Diplomatist: What does the Escorts Kubota Group stand for? What distinguishes EKL’s agri-machinery from other tractor and farm machinery manufacturers?
Rajiv Wahi: The Escorts Kubota Group is among India’s leading engineering conglomerates, operating in the high-growth sectors of agri-machinery, construction and material handling equipment and railway equipment. The agri-machinery group of Escorts Kubota Ltd. commenced its manufacturing operations in 1964 and since then has been using its experience and expertise to power and propel change in the farming landscape across the globe. The company strives for Spreading prosperity, Impacting lives.
With the cooperation between Escorts- India and Kubota of Japan, EKL is poised to reap the benefit of global synergies in frugal engineering and the cost of production of Escorts and technology, processes and global reach of Kubota. This ‘United in Strength’ spirit gives added advantage to all related stakeholders and customers.
Diplomatist: What markets do you serve? Where do you see the greatest capacity for growth, from a geographical as well as a product point of view?
Rajiv Wahi: EKL is keen to make an active contribution toward making a self-reliant, food-sufficient world. Farmtrac and Powertrac are leading brands of performance tractors from the house of EKL, present in more than 65 countries, catering to the versatile needs of Africa, Asia, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Americas. We see ourselves playing an active role in solving global food security challenges by offering our customer-centric Agri Solutions.
Diplomatist: The new challenge in agricultural equipment is digitization and connectivity. Is your company well-positioned to meet customer demand?
Rajiv Wahi: We understand the importance of digitization in today’s day and age. To keep up with the times, the great minds at the Escorts Group came up with Digitrac. Digitrac is EKL’s online tractor platform. All Digitrac tractors are an ideal mix of international vogue and comfort with options best suited to all farming operations. They offer a bunch of excellent features that are suitable for farming and non-farming operations. Thru an online app, the customer can choose the tractor with the desired features. The tractor is then delivered by the company to the customer’s doorstep. With maximum comfort and safety, it provides an amazing user experience. Tractor demo, sale, loan, and insurance formalities are completed effortlessly.
24×7 Care Button
An innovative and disruptive feature called the “24×7 Care Button” is available on EKL tractors in India. Customers can just press a special button on their tractor at any time of the day for any technical support or other help and receive a call back from a trained company engineer within two minutes. This way, we can always remain in direct contact with our customers and provide immediate assistance when the need arises. The company-trained team can also track the tractor thru this facility and reach for doorstep assistance. The company has a customer-centric approach and is always open to hearing the voice of the customer and encouraging continuous improvement.
Diplomatist: How are you educating farmers about the advantages that Escorts’ tractors offer?
Rajiv Wahi: The needs of the new generation of farmers are more than just acquiring a tractor. That’s why EKL is taking the initiative to help educate them, focusing on the four pillars that cater to the needs of farmers globally:
Building Capacity
Farmers need not just advanced machinery and quality seeds but also technical knowledge. Rapid farm mechanization will enable farmers to get better yields and higher productivity. More than that, it will increase their income and bring about economic stability in their lives.
Providing Crop Solutions
This entails becoming more than just a tractor manufacturer but also a provider of complete farming solutions. Our constant endeavour is to foster and strengthen agricultural solutions by providing tractors with a matching set of implements and attachments specific to customer needs, thus empowering farmers and agricultural setups locally to cultivate and grow more.
Empowering Farmers with Training
Our focus is to provide all required soft skills to the farmer to do agriculture profitability. To promote farmer entrepreneurship at the village and district levels, we have come up with crop solutions, pay per use, and farm solution schemes, wherein farmers will be able to learn about and use advanced farming technology. Our training center ETDC at Bangalore is one of its kind facility with both classroom and field training facilities with a wide range of tractors and attachments. From here we also provide extensive online and digital training to our global channel partners.
Establishing Regional Access to Spare Parts
Our duty does not only end with imparting training and providing the tools. To provide holistic support and take care of all the post-purchase needs, we are setting up regional spare parts hubs in all continents. This will give farmers the convenience of easily accessing spare parts and service repairs for their tractors and implements.
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