URB : Recoginition for reliability & perfection

Q. Please brief us about the exports and overseas operations & what are the global alliances that has been made in order to out-front the competition?

Our Primary markets for exports are USA, EU and India. The brand has a history of over 60 years and has a built a impeccable track record for quality and long life. This rich history and the desire to continuously improve our  systems and processes to achieve excellence in manufacturing products has held us in good stead over long years.

Q. Please elucidate in brief about the company’s infrastructure & What are the measure that are being taken from the product manufacturing to distribution?

The company is an unique position in terms of manufacturing, in the sense it look like that we are the only truly integrated manufacturer of bearings. While outsourcing has been the norm in the industry, we have stead fully held on to our belief that we can provide a quality product only if we have control over the entire manufacturing cycle. Keeping this as a core philosophy our Barlad operations is a unique location where the entire manufacturing is accomplished in one location starting from Forging to the assembly of the bearings. We believe that manufacturing has been one of our core strengths and the market does recognize an excellent product coming out of a truly word class manufacturer.

Q.What are the market prospects for the URB products in India and How do you plan to position these products?

The demand for URB products has improved substantially over the past few years & our growth in the last few years has been a testimony to this. We will continue to strive for better growth through customer acquisitions & new market penetration. We are a European brand & we cater to a variety of industries. Hence we would like to position as a very credible alternative to the established brands. It’s a brand on which the customer will derive the best value for money. That is why we are “The wise choice for ultra reliable bearings”

Q. Can you brief us about the marketing strategies that were applied in order to stand out in the competition of Bearing industry?

One of the main marketing strategies we have adopted is nearness to the customers. While the product quality has also been the brand’s USP the brand had its shortcomings in reaching out to the ultimate end customers due to legacy reasons. We have substantially improved in this front and are reaching out to the end customers with renewed
vigor. This has resulted in significant improvement in the off take for our products.

Commenting specifically on India:

We had significant disadvantages due to limited distribution network accompanied with huge counterfeit products entering the market. This could also have been due to limited reach. In order to significantly enhance our market presence we went for a whole sale restructuring of the distribution network from one distributor to the present strength of 10 in various parties of India which has resulted in improved product availability and the consequence thereof is a significant reduction in counterfeits.

We also introduced certain features in packing which has enhanced the product experience.In order to assure our customers for the originality of URB products they are buying, we developed a specific ID code for each individual bearing we produce.

Implementation of ID code was a project developed in order to offer in front of our customer a tool for brand check. This ID code is an individual identification code for each bearing which can be used to check the originality of the products. This code can be checked in our system if this info is provided through our website section referring to reporting the fake bearings (www.checkurbbearings.com). This ID code was implemented also in order to protect the brand and the customers in front of fake products market.

Q.Brief us about the R&D and Quality policy for your business?

Our strategy for quality and R&D has been documented. I can briefly summarize like; Permanently offering products to fully meet customers’ quality requirements, the applicable safety requirements, legal and regulated applicable requirements and other relevant interested parties requirements as well; Providing a framework for establishing objectives related to quality, research and development and planning of actions and allocating resources – materials,humans and financials – for their fulfillment; Identifying the technical solutions through research and development activities in order to improve the products quality and their performance according to applicable actual requirements.

Assuring a framework to establish a connection for collaboration and cooperation with customers, suppliers and National or International Research Centers, and also with Technical Universities in order to develop common projects for improvement of resources consumption and products and technologies approaches; Transferring and implementing the results and knowledge obtained in different research programs in our own processes in order to be able to create new and sustainable products and technologies, useful to a continuous changing business environment

Creating the intellectual property and develop the brand management strategies in order to encourage the innovation and research at all business levels. The research and development activities are focused on products and process optimization.Developing the products in order to increase the customer satisfaction and also our own portfolio.

Currently, for this purpose the normal spherical bearings was developed in EC design. The benefits of the EC design to our customers are related to: load capacity increased, longer service life, thermal reference speed increase, lubrication coefficient increase which leads to the increase the bearing life, kinematics improved and also material structure improved (residual austenite content). All these improvements were possible by using the simulation and the research results and know-how based on practical experience in bearing design and manufacturing.

Q. Please comment on the current Bearing scenario in India ?

For URB , India is a very important destination. We feel that there is still tremendous scope for the manufacturing sector to grow in India. This in turn will help in improving the demand for bearings. We are one of the youngest European companies in India, we are quite upbeat about the scenario & we would like to be present to tap all opportunities coming our way.

Q.Could you brief us on Indian & Global perspective of Bearing industry? What are the  distinguishing factors?

With increased globalization there are no significant differences in various markets. The products we make for any our premier EU/US customers are the same we supply to the Indian market.

Q.How far the factors like government norms, excise duty, taxation, exim policies are affecting your business?

GST has been a major land mark reform in the indirect taxes sphere. It has significantly rationalized the tax regime with seamless credit and has been one of the major factors for our increased sales. India operates within the WTO framework and as a major international manufacturer it’s the only level playing field we can ask for.

Q. What are the best possible remedies you can advise in order to maintain the high profitability in the shrinking margins market of India?

These are challenges faced by every company today not only in India but everywhere. We continue to invest in technology, improve our productivity and operate in as much as possible in niche areas providing value to the customer through reduced cost of ownership.

Q. What is your vision for your company?

We’ll continue to be the wise choice of our customers as the number of them develops consistently.