Q. Which are the specialist segments that BKT is successfully focused on?
The major off-highway product segments offered by BKT with a widest product range are Agriculture, Industrial, Construction & Mining. While the main forte is Agriculture tire segment, BKT focuses on the Construction and industrial, as well as earthmoving, port and mining, gardening, and tyre segments, both underground and over ground sectors.
Q. What has been BKT’s journey during the COVID period and after the lockdown?
The COVID period was challenging for everybody. However, we were able to come together as a team and to grow at our highest level compared to what we had done in the previous years. We, at BKT, gave a lot of thrusts to develop infrastructure with an investment of around Rs. 2500 crores in the last 2 years for tires, carbon black, and self-sustaining endeavour like power generation plant at our Bhuj plant. Apart from building new infrastructure, it is very important to maintain and upgrade existing infrastructure, hence last year, the company completed Rs. 450 crores capacity expansion at the Bhuj plant. The last 2 years have been very challenging, however, BKT continued with its growth streak even during the pandemic and had an average growth of 20% y-o-y in the last two years.
Q. How successful is BKT as a global player?
Today, the company with over 3200 SKU and exports to more than 160 countries – making BKT one of the major global players in the market. As a global player, 80% of our supply comes from exports.We are competing with our quality against all the top off-highway tire manufacturers in the world. We have five tire production sites in addition to one mold-making plant along with an in-house R&D center in India and three overseas subsidiary offices in Europe, USA, and Canada. BKT, as a brand and as a product is highly successful in the market, with a single brand strategy and creating a win-win for its distribution partners.
Q. What are the new products showcased by BKT in recent years?
BKT foresees great demand from the mining sector and has enhanced its product portfolio for the Indian mining market by launching ‘MINEFORCE’. The company has also improved its All-Steel Radial tires range and launched its 57 inches tires and will be shortly launching its 63 inches tires to compete in the Indian and global mining market. BKT is the only Indian manufacturer offering these sizes of tires in the market.
Q. What customer support and services is BKT offering?
Customer support and service BKT’s strength with industry leading - online as well as offline support. Like any other industry, the challenges and needs of the customers are varied and BKT team is fully geared towards servicing the customers for all their needs. We have various touchpoints with the customers and queries are answered within 24 hours. Our communication channels are open-ended. We strive to reduce the downtime of the customers in the field, enhance the speed of communication as well as achieve operational excellence.
During the pre-sales phase – we work with our partners to ensure we create, ‘Right Tire for Right Application’, and post-sales – we have a system in place for periodic checks on the tire performance.
Q. Due to COVID-19, several industries are now using new technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, etc. How is the construction and infrastructure industry using these technologies? Does it affect the industry or employment?
Keeping in line with the development and digitization of manufacturing standards, the company has also worked on the digitization as well as modernisation of its older plants. Not to mention timely investment for capacity expansion. At BKT, last 2 years, we invested a huge period of time to upgrade our equipment such as the installation of automated material handling systems to make sure that we reduce the fatigue level and the labour-intensive jobs. Now, this does not mean that we are reducing our labour requirement or manpower requirement, but we’ve made the machines in such a way through automation and other operation augmentations that we've increased the output even with the same physical aspect of the work.
Q. What will be the industry's outlook for coming years?
We are quite bullish in the mining and construction segment. The current government is also upbeat about construction and development. So we'll look forward to growing fast in the coming years.
Q. How BKT is going to participate in IME-2022? What are your expectations from this big event?
IME has always been a future growth area. We’ve been participating in a big way and will continue to launch our new tyres and products over there. Our expectations from the event are very high, and there will be a lot of footfall from the industry so that we can showcase our true branding.
Q. EXCON is going to happen in May this year. It’ll be the 10th season of BKT. How BKT is going to participate in or focus on?
It’s a big show for us, and this year too, we’ll continue to be there with full force. BKT will showcase their new products, and offering what we’ve developed in the last few years.
Q. What positive impact will the Budget 2022-23 have on the infra industry?
It’s very difficult to say how exactly the budget will impact, but I think overall the government has been enforcing for several years as they have been emphasizing the quality and development of the infrastructure. Emphasis on the development of roads, bridges, highways, etc. makes a lot of win-win formulae. So, yes, it will be positive for all.
It’s very difficult to say how exactly the budget will impact, but I think overall the government has been enforcing for several years as they have been emphasizing the quality and development of the infrastructure. Emphasis on the development of roads, bridges, highways, etc. makes a lot of win-win formulae. So, yes, it will be positive for all.
