Rainer Ohnheiser, President and CEO of Carl Zeiss’ Industrial Measuring Technology (IMT) who was in Bengaluru to open the company’s assembly plant, shared the company’s views on its presence in India and how it plans to get closer to regional customers. Excerpts:

What is the business plan for India and the target set?

We have strategically got the Industrial Measuring Technology (IMT) division to India.

As for our target, it is clearly defined — growth, strengthening global position and having competences in India which are important in the Zeiss network.

We are the leader in 3D Metrology market. We are looking to grow and position IMT in India and the global network as a front runner. We are also looking to interface global relations in the precision market.

How do you plan to market your brand here?

Carl Zeiss has different units from IT solutions, IMT, vision equipments, medical equipments etc.

We manufacture industry lenses, camera lenses and binocular lenses.

Specific to IMT, we are looking to expand what we have set-up in India.

That includes providing equipments to automotive and manufacturing customers in India as well as business solutions to cater to the needs of the businesses of the customers.

We also are looking at providing application services for our equipments to integrate with the production lines of the customers.

What innovations has Carl Zeiss carried out to suit Indian customers?

We have special products aimed at the Indian markets. But our main aim is to look at the entire solution and build a long-term relationship with the right training and start-up support.

We aim for zero-defect right from day-one. We work closely with customers here to solve their problems and then enable them with new solutions. The findings here are taken to the global level.

We have put in place sales processes, wherein our people are trained to understand and study customer requirements. They then justify what technology is required to enable them to optimize their businesses. They also study in detail the production line from raw material to various operations. Later a right solution is developed. We have a very broad range of products and solutions – we have solutions for manufacturers with a very low measurement requirement to a very high (fractions of microns) precision need.

What is your plan on exports of co-ordinate measuring machines from India?

Since the last two years we have been building machines for the domestic market.

Our customers have appreciated this due to the cost effective nature of the setup. A lot of changes have taken place in the last two decades, and the needs of the customers have also changed. Our slogan for India is ‘Zeiss – your passport to export’.

Through this marketing strategy, we plan to put India at a global level with the equipments that we build here.

Production in India needs to be increased to promote and align with the ‘Make in India’ policy. Currently, we export from India to different countries.

What are the global market prospects and relevance of rapidly developing economies (RDE) markets?

Through exports, we look to make India a globally competitive market for it tops the rapidly developing economies (RDE) list today.

For us, being here means international quality is maintained in India and we ensure India is part of the International setup.

It makes me feel proud of our setup in India to see how the Indian manufacturing industry has moved up and we are a part of that.

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