Dear Shareholders,
The past year has been full of resilience, hope and negotiating the constant shift in the external environment. While we started the year on a positive market sentiment, along with the vaccination drives, the second wave of the pandemic, tested our endurance. We will forever remember the colleagues at Schaeffler India, those whom we lost to the pandemic, and we stand by their families firmly. In this message we once again extend our deepest condolences to all the families who lost their loved ones to the pandemic. The uncertainty and unpredictability of the situation tested the strength of our ecosystem. Despite being in difficult and volatile circumstances we as an organisation, continued to demonstrate agility and resolve, which reflected in our performance.
Yielding the right results
The year 2021 has been a game changer for us as all our three business segments continued on their growth trajectory posting all-round growth. As the economic activities gradually gained momentum, at Schaeffler we stayed the course in driving our sustained countermeasures. This coupled with our continued focus on customercentricity, innovation and agility enabled the strong top and bottom-line performance. Throughout the year we witnessed headwinds in the form of rising raw material prices and supply chain challenges, however we acted swiftly and realigned our strategies to put us on the right course. As we move ahead, we will continue to demonstrate the same rigour and passion across our performance and an unwavering commitment towards value creation.
Strengthened by localisation
The strategic decisions we have taken over the last few years gave us the operational strength to capture the market opportunities. Our continued investments and localised sourcing strategies helped us increase our efficiencies and capabilities gave us the advantage to serve our customers across the geographies seamlessly. In addition, our strong focus on optimizing our logistics network and demand management ensured supply remains strong despite the tremors felt due to global supply chain disruptions.
Our, increased focus on local R&D is aiding us build stronger customer relations with a wider portfolio of customized offerings meet our market requirements. We have introduced several localized products across business segments which helped to grow business not only in India but in other geographies as well. Our home-grown brand TruPower continues to support our market expansion and penetration as we extended our range of offerings. Our focus to increase localisation at an organizational level is showing the right results as we continue our journey on this path.
Learning through collaboration
We at Schaeffler are constantly aiming to be successful in our core business activities in a currently volatile market which is undergoing extraordinary changes. Thus, answering the question of how to deal with these circumstances is essential to the future success of our organization. For this, the Schaeffler Group has laid out six clear goals and leadership essentials across all levels of management. These essentials act as a driving force for us to demonstrate effective leadership, collaboration, and care at work. There is constant dialogue and exchange of ideas by the executive leadership team on these essentials with an aim to create the best possible work environment for our people so that they can grow in both professional and personal capacities. This became more relevant over the past two years as we dealt with the challenges posed by the pandemic. Our employees are the pulse of the organization and their efforts and engagement in such trying times is reflected in the performance.
Making strong ESG commitments
The world is transitioning toward a greener economy – and so are we, in line with our value of doing business right, taking responsibility for tomorrow. Schaeffler as a Group has a commitment to be Climate Neutral by 2040, with intermediate targets of:
We at Schaeffler India have embarked on a structured ESG journey in line with this strategy to contribute to our global targets. Over the years we have already made significant progress in reduction of our carbon footprint as well as water neutrality in our manufacturing units, but with this path clearly laid out we aim to lead ahead in building a sustainable tomorrow. A step further in this direction is the setting up of the dedicated Large Size Bearings Refurbishing Centre in Jamshedpur to enable our customers achieve their sustainable production goals by offering efficient and sustainable solutions across the value chain.
We have set ambitious targets for ourselves, and the journey will be challenging to say the least. But we are clear that this is the right journey we must undertake. I also believe it is the beginning of an exciting period, and together as a team we will be able to reach our goals.
Innovation: Key to a sustainable future
We believe sustainable products are the building blocks of the future, and we continue to invest in advanced technologies.
In India we are developing our knowledge capability and competency leveraging our Group’s know-how on technologies that will drive the future of mobility and motion. Our Global Mechatronics centre in Pune became operational during the year and we are ramping-up our competency here, to support and contribute to Schaeffler Group’s innovative and future ready solutions. As the centre matures, we are confident that we will be able to leverage their skills and knowledge for various projects in India over the coming years.
The energy chain of green hydrogen is a pathway to a carbon neutral, sustainable future and one of the key milestones is the ability to produce hydrogen on an industrial scale. As an integrated industrial and automotive supplier, Schaeffler India is well placed to leverage collaboration and synergies across multiple disciplines to develop and produce technologies for the hydrogen industry.
Investing in the future
We have strengthened our capacity and are actively investing in innovation to leverage upcoming opportunities. We are also investing in a greenfield project in Hosur to expand capacity for automotive transmission and systems manufacturing at an investment of ` 3,000 million over the next four years.
Customer centricity remains of utmost importance, and we will continue to build on our relations, actively engaging with them at all times. Our ability to predict and forecast evolving customer needs, our preparedness to adapt to the changes and our agility in responding have played important roles in helping us. With the Indian growth story gaining a strong momentum, we are building on technology, competency, and wherewithal to drive significant business in the country across all our segments
In conclusion
I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to our employees, suppliers and distributors who have worked relentlessly to ensure that we continue to serve our customers through the extremely challenging year. I am also grateful to all our stakeholders who continue to support and engage with us in our journey.
Sincerely,
Harsha Kadam
