India’s largest retreading solutions company, Elgi Rubber Company Ltd has indicated that it plans to sell its consumables range in the open market within India from 2020 onwards.
Elgi Backs its Brand in Consumables Sector
The Coimbatore headquartered company was the first to introduce a franchisee network in the Indian retread business. With the market dynamics drastically changing, the company thinks it’s time to transform its marketing strategy.
“We are entering the open market for consumables, offering products like bonding gum, envelopes, curing bags, black vulcanising cement, retreading and repair tools,” revealed Harsha Varadaraj of Elgi Rubber Company, who spoke during the Tyrexpo India show in Chennai.
On the potential of entering into the open market, Harsha emphasised, “We have a brand name to back, and we have to be aggressive in the open market to widen our reach.” Currently, the consumables are sold through company’s franchisee network. “The idea is now to expand our service among end users, especially the fleet owners,” he added.
The company is also working out modalities to introduce its tyre care programme ‘Fleet Trac’ with the prominent Chennai-based retread franchisee General Tyres in order to expand the fleet management programme among its customers.
Fleet Trac is a fleet monitoring system designed to provide optimum tyre performance and improving driver habits through GPS monitoring. The programme is also being extended to support retread franchisees in getting access to tyres owned by major fleets.
Interestingly, through the tyre performance tracking software, General Tyres has found that Elgi tread gives 80% of new tyre performance. However, only 4% of tyres come back for retreading from the first to second retread. Therefore, the company feels a proper system to maintain performance is now a necessity.
Elgi says it is also considering forging an alliance with a major tyre brand to expand the reach of its fleet management initiative among fleet owners. This, says the company, will also help secure casings for its retread franchisees.
