SPOTLIGHT: Mr. Gaurav Bansal | The Engineering Warehouse

Enabling Industry with Meaningful Interventions

Often the resurgence of an economy is accorded to the large corporations. However, it is the Medium and Small Enterprises that become the enablers and act to build the demand and supply, thus enabling transactions to move the economy in the right direction. One such enabler is ‘The Engineering Warehouse’ represented by its dynamic Managing Partner, Mr. Gaurav Bansal. In this interview with Impact[X] Media we try to get a perspective on his journey as an enabler, the current scenario and its impact. His deep sense of the market dynamics and belief in their ability to rise to show signs of resurgence is palpable.

“

Welcome, Gaurav, pleasure to have you with us… 

Please give us a brief introduction to your organisation and its product/services. What all industry verticals do you serve?

The Engineering Warehouse is a young company with an earnest experience in the diversified fields of engineering. It was co-founded in 2016. This company is to serve customers with not only quality products and services with competitive pricing pan-India, including farmers, automobile and other industry customers. Currently we have 4 brands, these are Emerson Process, Parker Hannifin, Wika Instruments, Cubical Automations. Majorly we are supplying all the engineering products and services which are used for industrial manufacturing like for Oil & gas refineries, pharmaceuticals and all the CNG related fuels as well as commercial automation equipment.

How has been the impact with the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic on your business activities as well as your customers?

Pandemic has affected all businesses alike so we were also affected, like deliveries got delayed, factories faced financial setback which of course affected our billing. But then as a business house you have to see the brighter-side, so we have used it to build our relationship with clients, we mapped potential clients and approached (them) and alongside focused on marketing. Like Automobiles sales have been at an all-time low in the month of April, it definitely affected us in the short term but once lockdown is over, there will be demand in the market, which calls for supply. For example, post lockdown people, ones from middle class, will be hesitant and conscious to use public transport due to sanitation concerns, they may opt for a personal vehicle may be a 2- wheeler or 4- wheeler, this is one of the major factors we may see that shall cause a rise in the demand alone. 

Even if we talk about market at macro-level, Japan and its top companies in China and many other Europe & US based companies in China have now started looking out to exit China because of ongoing COVID outbreak, so it is a brighter side, as it is an opportunity for India from its west to east Coast where these ventures can be moved into our markets and promoted. And we being an enabler of industry, are positive in the mid-term to long-term. We anticipate a ‘V’ graph to the Industrial resurgence India.

What are the ongoing challenges you have faced with much of the economy in shutdown? As well as how would you compare it to you allied partners in international markets?

As we earlier talked, our billings have been affected but we see its effect to be short -term. Right now everyone is conscious to spend money keeping in mind the uncertainty that prevails. People are not trading as of now since clearances is becoming difficult. In fact our allied partners in international markets are also on the similar page.

Being an asset-light company, what all pros and cons have you come across?

Being an asset-light company, we do not have fixed cost constituents. We don’t have fixed salary, fixed expenses, or holding inventories cost, so we are ok to bear 2 months loss, if we had fixed assets like one crore of salary and five crore of inventory, then it would have had a financial impact on us. In cons, the only thing is that if we had the manpower as of now, we would have looked into more business areas.

We being an enabler of the industry, as an engineering warehouse, we do not hold any fixed asset on large-scale rather smaller assets distributed pan-India. This keeps the cost lower for us and responsibility is owned by the co-warehousing units.

Have you been a part of any impact project (social projects for profit) or how would you like to take an initiative in future for the same?

Tough time calls for some valuable choices to be made. In view of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, we have taken initiative of making hand sanitizers, masks and kits, making them available to manufacturing units. By talking to the customer, we were sensing the need for a safer work environment while going back to work. So, we thought to help them. All the refineries, all the farmers, manufacturing units have to follow the govt. norms laid down with respect to sanitation in order to fight Covid-19. We make such products available to them. 

Can you discuss any large milestones you have achieved in business?

We had no business tie-ups with the vendors we had planned earlier/initially. Now we have 3 brands tucked in with us. This is a larger achievement for us. We have powerplants and oil refineries as our customers where earlier we had no foothold. customers as powerplants and oil refineries, where we earlier had zero. So taking the company from a turnover of 6 to 8 Lacs which now stands at around 1 crore and by next year we are looking up to 5 crores. We are positive as our business model and lean team helps us pivot really quickly to changing market conditions. 

How is the market dynamics changing with technological advancements and adoption of automation? 

Seeing the current situation companies are mostly working from home, interacting through media like Zoom meetings, Teams, Google meet. So understanding the outlook of big companies like KPMG , they are looking for people working for home to cut the travel time say from Noida to Gurgaon to Ghaziabad to Delhi and so on as well as cut office expenses and rather go for using co-working platforms like IdeaShacks. So they can take seats in different location for remote teams. The future of work is definitely remote working and automation is the main requirement to operate with highest level of automations. The market is keen on shedding excess capacity and become lean with intervention of technology and that is where we will be adding value through automation solutions through our cubical offerings. 

Are you looking forward to diversification/ expansion?

Yes, we are moving into supply of hand sanitizers, masks and sanitization products. In the long run we are looking forward to tie-ups and are coming up with a new brand of hand sanitizers and unlike overcharged products in the market we are looking forward to provide them at affordable prices, with confirming to all government norms and proper licensing. 

Share any one habit which you think makes you more resilient. 

“The ability to bounce back from failure.”

Any personal lessons you would like to share from your journey with The Engineering Warehouse.

Whenever you start a business, its not always that it is goes as planned and mapped it out. So in such times think innovatively and seek the opportunity in every problem, and always keep trying. It never matters even if you have planned your business well because there are always new challenges cropping up. So, you have to keep learning and make yourself more adaptable Think innovatively, there is always an opportunity in every problem. And keep trying.