Indian market is very interesting and important for GROB: Alexander Attenberger

By Niraj M Wanikar, Chief Editor, CNCTimes.com, 2017-01-31 20:58:00

For the GROB GROUP, customers and their products - the workpieces, are of utmost importance. GROB is always in close contact with its customers to understand all their strategic issues which allows it to optimize the support and implementation of the production systems. Through decades of experience, high machine quality, reliability in the design and on time delivery have been able to guarantee GROB customers optimal technical support in all areas of the production system business and universal machines. As a family-run company, GROB has proved its competence in advanced technology all over the world for generations.

Speaking to CNCTimes.com, Mr. Alexander Attenberger, Vice-President, Standalone Machines International, shares his thoughts about the company’s position and its future in India.

The Excerpts:

What GROB-WERKE is all about?

GROB is a Germany-based machine tool company mostly focus on automotive industry. Since last eight years, we started with our universal machining centres focusing on automotive sub-suppliers, aerospace and die and mould. So most of it is five-axis machining.

What is your product lines and their applications?

Our product line comprises of 5-axis machining centre, mill turn machining centre, standalone or universal machining centre. For automotive industry, we are delivering complete turnkey solution on our key module as well as on special purpose machines. We are talking about are turnkey including fixture tooling automation machines and accessory equipment.

When did you start your Indian operations?

We started our Indian operation almost 10 years back. Before we were operated by agencies, but right now we have our sales and service subsidiary located in Hyderabad that consists of 13 employees that include sales and service engineers.

What was the basic purpose behind coming to India?

In general, before we walked into the agency, but the market here is getting more and more important for us. So the management decided to start our own subsidiary so that it can be in our own hands and control.

How is the market right now?

Indian market is getting bigger year by year and it is very interesting and important market for us. It is because of the automotive industry and I mean it is strongly growing market, so it is very important for us. But still there is some way to go for the market as to match the focus on 5-axis machines. What we feel right now, especially during this IMTEX, is more and more customers have started thinking about five-axis machining while in the past they only used 3 and 4-axis machining.

What are your sales and marketing strategies in India?

In general, we want to focus on certain industries and certain areas where we see the real advantages for the customer with our product. If you spread out, it is difficult to provide service to all the machines. It is very important to us that we ensure a very good service and application support for the customer

How is the customer behavior pattern in India as compared to other countries?

Customers in India are very focused on the investment price. So they are opting to go for 3-axis and 4-axis machines. With the parts getting more complicated, they need to focus on  to 5-axis machines and if you go for 5-axis not just the investment cost you need to look for cost per part. The thinking is still starting and the Indian market is very price sensitive right. At the end of the day it is better to invest a bit more in the machine tool so as to get better output. Indian market has already started the journey and is in the right direction.

What is your purpose behind participating in IMTEX 2017?

For our group, it is for the first time that we are participating in IMTEX. With our experience, I can say it right now that we are really happy that we took the decision this way. We are really getting a good response and lot of new enquiries are coming up. It is not only about the numbers, but actual enquiries.

Have you launched any product in IMTEX 2017?

We are bringing in T350 generation 5-axis machine to India at IMTEX.

What is company’s vision for India?

The next for the group is to start our own tech centre. Currently, we have the sales and service office but we are looking for some land and space in India where we can build our own tech center in order to provide even more support to the Indian market and customer with local solution. Indian market is becoming more and more interesting because it is getting more high-tech. We already have a customer and machine base here and we are very happy to see the knowledge of operators and engineers here. This sometimes makes the operation easier here than any other market in Asian countries. That’s really good for us and we are really looking forward to increasing our market here. There are almost 300 machines installed in the Indian market and we want to sell more.

• Follow @CNCTimes