The equipment owners often find it difficult to get spare parts for their machinery from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) after the initial warranty expires. These owners often have to rely on aftermarket suppliers to buy and replace these parts. Moreover upgraded versions of these machines come up every year, making it even more difficult to find the right part among different models, makes, and versions. YantraLive wants to address this issue. It is a Bengaluru-headquartered startup’s B2B digital platform acts as a one-stop shop for heavy equipment and their parts, spares, consumables, and services for buyers.
Constrofacilitator had one to one conversation with Avinash Sangurmath – Co-founder and Head of Sourcing and Fulfillment at YantraLive. During this conversation he shared insights on how the company was conceived, its services, new categories are being launched, the drivers and key challenges in the heavy equipment space and planned roadmap for the future of the company.
- How the idea of YantraLive was conceived and how far has it succeeded in its vision?
Overall ecosystem in heavy equipment operations has been digitally laggard – “Industry 4.0” has not yet majorly touched this industry and it still operates as a very traditional industry. As a result, the economic value produced per person in construction and mining has not changed in the last 2 decades.
There is a strong need for an ecosystem of players who develop networks and derive value from. Key catalysts for our existence are
- India is being built – This is the biggest thing that is happening this decade. Look at the 2022 budget – Lots of focus on Infrastructure development
- There are NOT many tech start-ups focusing on this sector. Most of the investments are in fin-tech / consumer-tech. This is a tough problem to solve.
- These trends are not just in India but in many developing countries globally. So our opportunity is massive and global in nature
We as technology experts and serial entrepreneurs saw this as a segment ripe for digital innovation and started YantraLive around 4 years back.
- Yantra Live is a digital platform for pre-owned heavy equipment, and Heavy Equipment parts, consumables and services
- YL is a technology company that has made 2 key promises to the Construction Equipment industry
- Hassle free equipment ownership
- Reduce Equipment downtime
- YL has created a digital platform called HEOS (Heavy Equipment Ownership Simplified) – to solve the critical challenges and issues faced by the Construction Equipment industry to digitise and supercharge the current human network ecosystem
- What services does YantraLive provide to eliminate the Downtime & Idle time of Heavy Equipment through technology-led Innovations?
YantraLive operates in the following categories of Product and offers through its HEOS platform
Spare Parts & Components: Heavy engineering equipment uses a wide range of components across hydraulics, engines, under-carriage and consumables categories. These parts are catered to a wide range of suppliers including OEM dealers, suppliers to the OEMs and after-market providers. With more than 10mn SKUs, part sourcing is complex and is fraught with inefficiencies. YantraLive, through its technology-enabled operations, is providing a solution to clients that hitherto were unavailable.
The list of product categories that are currently catered to include the following:
- Hydraulic pumps and assemblies
- Ground Engaging parts including undercarriage and tooth points
- Engine components
- Filters and Seal-kits
- Heavy Equipment body parts
- Lubricants
- Stone Crusher parts
- Rock Breaker and other attachments
We offer these categories of products for a wide range of OEMs including Hitachi, JCB, Sany, Komatsu, Kobelco, Hyundai, Volvo, Hamm, Puzzolona and several others.
Services & Repair: The high number and variety of parts, combined with the remote conditions where the equipment is deployed poses a challenge to equipment owners in obtaining the right quality of service technicians. YantraLive is solving this problem by creating a services marketplace and having qualified service technicians available to be deployed.
Equipment Refurbish & Resale: The life of Heavy Equipment usually lasts around 10000 hours of operations and on average Heavy Equipment get traded a few times during its life. Given the harsh conditions in which the Heavy Equipment operates, assessing the health of the machine and repair/refurbishing become an important aspect. Our deep expertise in Parts and Services provides us the ability to address this need.
- What new categories are being launched by the company to enhance its market penetration across India?
Most of the infrastructure development is happening in Bharat Market (tier2 and tier 3 towns). To cater to this market we have started opening Dark stores which are our phygital stores where order can be done online and material can either be picked up or despatched from dark store nearby.
We are also working with select retailers and developing special program to build business in their market.
- What are the drivers and key challenges in the heavy equipment space and startup ecosystem?
The construction industry comprises close to 10% of GDP and growing at a rate of 15% CAGR. On the back of massive infra development push by the Central Government such as the National Infrastructure Pipeline, creating 100 new airports, smart cities and metro projects, the outlook of the Infrastructure and Construction industry is bullish. Subsequently, the InfraTech funding is at the inflection point with the global VC investment in this space reaching USD 5 billion and expected to double in the next 3 years.
While there has been progress with core construction related technology, disruptive technology led innovations has so far eluded the construction industry. Such innovations are largely driven from outside the industry with technology start-ups leading the way in bringing in technology led disruptions. This is not easy in the Infrastructure and Construction industry owing the nature of the business: remote locations, terrain constraints, onsite heavy execution, large number of sub-contractors. These have posed high entry barriers for technology start-ups and thereby a scarcity of start-ups innovating in this area.
The heavy equipment area – an important prime mover of the industry, is mired with inefficient equipment operations and downtime that significantly elongate the critical path for construction firms and are revenue killers for fleet owners. Bringing-in efficiency in this sector requires innovations in the parts and services marketplace and the need to work with a large number of small and mid-size contractors across the breadth of the country. This is an activity that neither large construction firms nor OEMs have the ability or the willingness to innovate. This is an area that is waiting for technology start-ups to step-in and it is this opportunity that we at YantraLive are tapping into.
- What is the planned roadmap for the future of the company?
YantraLive is planning to grow in three dimensions.
- We want to scale our fintech services to pan india
- We are adding more product categories and we have recently started serving stone crusher segment
- Geographically we have been focused on Karnataka and Maharashtra. We want to go deeper in each district of India.