CVF Off-Highway
Putting CE and allied segments under the spotlight
The premium conference held in New Delhi brought together 250+ senior-level executives as attendees, 40+ industry experts as speakers and 35+ partners
CVF Off-Highway, India’s premium conference, brought together senior professionals from construction, mining, earthmoving, tractor and agriculture equipment industries. Its second edition took place on March 10, 2022 in person at the Eros Hotel in Nehru Place, New Delhi. The event welcomed 250+ senior-level executives as attendees, 40+ industry experts as speakers and 35+ partners. CVF Off-Highway has always been appreciated for its premium content and excellent on ground execution which industry colleagues have been missing owing to the pandemic.
Harshvardhan Sharma, Head (Auto Retail Practice), Nomura, opened proceedings with an inaugural presentation on the Indian off- highway industry overview. He talked about the macroeconomic overview and global GDP growth and said, “The pandemic saw more than twice the impact we probably saw in 2008-2009 and we believe that with the ongoing geopolitical situation, inflation and policy tightening it will impact most of the economies. However, the good news for India is that it is leading the pack and we are likely to continue a 7.8% forecast amongst our peers.”
He added that Indian Off-Highway segment can address the “three major shifts in the space namely, operator shortage, rapid urbanization and faster internet adoption.” Connected vehicles, will boost transparency, improve productivity and reduce overall cost. With start-ups entering the segment, vehicle
Harshvardhan Sharma, Head (Auto Retail Practice), Nomura, making his inaugural presentation
rentals will further drive the market.
Construction and Mining Equipment
The conference’s first panel of experts debated on how the construction and mining equipment segment faced similar challenges during the pandemic as most industries and how it bounced back much faster on the back of infrastructure spending and robust rural demand despite the second wave of the pandemic. The moderator for the session, Ashish Modani, Co-Group Head and Vice President, ICRA Limited, set the tone of the session and discussed how things are for the industry at present, the outlook for the next year and the key trends. Jaideep Shekhar, Managing Director (Asia and EMEAR), TEREX (Material Processing India), said, “In the last financial year the industry has seen a 3% growth.”
“However, Q3 was surprisingly below everyone’s expectations and there was de-growth in the industry by roughly 23%,” he added. He felt that supply chain issues are an important factor behind that and yet the concrete machinery segment and materials processing segment did pretty well. “Mining and aggregate demand is on high. Challenge is on logistics and whether we can provide the equipment on the right affordable price,” he observed.
Panel Discussion on ‘Construction and Mining Segment’
As veteran industry expert Anil Bhatia put it, “If you look at the overall scenario you will have short-term hiccups because the geopolitical situation is very volatile and as finance rates go up, new equipment sales will go up and go down.” Sanjay Bajaj, Vice President and Head of Product Management, Wirtgen India, said, “In India what we have seen in the last 1-2 years is that more than 40-50% are first-time buyers. There are new players entering the field and you just can’t rely on the existing players as they are also going into the subcontracting mode. We need to penetrate more into new markets and have tailor-made kind of products that are affordable.”
Sharwan Agnihotri, Head Corporate Sales & Exports, Hyun- dai Construction Equipment, said: “Demand in long term and short term is here. India is infra deficit place and we need to reach a size of 24 billion segment. Question will be on supply side as ocean, freight, forex price rise.”
Tractor and Farm Equipment
The next panel discussion of the day shed light on the segment of tractor and farm equipment. The moderator for the session, Rahul Bhargava, Director (Management Consulting Automotive Sector), PwC India, covered how the future of the tractor and farm equipment is going to look like. Jujhar Singh Virk, President and Group Head (Strategy and Growth Avenues) at International Tractors Limited, talked about farming practices in the past and how they will shape up in the future. He further stated, “Last year the tractor industry crossed the turnover of commercial vehicles in terms of numbers and this is a continuously growing trend. Last year in India over 9 lakh farmers bought tractors from manufacturers.”
