Tapping new segments in Indian HVAC market

With an expected stupendous growth in urbanisation in the next 10 years, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Country General Manager, Dunham Bush India in an interview with Thermal Control Business Update says that the Indian HVAC segment is on the path of growth.

Why did it take so long for Dunham Bush to enter the Indian market?
Dunham Bush is not new to Indian market. In fact, we have been represented in this country since 1994 by our distribution partner. We did try to set up an office in India in 2009, but due to some pressing issues we had to close down our operations in a couple of years. A second attempt was long overdue and we are confident that we will get our game right this time around. We intend to expand our business in a sustainable way by increasing awareness, positioning our brand with highly efficient range of products, creating value for customers through our legacy association, and new partners in making.

Talking about creating new associations and value for customers, could you please elaborate on that? Also, how would these new associations co-exist with the current one?
We strongly believe that new relationships do not necessarily need to come at the expense of existing ones. India is a large market with several opportunities in various geographies and segments. We have a very premium range in light commercial, CRAC and engineered products, which can be addressed by our new partners. We are confident that our strategy for India can help create robust business model for us with both legacy and new associations.

Indian market is already crowded with several multinationals and local manufacturers in the HVAC space. How are you planning to face this challenge?
Indian market is largely underpenetrated in some of the product segments and we are looking at stupendous growth in urbanisation in next 10 years or so, which will drive growth in the HVAC segment. There will be a sizeable retrofit segment as well, which we feel is a growing segment with focus on both energy efficiency as well as product innovation. We don’t see any dearth of opportunities.

What is Dunham Bush India’s plans for the Indian HVAC market?
As I mentioned earlier, we have been present in the country forvery long and survived the test of time with respect to our product and services, but we have mostly run the business in a distributor model without having our own registered company. We are extremely proud and delighted to have created relationship with our distributor partner and maintain it successfully all these years of our existence in the country despite ups and downs.

Even the most matured businesses have opportunity areas, and we have ours, too. We do realise that we have immense potential to improve our market share in this country as a 125-year-old strong global organisation and we are very much focused towards doing that. As a first step, we are incorporating our company as part of our long-term commitment here. The next step would be to change our understated image and then look at both organic and inorganic ways to grow the business.

‘Make in India’ was said to be the dawn of ‘New India’. What do you think has ‘Make in India’ made for India’s HVAC sector?
Make in India is a huge enabler for the local companies and we are supportive of that. However, we believe that offering the right quality of products both in terms of efficiency and durability is equally important from the consumer perspective. As we struggle to cope with global warming and other energy related issues, it is critical that we endorse the best product that fits into an application in terms of the above parameters. We endorse lifecycle cost-based decision-making process and have some of the best products to offer when it comes to that. We also feel that adequate emphasis should be laid on R&D and manufacturing strength given the technology and precision involved in manufacturing high quality durable products.

Talking about efficiencies, how does India’s efficiency codes impact your organisation?
Indian efficiency codes impact us in a very positive way and we would like to appreciate BEE and other related government bodies effort in implementing that. We have generally been offering high efficiency products and have raised our bar every single year by design innovations. In fact, most of our products fit right into the newly launched super ECBC category. Some of our recent large project wins that had very high efficiency aspirations and technically rich specification suggest that we have the ability to go toe to toe with the best in the business.

Tell us something about your Malaysian operation.
Other than our factories in China, UK and an upcoming one in the US, Malaysia is one of the important manufacturing hubs for us. Malaysia also happens to be our global headquarters. We have been supplying both applied and light commercial products to all the continents including Europe and USA and that serves as a testament to our manufacturing quality. We are truly a global organisation in every sense.

Do you have any plans to set up a manufacturing unit in India anytime soon?
That might just be a distant possibility.Currently, we are evaluating Indian market and taking a holistic view of what to expect. We are also expanding our team in different regions and building strength and capacity to create a sustainable ecosystem of running the business and support our customers on the after market requirement. We may also look at a manufacturing JV to bring some of our world class products to be manufactured locally under strict quality control guidelines of DB Malaysia.

Adequate emphasis should be laid on R&D and manufacturing strength given the technology and precision involved in manufacturing high quality durable products
Dipankar Bhattacharya, Country General Manager, Dunham Bush India