Covestro India is a leading global polymer manufacturer with a unit in Greater Noida. In conversation with Baishakhi Dutta, senior business journalist at Electronics Bazaar, Ajay Durrani, MD, Covestro India, talks about the company’s products and services, its business plans in India, and its popular eco-commercial construction materials.
EB: Tell us more about Covestro’s aims and actions.
Covestro is a global polymer company, which views sustainability as the central pillar of its growth strategy. The journey of Covestro began in September 2015, when it became an independent entity, after being spun off from the globally renowned Bayer Group. Covestro has set ambitious sustainability targets for 2025. We want to further reduce our specific emissions, pass on our sustainability standards to our suppliers, align our research with the goals of the United Nations, improve the livelihoods of 10 million people in underserved markets, and get the most out of carbon.
Covestro has developed a technology that creates a valuable raw material for plastics production out of the climate-damaging gas, carbon dioxide. Particularly with respect to the automotive and electronics industry, our focus has been on weight-reduction through the use of high-grade polymers, without compromising on the security and strength of products. The biggest example of this was the Solar Impulse mission, where Covestro materials withstood various environmental pressures.
EB: Which sectors do you consider as your customer base?
The polymer is a ubiquitous and versatile material. Considering that India has an abysmal per capita consumption of polymers, there are growth opportunities for it in various sectors. The three key sectors where polymers are contributing the most are: automotive, electronics and home furnishing. The automotive sector is the biggest contributor to our revenues in India.
EB: How do you ensure the quality of your products?
Each manufacturing facility of Covestro is linked to a central database, which is managed using strict guidelines and best practices. This central database not only has the technical details of all our products, but also records the various factors that affect a product’s performance. Such stringent quality control measures ensure that any Covestro material will look and perform uniformly across regions. In addition, we work closely with customers in key industries such as the automotive, construction and electrical/electronics sectors to develop new products and improve existing ones to meet new challenges.
EB: Indian customers tend to opt for cheap products – how does that affect your business?
We beg to differ here. India is a price-conscious market, but definitely, customers do value quality. Gone are those days when people compromised on quality because of price. With easy access to technology and materials transcending boundaries, India Inc. is now not ready to bargain for sub-standard products. However, it is also true that price is an important determinant in the market, but that is something no business or sector is averse to. Customers want quality and cost-effectiveness, and neither are mutually exclusive.
EB: How established is your after-sales services network?
Covestro has a robust after-sales support team, which uses its global expertise to help customers with their queries. While the regional teams are well-trained to provide assistance and expertise on most customer queries, the global team of experts also pitches in whenever there is any requirement for special assistance.
EB: Tell us about your rationale for installing solar panels within the factory area.
Sustainability is a topic that is oft-discussed but seldom executed in entirety. The idea to make the eco-commercial building at Greater Noida was to highlight the strength, USP, and application of the many versatile materials we manufacture. We also wanted to showcase how our products contribute significantly to energy efficiency and help in reducing the carbon footprint.
Coupling it with solar panels, we have been able to make this a net zero energy consumption structure. In fact, we also supply the surplus energy produced through these solar panels to the production facility.
We have recently inaugurated a plant in Germany which, by the adoption of an innovative process, uses carbon dioxide as the major raw material to manufacture polyols. These polyols are then used to create polyurethane and polycarbonate materials. This reduces the burden on crude oil, and is a constructive and efficient use of carbon dioxide.
EB: What was the thought behind setting up an eco-commercial building? Also, what do you think is the time required for a business to break even in this country?
We were confident that India was ready and a promising market for these versatile materials, so we shifted to the ‘life cycle cost’ paradigm. We first focused on the fact that such ‘talented’ materials could be manufactured on a large scale and at high quality. Then we emphasised how these products could be used in various industries. For the green building, we used polymer based insulation foams and coatings, which has helped us to make it a net zero energy consumption structure, thus being ‘net positive’.
We do not intend to use the solar panels for commercial purposes. We treat the ECB (eco-commercial building) as a unit that is adding sustainability to our production. Through our ECB project, Covestro wants to promote the ‘go green’ concept and take a step in making the world a brighter place.
As far as your query on breaking even is concerned, it is a moving target for us. As the market rapidly grows, so will our engagement. We will continue to invest in innovation, assets and quality.
EB: What is your road map for the future?
We have customers across sectors like construction, automotive, electrical as well as in electronics. We are now focusing on street lighting, which consumes too much power. Replacement of sodium lamps by LEDs will save a lot of power and help to improve the environment. IoT is also a major portfolio, where networking devices, Wi-Fi devices and connectors need high-end frequency-renormalised (FR) materials.
