Riding the Recession - The director of TAFE tells us how riding the recession has helped her company emerge stronger

“India is the largest market for tractors,” states Mallika Srinivasan, director of Tractors and Farm Equipment, Chennai, “It may not be in billions of dollars, but in the number of units sold, we are the largest market.”

TAFE is the second largest agricultural tractor manufacturer in India and takes pride in its innovations and technological advancements that help keep it going strong in the market race. “It is a mature industry in India,” says Mallika, “In this sector, India can be a big global player and integrate itself in the global markets quite easily.” Her vision for TAFE, an organization that gives a lot of importance to R & D and technology, is to take it forward into global markets with bigger strides. “The future will be technology-led,” is Mallika’s take on the global scenario.

With markets taking a beating, TAFE found itself briefly in the third spot among tractor manufacturers. “We’re back at No. 2 at the end of June,” the lady tells us, talking of the steps this corporate took to ride the recession. “When markets went down and everyone else in the industry continued to bill, filling up the pipeline with stocks right up to the farmer, we decided to follow the market with a fair degree of caution.” TAFE decided to cut-back, offered support to dealers to tide through the rough period and kept the focus on business. “It was a delicate balance between the wholesale share and the retail share,” she admits, “We kept the retail promotion programmes going, offering new models, schemes, and kept our retail market share.”

This astute businesswoman is glad that she took the prudent route to success, unlike competiton. “We have,” she states with justifiable satisfaction, “as a result of this dip, emerged stronger. We have been able to control receivables, brought down our debt yet, we kept new products going. We have kept healthy profits. Whoever weathers this storm, with financial strength, survives.”

Focus on technology and R & D continues at TAFE even as the thrust of the company has changed to retail focus. www.tafe.com, the group’s internet domain carries the tagline `the heartbeat of India’. The webspace, according to Mallika, serves as a networking facility for TAFE dealers and customers, keeping them abreast not just of latest innovations in tractors and farm implements, but also providing them with agricultural information and advice.

For finally, this is Mallika’s dream. Where the small and medium Indian farmer finds his own space in the country’s growing aspiratory lifestyle scene, with a fair bit of disposable income in his hands. “We are still not independent of the monsoons,” says she, “On one hand we have a drought and on the other, excess food grains. We can have a workable food for work programme, wherein employment can be generated by building projects like de-silting existing tanks and building catchment areas for rain. Thus we build infrastructure for eternity, we are also free from the scarcity for water resources – agricultural production will not see such sharp cycles then.”