‘We’re looking for a partner who will bring in tech muscle’

: We know them for their trucks and bikes. And in a difficult commercial vehicle market, reeling under high interest rates Eicher also takes credit for being the only company to post decent sales growth this year. With talks like a strategic tie-up with an international CV company doing the rounds, there is enough evidence to prove that the company is ready to make the next jump. In conversation with Sumant Banerji, Eicher CEO and MD Siddhartha Lal talks about the future.Excerpts:

• Of late you have been in the news looking for a tie-up with an international truck maker with the possibility of a stake sale. Have you zeroed in on anyone? If yes what is the rationale behind it?

Our goal is to become one of the leading players in the commercial vehicle (CV) industry in the country. We are very well placed and are on the verge of hitting the big league and the CV industry is ripe for a change. We can go all the distance alone, but that will take longer. Keeping in mind the larger picture, a partner can bring in its muscle of technology and further strengthen our position. This sort of partnership could also be in a particular area like heavy trucks. We are still working on it and the nature of it has not been decided yet.

• What do you have to say about the recent spat of tie-ups in the industry?

The precedents of people entering the market is not good. Most of the Indo-Japanese tie-ups have not had great success and companies like Isuzu have not been able to break into the big league. Eicher is the only company that in 20 years has been able to make some sort of a dent but it has not been easy and has taken a lot of time. The reason for this is that unlike bikes and cars, this is not a consumer but a customer product. Even with these tie- ups, the market will not change overnight and there will not be a revolution. Initially, people will lose a hell of a lot of money.

• Our industry is old but we are still very backward and a lot of this is due to price constraints. Do you expect this to change in the future?

Yes we are still quite backward in technology, infrastructure, driver condition and someone...

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