The Hindu Business Line : Godrej & Boyce to foray into warehousing equipment this fiscal

GODREJ & Boyce's Material Handing Equipment (MHE) division, which is engaged in the manufacturing of unit handling mobile equipment, will be switching gears to focus on making warehousing equipment in the current fiscal.

This is in the light of the growing demand for such equipment as a result of the expanding market for logistic services.

Already a market leader in India in counter-balance forklift trucks with a market share of about 57 per cent, the company now intends to introduce a range of warehousing equipment, especially those required by large shopping malls and department stores, apart from warehouse operators.

"This year we will focus on the bottom segment of warehousing equipment like manual stackers and electric stackers and later, when the domestic market for such equipment expands, we will be introducing our brand of middle and top segment products like powered pallet trucks and reach trucks," according to Mr H.N. Khumbatta, Business Head and Vice-President of the MHE division of the Godrej Group.

Till early last fiscal, the company was only trading in warehousing equipment, marketing the products of the US major, Crown. After expanding its production facility to make its own brand of warehousing equipment, the company now plans to enter the domestic market on a full-fledged scale, while continuing to market the Crown brand of products in the upper segment. Godrej will have to compete with companies such as Maini, Gosts' and MacNeil, which control the Rs 45-crore domestic warehousing equipment market.

Godrej intends to take on these companies in this segment with its advantage of a bigger reach, superior products and better after-sales service.

"We see significant opportunities in this segment in the next couple of years, especially with the concept of 3PL (third party logistic service providers) gaining currency in the Indian corporate sector. We believe that warehousing business will be the engine for growth in the current fiscal for our business," Mr Khumbatta told Business Line.

The company has drawn up a strategy that aims at making it the market leaders in the warehousing segment within the next few years. This segment will be contributing significantly to enable the MHE division of the Godrej Group to achieve a turnover of Rs 90 crore in the current fiscal and Rs 100 crore in the next fiscal, as against Rs 75 crore in the last fiscal.

The company also plans to increase its focus on the export market and is aiming at an export turnover of Rs 12 crore (about 14 per cent of its total sales turnover) in the current fiscal, against Rs 9 crore last fiscal (12.16 per cent of its turnover).

After the company launched the new GX series diesel and electric forklift trucks in 2001-02, it became the market leader in the Rs 100-crore domestic counter-balance forklift trucks market

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