Jitendrakumar Kataria,
Managing Director
Journey of Beckhoff India- Since 2007…
First approach to the Indian market was back in 2001 when we got a contact to our first partner, Inteltek Automation. At that time,
we had very limited knowledge about India and the India Automation industry. Through our partner, we got a first insight
to the Indian market, made the first steps, and had the first success in business. It became clear to us that the Indian
industry is developing rather quickly and that there was an evident openness and demand for innovative technology from
Germany Over the years, we saw some progress in business but also identified that the Indian manufacturing Industry have
huge engineering talent and resourceful engineers who are in search of right Automation technology tools and we need to invest
more into the market with more dedicated focus , and provide more direct support (technical and commercial) to the industry.
And this was possible with our partner concept. This, when we decided back in 2006 to open our own operations, as a subsidiary,
with headquarters in Pune.
1. How has Beckhoff India evolved over the last decade? When you look back what is your view now?
We started in 2007 with an initial team of around 5 people. Luckily, we had with our founding Managing Director, Jitendrakumar Kataria, who worked in our Software R+D team in Germany, a young energetic MD with strong technical abilities and big talent to build-up a team and business. He, with the support of our experienced starting team made it happen to constantly grow our team, expand our reach to the vast geographical market. Within a decade 7 offices around India and a strength of 60 well trained and experienced automation engineers and supporting administration professionals has given Beckhoff India a solid foundation to our operations to take a leap further.
We won the trust of industry with many business partners, users and service providers (formerly called as “customers”) joining the New Automation Technology mission in India., Building reliable business relationships with focus on technology, innovation & value addition as key ingredients, it is indeed satisfying and motivating looking back at the decisions taken & the path traversed.
2. What were some significant challenges you’ve had to overcome and how did you get past them?
The initial challenges were
As we had limited resources we were not able to provide services to our customer across India. Creating awareness about new automation technology concept, differentiating us from traditional automation products across different industry segments, reaching out to the end user industries and maintaining higher ethical business standards were other bigger challenges. Over the years we have now established our high performance standards and expanded our horizons to be within geographical reach of customers with 7 office locations across India that provide better & prompt technical support to our customer as and when demanded.
Servicing our products in India was not possible in the initial phase of business. Over the years we have developed a service Centre in Pune with accreditation Level S1 and we are able to provide speedy service to those in need.
Beckhoff is known for PC based control technology. Initially it was a big challenge to make customers understand this revolutionary technology and develop their confidence in the same. Over the years customers have gradually understood the value potential of PC based control and the acceptance level of the same is increasing across industry verticals The relevance of PC based Automation for Machine Control is also well received by industry because the new requirements viz. IoT, Industry 4.0, asset management can be met with PC based control which provides the right platform.
3. What was your vision & how do you see the progress of Beckhoff India so far towards this?
Our Vision was to Enable Make by India. We strongly believed in helping Indian equipment manufacturers to produce world class equipment’s using Beckhoff technology so that they can compete in the Global market.
I would say we are pretty much successful in the same and still this work is in progress with our growing customer base in India.
4. How do you see the Indian Automation Business today and the future?
Beckhoff business in India is on continuous rise since inception. Thanks to our industry partners who have trusted us and our technology.
