Dynapac is a Swedish multinational engineering company, a world leader for mobile compactors for road surface. The brand was earlier owned by Atlas Copco but was acquired by Fayat Group of France in October 2017.  At present, Dynapac machines are being used in major infrastructure projects in Nepal including Kathmandu International Airport and Gautam Buddha Airport in Bhairahawa. Nepal Construction and Engineering Corporation (NCEC), the authorised distributor of Dynapac brands in Nepal, recently organised an event to launch the new visual identity of its products. New Business Age caught up with Mukul Chakravorty, general manager for Dynapac in India, who was in Nepal to attend the event. Excerpts: 

How is the market for earthmovers in Nepal? 
We can say that the market for heavy equipment is booming in Nepal as there are a number of big projects in the pipeline. We plan to take our business forward at the same pace. For us, Nepal is one of the fastest growing markets we are catering to. 

What are the USPs of Dynapac equipment? What are the products that are available in Nepal?
Innovation and product development is at the core of Dynapac. We strive to continuously give our customers more of efficient solutions with better cost of operations and best product designs. If we look at the USPs, we focus on work efficiency, reliability, safety and cost efficiency. Operator needs reliability and uninterrupted operations and our core focus is on making the products steadfast to the operator. Our products ensure low cost of operations in terms of fuel consumption and maintenance cost. We are also focused on making our machines safer for the people who operate it and for the people at the project site. Until and unless an operator is seated in the machine, it doesn’t start. It is one of the safety features included in our machines. 

We provide complete solutions for road construction having a full range of machineries for road building to maintenance. There are four products, the soil compactors, mini compactor, pneumatic tire rollers and the pavers which have a huge demand in Nepal. In Nepal, soil compactors have the highest demand. 

What is the global market share of Dynapac? 
Globally, Dynapac brand has 10 percent market share. If you look at the entire road construction equipment brands from Fayat Group, we hold about 30 percent market share, which makes us the leading global player. In India, we had a market share of 12 percent in 2017 while we aim at reaching 15 percent at the earliest. 

How important is the Nepali market for Dynapac? How is the competition for Dynapac here?
In Nepal, we enjoy a market share of around 30 percent. All the players that are in the road construction industry are in this market. Despite tough competition, we have done good product positioning and pricing. Our market positioning has made Nepal a significant market for us. We have to reciprocate this trust by providing world class support system in Nepal.  

How are you providing the after-sales service and spare parts in Nepal?  
We cover all the clusters where the construction works are ongoing. We deploy people immediately wherever there is a need and have sufficient availability of spare parts in the project areas. We have also appointed a senior service engineer in Nepal to train the team of NCEC and to have a better interface. Dynapac has specially designed training programmes to build competence of customer service technicians and operators. We ensure as much knowledge transfer as possible so that our customers do not face any challenge while operating our machines. 

How is your company expanding its foothold in Nepal? 
We are putting more people in the ground. With this, we have been gaining more market share by creating more installations. NCEC is an experienced player which has been in the market for six decades and we are associated with them for the last 10 years. We are going strongly together covering the market very well. We also have an efficient regional team in Kolkata which looks after the Nepali market and visits here every month. 

What challenges are there for a brand like Dynapac?
For a heavy equipment brand like us who are not the cheapest brand in the market, it is challenging to meet customer price requirements. But a good product demands a good price. If you look at our products’ lifecycle cost, we are highly cost-effective but it is difficult to explain it to the customers and that makes every sale challenging. We go through rigorous negotiation with our customers to a stage where they realise that they made the right choice.