SKF's presence in India

SKF’s expansion to Asia has helped the company develop new products for the 2-wheeler industry as well as cutting costs.

The company, which is a well-known and respected manufacturer of ball bearings, and other pieces of related technology, opened its Research and Development facility, The Global Technical Centre, in Bangalore last December.

Rs 50 crore was invested in order to build the centre, which will enable the company to focus on customers in both India and throughout South-East Asia, as well as other global projects.

Products developed are eventually exported to countries such as Brazil, Thailand, and Vietnam, where there is a high demand for products for the two-wheeler industry.

SKF President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Johnstone said: “The opening of the Global Technical Centre reinforces our global strategy to open centres near its customers that focus on product innovations for all five SKF platforms – bearings, seals, mechatronics, lubrication systems and services.”

“India is an important market for us and we are committed to support the needs of customers in growing economies. At the same time, we are focused on providing research and innovation both in India and internationally,” he added.

Asia contributes 27% of the global sales and 25% of the global workforce, roughly representing around 25% of global assets.

Expanding to China and India is undoubtedly the way to go in order to break the Asian market, as the two countries make up around 70% of the total sales in Asia.

Rakesh Makhija, Managing Director of SKF India said: “India’s contribution is 20% out of Asia. So when you cross that, we are talking about India being roughly about, in the global perspective, roughly about 5& or so and the group sales and China is about 1.5-13%.”

30 products have already been developed over the last 4-5 years.

The centre is the first of two facilities planned for the Asian market, with SKF hoping to open a similar centre in China later this year, with similar aims to its Bangalore counterpart, potentially creating 400 jobs.

Both have been conceptualised by the company’s original Research and Development centre in the Netherlands, known as the Engineering Research Centre.

400 engineers are employed in Bangalore, and SKF expect to add 100 more in the near future.

Work will continue to primarily focus on the areas of product engineering, development and testing, as well as a global laboratory for metallurgy, chemistry and bearing performance analysis.