Daifuku India Private Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Daifuku Co. Ltd., headquartered in Japan. It was established in 1937 and has since grown into a global company with a network of offices and subsidiaries across the globe that offer design, engineering, sales, installation and after sales service of automated storage and materials handling systems. Daifuku has a global manufacturing network, and has been ranked as the world’s No. 1 materials handling system supplier for the past four years (source: Modern Materials Handling magazine). Daifuku India Private Limited (“DIL”) was established in 2005 and currently has offices in Gurugram, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gujarat. It has close to 100 employees across India and is a key solutions provider covering not only the automobile manufacturing sector, but also factory automation and distribution.

Challenges and How They Were Overcome

India is one of the most cost competitive markets in the world. This along with an abundance of low-cost human resources makes it increasingly difficult to justify Return on Investment for the capex Daifuku’s systems demand. Further, Daifuku’s core technology is new to the market place, and requires customers who have a long-term vision to be able to justify such a capex while being comfortable to embrace and trust their factories to something that is nothing short of a paradigm shift.

Whilst Daifuku is a well-known name in advanced global economies such as the U.S., China and Europe, the first challenge was to spread the Daifuku name and create a brand image. The second challenge was to solve the issues customers face while understanding time constraints and budget among other areas. The last and most important challenge was to win customers’ trust. It is a huge leap of faith to understand and approve something based solely on power point and CAD files.

• Brand Image: Via participation in trade shows, marketing and highlighting its global portfolio and success, Daifuku was able to create a brand image in India.
• Solution: In automation, standardisation is key, but this itself becomes a major challenge when the ecosystem is anything but standard. India is a large country and the requirements are very different depending on the customer, their location and industry. To be able to solve unique challenges using Daifuku’s modular products requires a thorough understanding of the customers’ operations and going beyond just the problem statement to find the right solution. This needs an abundance of patience, due diligence and the commitment to get it right.
• Winning Trust: This is fundamental to any business. It is vital to create and maintain relationships at all the right levels to have buy-in. By truly understanding the issue at hand, going beyond just the problem statement and showcasing its competence either by logical reasoning or visits to Daifuku Japan and some of its reference sites, Daifuku was able to build trust. By executing the project flawlessly and keeping the commitments of time, budget and expectations, Daifuku was able to win long term trust.

Daifuku India Pvt. Ltd.

Boomerang A-411,
Main Chandivali Farm Rd.
Near Powai, Andheri(E), Mumbai, 400072, India
Tel: +91-22-42735555
www.daifuku.com/in/