Mumbai-based, Allen Buildwell Private Limited offers various construction equipments, such as fixed and slipform
concrete paving machines and accessories.


P. Arunagiri, Director – Business Development, Allen Buildwell Pvt Ltd, talks to EPC&I on how infrastructure development will be the key growth driver for the CE business in India while emphasising that in the fight for market share, competition is not manifested only in the other players but on continuous improvement in design and features that keeps one ahead of competition.

As an established leading player in the Construction Equipment market in the country, what is your opinion on Infrastructure development activity in the country?
Infrastructure development is one of the major components to economic growth of any developing country, and India is achieving this under the dynamic leadership of Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister and Nitin Gadkari as the Cabinet Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping.
Good planning in infrastructure development will attract more foreign direct investments and will certainly result in explosive growth of a country. We are now experiencing this and we expect a lot of infrastructure development to happen in India. I feel that there is a paradigm shift going on in India and through which the main focus will be Infrastructure development.
Transportation is an integral part of economic development. It also shares a two-way relation. As the speed, cost and reach of transportation improves, it leads to higher incomes and development, which in turn leads to greater demand for transport and mobility

While some research analysts and economists claim that it is skewed more towards road building activity, development of power plants, ports, airports, etc continue to lag behind. Do you subscribe to this view?
Yes, I do accept that there are lot of developments happening in the road building activity as compared to other sectors as mentioned in your question. But, we also see some activities happening in the development of airports. We can also see more development in power plants and ports also in the near future.
This aggressive push to build the national highway system called the Golden Quadrilateral was launched during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee years. Infrastructure spending on roads has multiple round impacts.
There is a first-round impact in terms of increased demand for road materials and employment. Then, there is also a significant second-round impact on people’s income and livelihood. Several studies have documented how villages in proximity to national highways witnessed greater increase in incomes than those far away. Better connectivity affords better earning opportunities, lower commuting time, and also increases in land values adjacent to major roads.
The actual mix of various modes may vary, but economic development and transport infrastructure go hand-in-hand – the denser, the better. More recently, there have been concerns about the contribution of transport-related emissions to air quality and climate change. However, the importance of transportation to the economy is unquestioned.

What would you say are the main growth drivers in a highly competitive market?
As I had mentioned previously infrastructure development would be the main growth driver for our industry. However, the essence of strategy formulation is coping with competition. Yet, it is easy to view competition too narrowly, and too pessimistically. While one sometimes hears executives complaining to the contrary, intense competition in an industry is neither coincidence nor bad luck.
Moreover, in the fight for market share, competition is not manifested only in the other players. Rather, competition in an industry is rooted in its underlying economics, and competitive forces exist that go well beyond the established combatants in a particular industry.
Customers, suppliers, potential entrants, and substitute products are all competitors that may be more or less prominent or active depending on the industry. Continuous improvement in design and enhancement in technical features accelerates company to retain in the highly competitive market.
In the digital age, this maxim is applicable to digital connectivity, too. Some developed nations, notably in Europe, have sanctified digital access and mobility as a basic right of all citizens. Cities in Europe have dense grids of public railway transport, while even the remotest mountaintop villages of Switzerland have road access. In the motor car dominated US, the road and highway networks connect dispersed suburbia to cities and workplaces.

How have the policies and initiatives taken by the government to develop the country’s infrastructure reflected on your company’s growth?
It was indeed a big growth which has happened in these two years, our sales has doubled and the requirement of Concrete Batching Plants and Concrete Pavers both Slip Form Paver and Fixed Form Paver has tremendously increased.

What are the company’s expansion strategy and potential segments in Indian construction equipment business?
Keeping the increase in demand for Concrete Road Paving Equipment, in India, our principals – Power Pavers and Power Curbers Inc USA, is looking forward to develop new four track slip form paver which will be most compact and versatile Concrete Slip Form Paver. Also, Allen Buildwell is looking forward to promote more and more 90 and 120cum/hr Concrete Batching Plant.

In the face of aggressive competition putting strong price pressure, coupled with the liquidity in the market which will impact cash flow and profitability, what are the transformations that leading companies such as yours need to bring about to ensure that you not just grow at a predetermined rate but grow substantially?
Yes, we do have price pressure from our competitors, but our customers still prefer us when we explain them about our technical advancements and various other technical parameters. Our focus on continuous improvements technically has helped us to grow substantially.

Many manufacturers in the country are making innovative strides to modify their existing lines to enable them to deliver higher production outputs, improving the productivity and, simultaneously, offering a good ROI. What are your plans on this front?
We have our technical team which continuously works on improvement in design, and we have been achieving this successfully. Our equipment is equipped with state-of-the-art technology and offers a good RoI to customers by giving higher outputs. One such example is we have dual bins on concrete batching plants which help in reducing weighing time wherein two aggregates can be weighed at a time.

Based on requirements of Indian OEMs’ array of individual products and standards, how are the equipments featured and designed to have complete equipment integration?
Equipment manufactured by Allen Buildwell or by our principals like Allen Engineering, Power Pavers have been designed keeping in mind the problems faced by our customers and our expertise in this industry goes back 30 years, where our existing management headed by Ashok. A. Rao has been involved in design and development of these equipment with leading players of the global industry.
Our years of combined knowledge and “in-depth know how” of almost every major brand and make of construction equipment gives us an edge to successfully accomplish any customer requirements in this domain.

How do you ensure installation flexibility?
Our new developments has helped to concentrate on easy to erect and commission the equipment in the least given time keeping in mind the problems customers face while shifting the machines from one site to another. We have introduced more plug and play features to help installation flexibility.

How is the technology placed to suit Indian requirements taking into consideration that the equipment works for extended duty cycles and adverse conditions within the country?
All equipment manufactured by us or our principals have been designed keeping in view the requirements and conditions prevailing in India.

OEM support and cooperation for future product upgradation is important. How are aspects like prototype performance assessment in varied working conditions being addressed based on the emerging requirements of the Indian customers?
The business development team headed by me is continuously working in achieving the best product at the affordable price, and we work on relationship marketing. We take continuous feedback from our customers and implement it to the fullest satisfaction of our end users. We always test run our equipment for a satisfactory period before introducing it in the market.

How are you addressing issues regarding affordability, business expansion and retention?
As mentioned before we always keep the development process going on and, thus, our machines are affordable compared to our competitors. Retention is always an on-going process, and we keep our focus intact on this by creating good opportunities to our employees and by giving incentives based on performance periodically. Business expansion takes place based on the requirements and at the movement we have plans to expand shortly.

What would you say are the primary challenges going ahead?
Looking forward to the demand of the equipment, many companies have tried their hands and are selling less substantial low quality equipment and a substandard price. 

What is your forecast of CE demand in the days ahead?
As I had mentioned there will be a huge demand for the Construction Equipment in the days ahead due to tremendous growth the infrastructure sector is heading.

Lastly, any new products and services expected to be launched at bc India 2016?
Recently in the past one year we have introduced new products with various enhanced features and services. We will be displaying the more compact and versatile Slip Form Paver – Power Paver SF-1700, the demand for this paver has increased and lot of contractors are looking forward to see this at BC India 2016.

“Looking forward to the demand of the equipment, many companies have tried their hands and are selling less substantial low quality equipment and a substandard price.”