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| Edited By: R N Bhaskar |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 19, 2018, 05:29 AM IST
What makes Grundfos special?
I would like to talk for two things that make us special. First, unlike many other companies, we have a value system which can be downloaded from our website, and it talks about committing every officer of the company to be open and honest in his communications, and to focus on sustainability. This sets a common agenda for a group which has people from almost 70 nationalities working with it. But the second is what makes is more special. Grundfos is owned by a Foundation that was set up by the founders (Poul Due Jensen, in1945). This, in turn, ensures no private ownership of profits. This, in turn, allows the management to take a long-term view of the market, and develop products for the future.
It is these two factors that differentiates us from other companies.
And this long-term vision allows you to function differently?
Yes. That is why we spend almost 5% of our turnover in R&D, which is huge for any pump company. And we also try to give back to society whatever we can through social work. In R&D too, we are quite focused. We ensure that each generation of pumps that we introduce in the market must be at least 2% more efficient than the previous generation of pumps. It must use less toxic materials and chemicals, and must use more renewables than had been used earlier. Again, each new generation of pumps must ensure that the embodies energy to manufacture them should get reduced with each generation.
Does that make your pumps better products than those offered by competitors?
Of course. Our pumps are some of the most energy efficient products you will find. I know everybody claims that his pump is energy efficient, but we ensure that the pumps remain energy efficient even six months after they are put into use. To do this, we put in the best of all material available, and focus on minimising energy losses – even noise is a form of energy loss. Our pumps operate more noiselesly than most pumps, and you can see the difference in the payback periods for our customers. In other words, our life-cycle costs are lower than almost all our competitors.
Can you elaborate on that?
Payback depends on the industry and the use the pump is being put to. As a norm, we believe that our pumps need to recover their costs in 15 months. But we have a steel company as a customer where the payback for the pumps installed was just two months. Some of our hotel customers have enjoyed payback in just two-and-a-half months. On a universal basis, we know that all pumps by all manufacturers consume 10% of the world's energy. Our group's aim is to reduce at least 40% of this 10% -- or 4% of global consumption – by making better energy efficient pumps. And while the energy saved in developed countries may not be that much because customers have already been using some of the best pumps, in countries like India the scope is phenomenal. For instance, in agriculture, our pumps can save 40-60% of the energy consumed by pumps currently.
Your company in India has become a major IT sourcing hub for the group, right?
True. Around 36 of our 300 strong workforce in India comprises the IT team. And this team has become the global resource centre of excellence for the entire group for any communication software. You see, pumps need to communicate with pumps. There's a lot of intelligence that is being built into pumps nowadays. All software relating to such communications intelligence is done in India. Grundfos has four centres for software development globally –Denmark, the US, China and India. While others focus on other areas, we focus on communication.
