This was Motul’s second show at IMTEX. The company’s participation this year was to mainly meet prospective and existing customers and dealers.
Kumar feels that with manufacturing gathering momentum in the country, customers want solutions that are long-lasting and allow them to increase their product and machine efficiency, so that they can become competitive in their own way.
Customers are also seeking out suppliers who can offer variety of products, which means dealing with lesser number of suppliers and vendors. Importantly, the products that they buy must be cost- and technology-competitive and offer superior performance.
The automotive components sector and regulatory framework are two main growth drivers of the metal-working fluids industry. “We have facilities in India, US, France, Italy and Vietnam. We make formulations for the Indian market and a lot of them are made specifically for the Indian customer. This is typically because we cannot source exactly the same raw material used in other countries. Also the climate in India is quite different from that of Europe and the products made here have to be more robust,” adds Kumar.
The company knows that quality comes at a price. It has maintained its philosophy to offer a high quality product at a competitive price. Ask him about the technical feedback from customers and the ways it is incorporated into the products, he says, that the company has unique applications for different types of customers. One needs to tweak products for different customers within the same industry and it is a matter of exceeding their expectations. ALSL has an Indian R&D as the products available in Europe are water soluble range and it is difficult to offer the same here.