He hails from Nandurbar, the lesser known district in Maharashtra. After completing degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Pune in 1995, he has been associated with Yamazaki Mazak as hardcore technical person leading a team of application engineers. He was later promoted to head the Japanese machine manufacturing company’s sales and application departments in India. Since then, Mr. Pradeep Patil has never looked back and today, he is looking after Mazak India operations. Sitting in the confines of Mazak India’s sprawling office and technical centre in Pune, Mr. Patil shares his views and success with Bhalchandra Chorghade, Editor, CNCTimes.com.

Love Challenges
I enjoy facing challenges and I take any difficult situation and problem as a challenge to find a solution. In fact, it is my passion. In Mazak, we offer solution and not only the product. Since most of our customers are very technically sound so it always becomes challenging to sell products to the people who are already aware of the technological advancements.
Having technical knowledge is of utmost importance while selling machines in India as the customers here are very sound as far as technology is concerned and they can corner you in whatever way they can. I think the reason behind Mazak becoming successful in India is because people in our organization know product and its applications thoroughly. I was into applications before being given responsibility of sales in 2005. Since then, the market has evolved like never before. Unlike earlier days, customers today have become flexible towards new ideas and embrace the newer concepts. A decade ago, the selling was conventional but now the users of this technology are moving towards automation which is a welcome change as it has taken the manufacturing industry to a next level.

Price Sensitiveness
Indian market was and is price sensitive. The purchase patterns of many of the customers here are overpowered by price factor than technical benchmarks of the machine. But this trend has changed since last couple of years. Today, they are buying products which are dearer to them as they are realizing that they are purchasing them for their next generation. Even if any machine is expensive and Return on Investment (ROI) is longer, they have understood the morale behind purchasing the particular machine.
“Though at times we find it hard to sell machines, we try to convince the customer by stating that by purchasing Mazak machines, they can get an increased uptime, increased tool life, less operational cost, the rise in overall productivity in terms of cycle time, less setup time apart from some innovative features that add value to the machines & productivity. Reliability, accuracy, consistency and overall productivity are the factors that separate Mazak machines from many of the others. And in case, we lose any customer, we quickly get ourselves in correction mode and evaluate as to where we exactly went wrong. If we fail in understanding customer’s needs correctly, we rectify it and correct ourselves.

Operational Excellence
Merely selling and installing the machine does not serve the purpose. To operate the machine in an appropriate way, the operator needs to be properly informed and educated about the machining operations. In this context, we train the customer for programming, operating and maintenance. Not only this, after installation we ensure that the customer is trained properly for flawless operation. Apart from our headquarters in Pune, we have 15 service points across India through which sales and application of Mazak machines is managed.

Purchase Patterns: Indian Cos. vs MNCs
There is no gap in buying process of MNCs as well as Indian companies. They both follow the best practices and continuous evaluation is done by everybody and most of them have a scientific approach. Normally, the sales cycle in both cases is 3-4 months for a project. The only difference is that the MNCs and corporate clients from India, which are more price sensitive and based on end product requirement don’t go for standard machines and prefer complete solutions. The buyers need to go to the bottom of the technicalities before purchasing capital goods. Not only cycle time, but they should also look into the machine design and other elements used in it.

Unique Selling Proposition
The Mazatrol controller has been paying rich dividends. Mazatrol has conversational programming and interlocks on which any person can be trained. Once he gets used to Mazatrol, I am sure that he will prefer not go for any other controller.

Make in India
It is a good campaign but the results are yet to be seen. We are yet to witness success so far but we are optimistic for results in coming future. There will be mix of new products based on Make in India campaign which will surely take the concept to a different level. Mazak has taken note of that and have come up with good initiatives and take the Indian market to a certain level. I think by end of 2016, we should be hearing good news about spurt in manufacturing sector as our development policy is mainly based on the market needs.

Sectorial Developments
Currently, aerospace segment is booming in India while oil and gas segment is witnessing a slump since a year or so. Automotive sector has revamped a bit, but it is not at the level where it was three years ago. In last 5-6 months, there has been a growth in this sector with heavy commercial vehicles business doing extremely well. We do surveys with valued feedback from our customers, partners and based on the feedback, decide our strategy to come up with new products.
Many years back Mazak started the concept of Cyber Factories and had set up 10 such units across the globe. We have already implemented the concept of iSmart Factory at some of our manufacturing plants where information technology is being utilized to the core.

What’s In Store
Based on segment-wise growth, the company will focus more on Aerospace, Automotive, Power, Medical and other sectors in the years to come. We will try and understand customers’ requirements and come up with innovative solutions. We can win only if we are different in a way with innovative products and solutions as a complete package. As far as Mazak starting manufacturing facility in India, there are no immediate plans and the company will manage its operations under its regional headquarters based in Singapore and the global headquarters in Japan.

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