The Pragmatists: ‘An opportunity postponed, not lost’

Tony Chazhoor, Managing Director of Tennant-India & GM Indian Sub-continent.

How do you see robotic cleaning in India?

A. Robotic has gone to the next advanced level. The iPhone took time to be adopted in India, and now they are doing a turnover of 50 billion. In any industry, eventually only three or four strong players will remain because you require both temperament and proficiency. One is software and the other is hardware. You need mastery in both to take care of fundamentals, including safety. You cannot sell something that is half-baked because that spoils the market. Once customers have a bad experience, it impacts the entire category.

What challenges do industrial requirements and data localisation regulations pose to the effective adoption of robotic cleaning machines in India?

A. For industries and manufacturing, the requirement is more demanding. You need a really strong machine. All robotics are generally defined by the litre capacity of the water tank, which determines how the machine will perform. We have introduced a 125-litre machine for India. Today, people are buying out of enthusiasm. However, the government is not going to allow data to reside in any cloud other than an Indian cloud. This is one issue that will also impact robotics.

What is the current demand?

A. Last year, India sold around 250 machines—about 170 pieces by the government and roughly 35 pieces by private companies. These solutions will not sustain unless they evolve into the next level of practical application. In a country like India, if someone makes a mistake in the initial stage, they may sell machines initially, but if they fail, they lose credibility permanently. Tennant does not want to enter a situation where we say our team is not trained, or the cloud is not ready. We do not want to launch something half-prepared just to say that we are present.

“We may lose an opportunity of Rs 30-40 crore, but that is not a lost opportunity — it is an opportunity postponed, so that when we enter, we do it the right way for India.” — Tony Chazhoor

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