Challenging Yet Encouraging Times

Prashant Sardeshmukh, Director, MMC Hardmetal India talks to The Machinist about latest trends in the cutting tools industry and company’s innovations.

- Swati Deshpande

How has been the market for your company last year? 

Challenging yet encouraging. We have been successful in stepping into the new segments and have witnessed significant growth in our domain areas. This gave us strength and encouragement to set up manufacturing facility at Aurangabad to cater the rising demands of the market. Yet it was not a cakewalk. We had to put up best of our efforts to achieve our targets and because of terrific contribution by our business partners, we are making good presence in new market segments. We expect to experience encouraging response in the areas like non-conventional energy, medical and aerospace sector.

How has been GST implementation for your company? How did it affect your business? Do you think it will have positive impact on the industry from long term perspective? 

GST, I believe, is one of the revolutionary steps towards economic reformation. It is a big change and any change, small or big, causes initial troubles when it comes to implementation. Alike everyone else, it posed some difficulties for us too but now things are easing out. It has averted cascade of indirect taxes which ultimately used to burden the end-customer. The government is taking regular review to make its compliance more simple and market friendly.

This is a good reform and I think, very much in line with government’s Make in India initiative. It was needed to take India on fast-track mode. I think Indian manufacturing industry will play a key role in giving good shape and momentum to the economy.