Bull took rival by the horns and won

What will a local manufacturer do when suddenly confronted by an MNC with a court order to shut it down, just when it was attending an international exhibition? Most would fold up.
But not this Coimbatore-based manufacturer, who had just entered the earth-moving equipment segment. He not only moved court and won the case, but also approached the Competition Commission of India against the MNC. This resilience helped his company achieve a turnover of `600 crore last year and it looks set to touch `900 crore this year.
“It was Excon 2011 in Bengaluru and we had set up a stall and placed our first product on display. To our shock, a large posse of lawyers walked in, served the court order and forced us to shut the stall as well as the factory in Coimbatore,” says Parthiban, MD, Bull Machines (P) Limited.
The contention was that the Bull product looked like the one manufactured by the MNC, which had a patent for the shape. “Even though top legal luminaries represented the MNC, we argued that all autorickshaws look the same from a distance. Does that mean no competition exists there? We got the stay vacated and eventually won the case after an 11-year legal battle,” says Parthiban.
Parthiban’s entrepreneurial journey started much earlier in the 1990s, when after getting a diploma he joined his father’s foundry unit, which made castings for large OEMs such as Ashok Leyland and TAFE. “However much we focus on ensuring quality, OEMs tend to source from those who offer lower price. That’s when I decided to make our own products and sell them directly in the market,” he says.
During a tour of Europe, he saw a tractor with attachments used for multiple tasks. Parthiban established a new company with about `8 lakh investment and a 1,500 sqft manufacturing shed in 1997 to make ‘attachments’ for tractors. There were no takers for the first product. They finally sold it at 60% of the cost price. They made another product and sold it. But the tractor broke into two because of the workload.
By this time, more than money, Parthiban had lost about three years. He learned the hard way that products should cater to Indian needs and terrain. There was no looking back after that. Parthiban soon became the leading player in that category in India, thanks to association with tractor majors such as Mahindra and John Deere.
What next? Parthiban had noticed the earth-moving equipment market was expanding fast, dominated by MNCs and a few large Indian players. He decided to enter that segment in 2007. His first product rolled out in 2011, and that’s when the MNC confronted him.
“We sustained our efforts and rolled out a range of products. Buyers were initially sceptical about our products. Even finance companies were not coming forward to extend loans to buyers,” says Parthiban. He threw an open challenge offering `50,000 if a buyer found products of the rival MNC better than Bull machines. This not only attracted eyeballs, but also sales interest. Word of mouth soon spread to open the overseas market. At present, the company is growing at 50% YoY.
“We don’t compete on price but on quality and performance. While selling a `35 lakh machine, a `50,000 discount will not be a game-changer. The operational cost plays a role and we score on that front,” says Parthiban, whose company now exports backhoe loaders to 63 countries in Africa, Middle East and Far East. “In about two years, we will directly export to the US and Europe,” says Parthiban.