team is now looking at other alternative methods to continue our operations without using any oxygen. We are confident that we will figure out a way forward.
Have you been active on net media? What kind of activities does your company do for digital marketing?
Yes, we are very much active on social media and we market our products digitally by showcasing them on our company website and company LinkedIn page. Also, we run several online product campaigns and participate in virtual exhibitions to reach out to a larger customer base.
How has the Coronavirus affected your company's performance in the past one year?
Business has been hugely affected due to the ongoing pandemic. Last year our order intake went down by nearly 30% in both India and International markets. The increase in steel prices further added to our problems as we had to renegotiate all our rate contracts and convince the customers to justify the price hike.
The government should come up with a regulatory body to monitor the steel prices as it has become very difficult for businesses to continue with these steep price hikes during these uncertain times.
What strategy has your company adopted to reach out to your customers?
We conduct seminars and webinars with all our customers regularly to make sure that the customers do not feel disconnected with us. We also continue to provide online trainings & service workshops for their workforce to ensure seamless operations at their sites.
