By Fakir Balaji, IANS
Bangalore : Meiko Maschinenbau GmbH, the 200-million euro global leader in commercial dishwashing machines and systems, is witnessing rapid growth in the Indian market thanks to increasing demand for its range of products from across industries.
The 80-year-old German firm, which specialises in cleaning technology for industrial canteens, star hotels, airline caterers and corporate hospitals, has spread its tentacles to the emerging knowledge sector.
Major IT and BPO firms are installing its machines in their campuses for faster turnaround of dishes and vessels to maintain hygiene and conserve scarce water resources.
“Although the share of the Indian market in our global revenue is still about one percent (two million euros), the exponential growth over the last five years due to economic resurgence has made us a market leader in the subcontinent,” Meiko export director Pierre Demers told IANS in an interview here.
The phenomenal growth of the hospitality and aviation sectors due to greater mobility and tourist influx has made Meiko consolidate its presence in the commercial market with its first-move advantage and meet the demand at a faster rate than its global competitors Hobert, Electrolux and WinterHalter.
“Among the sectors, air catering accounts for 40 percent of our orders, while hospitality and manufacturing services equally share the remaining 60 percent of the order book that has been registering a healthy 20-25 percent annual growth over the years,” said Demers.
“In the IT sector, global software majors such as Infosys Technologies, Wipro, TCS, Satyam and multinationals like IBM, Microsoft, GE, Intel and Accenture have been among the many that have installed our machines in their kitchens,” he said.
With the manufacturing and services sectors expanding their operations across the country, Meiko has set up a technical and marketing support centre in Bangalore for training and servicing majority of its 300-odd customers in various locations.
The Meiko (Asia) Techcentre, a wholly owned subsidiary, will be developed by utilising talent and manpower resources available in the subcontinent for services in the Asia-Pacific and Gulf regions.
“The game plan is to be closer to the customer and speed up installation of the machines shipped from Offenburg in Germany, and reach out to customers faster for support services,” the subsidiary’s Managing Director and CEO Virendra Dutt pointed out.
Besides dishwashing machines and systems, the company supplies a range of washer disinfector appliances and sluice room furniture, used by leading hospitals worldwide. Exports account for over 50 percent of its annual revenues.
“By targeting other growth sectors, such as shipbuilding, university hostels, large academic campuses, public sector undertakings, industrial townships and the huge defence sector, we hope to enter the volume game and achieve scale of economies to justify a manufacturing facility here in the long-term,” Demers asserted.
With 10 wholly owned subsidiaries in Germany and six in other parts of Europe, the company currently has two overseas manufacturing facilities at Zhonshan in China and Tennessee in the US.
“Studies have shown commercial dishwashing enables industrial customers to save water resources by about 10 percent compared to manual washing. In fact, Infosys won an award recently for water conservation by using our machines in their campuses in Bangalore, Mysore and Pune,” Dutta noted.
Meiko’s product range includes machines for stationary washing operations, automatic conveyor type washing machines, integrated dishwashing systems, tray conveyor and sorting systems, waste treatment installations, industrial kitchen equipment and hygiene equipment for hospitals and homes.