Panel Discussion on ‘Tractor & Farm Equipment’
Foreign countries such as Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States have begun to embrace Indian-made tractors, he noted. G S Grewal, Jujhar Singh Virk, and Pradeep Rajan all mentioned that the farm machinery business in India has a lot of promise. It was also revealed that tractors contribute over 90% of the farm equipment industry’s worth of Rs 38,995 crore, that tractor sales would overtake commercial vehicle sales for the first time in 2020, and that underlying shifts in the demand for drivers will influence how future tractors will evolve. Affordability will be the key when it comes to the further growth of tractor segment.
Digitization, Connectivity and Automation
The next panel discussion focused on the theme of ‘Digitisation, Connectivity and Automation’. The moderator, Ashim Sharma, Partner and Group Head (Business Performance Improvement), NRI Consulting and Solutions, said, “When we talk about the segment of connectivity, digitalisation and automation in the off-highway segment, a lot of thoughts come to our mind. There are many case studies starting from not thinking about these machines just as products and products plus services loaded on to become solutions both on the farms as well as construction sites.”
Mohit Mehrotra, Managing Director, Omnicomm India, said: “Fuel Management is the real cost for all the opera- tors. Worldwide unmonitored fuel aspect leads to 25-30 % wastage. As fuel prices keep increasing; we will have to get the engagement going for optimum utilisation of fuel and reduce pilferage.”
Electrification and Hydrogen Panelists after an engaging discussion on ‘Electrifification & Hydrogen’
The third panel discussion of the day shed light upon a very interesting hot topic of
Experts posing for a click after the Panel Discussion on ‘Off-Highway Vehicle Financing and Rental’
current times, namely, ‘Electrification and Hydrogen: Has its Time Come?’ The participants discussed new business models, the way customer expectations are changing and how OEMs are developing technologies. “All that
is changing the way we see agricultural and construction equipment,” the panellists said. The panellists also threw light on battery manufacturers, software capabilities of
S.K Jaruhar, Consultant, Kobelco Construction Equipment India Private Limited, added, “I got a first look at the telematics system way back in 2010 when I was associated with Volvo Construction Equipment, which was very innovative and unexpected.”
Ashish Jangale, Head (Precision Farming Solutions), Mahindra Tractor, spoke candidly on how digitization and connectivity open up a whole lot of new use cases in agriculture such as land preparation, crop care and harvest, which are the three major stages in a crop growth cycle. “In today’s scenario, iron equipment can now be connected to IOT devices and sensors. These sensors can measure properties of soil on the go. Sensors can measure property of soil and the data can be used to dispense fertilizer appropriately. In harvesting based on satellite imagery can tell the right to harvest to farmers,” he pointed out.
An attendee raised a query about haulage vehicles and the abuse and safety factors to which the panel contributed in sharing information. This session summed up how the emergence of new and advanced technologies are empowering owners, operators and dealers to access real-time updates on machines and insights into work sites on the go.
India, electric combustion and electric mobility, to name a few. The session was summed up by talking about the role of electrification and other alternative fuels in the off-highway equipment industry.
Off-Highway Vehicle Rental
The last panel discussion of the day was on the theme of ‘Off-Highway Vehicle Rental: Pay per Use and Financing in the Post-Pandemic Era’. This panel discussed about how companies have been equipment buyers rather than renting equipment which makes a lot more sense economically. A few trends from the automotive industry set by Ola and Uber have trickled down to construction or off-road equipment. India has been adopting many of these trends like emissions, technology transfer or business models from the automo- tive into the off-road segment but on the other hand, there is a challenge on the cost front that keeps increasing. Drone Tewatia, Lead (Marketing and Business Development and KAM), PV Clean Mobility Technologies, Deepak Gupta, Vice President (Business Development), Bharat Forge and Hrishikesh Kulkarni, CEO, Nandan Petrochem Limited were also present and gave some insightful presentations.
Credit: MOTORINDIA