REPORT ON INDUSTRIAL VISIT

- Ashish Singh Tomar | MDes 2018-2020 | 15860

COMPANY NAME: Gupta Electrical Industries

ADDRESS: #158, 10th Main (Laggere Main Road), Peenya Industrial Area,
Bangalore - 560 058, Karnataka, India.
DATE: 31-JAN-2019
CONTACT PERSON: Mr. Gadadhar Gupta
VISITORS: CPDM MDes 2018-2020 Batch

PURPOSE OF VISIT

The purpose of the visit was to understand the current capabilities of the company
and figure out areas in which they excel or are lacking and also understand the kind
of product development process they follow, if any. It was also meant to sensitize
us about the existence of similar MSME industries and the challenges they face in
their growth.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Set up in more than half a century ago Late K L Padmanabh Gupta, Gupta Electrical
Industries was started as a trading company but they switched over to electrical
equipment and soon collaborated with Bharat Electricals as a vendor for goods
applicable in defence applications. They currently offer fabrication services, via
state-of-the-art equipment, of Laser cut, CNC Punch, CNC Bending and Metal
Fabrication, and have a product portfolio consisting of Washing machine, Hydro
Extractor, Tumble Drier, Vacuum Ironing Table and Flat Bed Press.

VISIT

The visit started with Mr. Gadadhar Gupta giving us an introductory presentation
about the company history, their capabilities, their services and their product
portfolio. He the proceeded us to show the various state of the art equipment and
the various products that were being made there with them. Then we were taken to
another shop floor where assembling and testing of their industry grade washing
machine was being carried out. That shop floor also had a spot-welding section
where generator cooling equipment parts were being manufactured. Next, we were
shown an experience center where a stain removing machine, an industry grade
washing machine, a tumble drier and two flatbed press were present. This
experience center was meant to serve as a demo area for customers to come in and
see the product workings on a real time basis. The visit ended with a tea break and
distribution of mementos to the accompanying faculty and the students.

OBSERVATIONS

The is one of millions MSME existing in this country. Although they started off as a
trading company, they became successful as a manufacturer of consigned goods. A
wave of recession left the company in a surviving state. At which time Mr. Gupta, in
order to grow his company took a risk and started developing an industrial grade
washing machine. They went through several iterations of user testing lasting
several months to determine the shortcomings of their product and finally were
able to make a well-functioning washing machine that they thought was required by
Garment Industry, Hospitals Hotel Industry, Military camps, Residential Schools etc.

But all their efforts proved in vain when they had a product but did not have market
to sell. Their first customers were cautious of the products performance and didn’t
want to buy a product from a company that had not sold it before, as they had no
other means of validating what the company was claiming about the product. Due
to this the company had to switch to a trial-based scheme and an experience center
strategy to make the product seem more believable.

Also, since the scale of their production was not sure they were also facing
problems in getting standard parts to manufacture even their prototypes.

They also collaborated with electronics and IT companies to provide the interface
for their washing machine which initially proved to be very non-customer centric,
and had to revamp the interface as well.

Although, their client-based manufacturing services are working well, their product
portfolio of laundry equipment is in a surviving state.

<

CONCLUSIONS

The company never invested in a thorough market study for their washing machine
product, because of which they would have realized the market potential of the
product and how to adopt proper marketing strategies. Also, It was stated by Mr.
Gupta that they started manufacturing washing machine only because they realized
they were already making parts for the it or had the capability to do it.

The product development process followed was very haphazard and seemed to
have based on intuition rather than an organized approach.

The company, in short took a risk but not a calculated one.