Mr. Unnikrishnan shared how his journey from aviation infrastructure sales to building a specialised airport equipment business was shaped by regulatory shifts, strong after-sales focus, and long-term service commitments. He highlighted how expanding airport regulations and the push for Make in India gradually transformed the company from an importer to a manufacturing-led partner for airports and refineries across India.
Mubina Kapasi: So, Mr. Unnikrishnan, let me start off with you. From what we’ve seen, it’s a very niche business. It’s a highly technical business as well.
And I imagine barriers of entry are high, right? You need good funds, you need certain certifications, etc. So I just want to know your journey that led to the foundation and establishment of Analog. It was actually my job.
Unnikrishnan Nair: So, I started my career in aviation infrastructure in 2003. And started selling this baggage handling system. It was a good field to be in because a baggage handling system runs through the building.
So you get to know the architect, you get to know the electrical contractor. You come across and these are a little expensive system. So you get to talk to the promoters.
So two, three years I worked, there was no result. For two, three years because nobody wanted to buy the system. Then eventually IKO clamped down.
They said you must have this system. So then many airports bought this. And then actually I left this industry and tried to start a software company.
But I don’t know, a few months into this new field, I couldn’t survive in the software environment. So I came back to the equipment industry. So most of these airports had to be licensed.
Bangalore, Hyderabad had to be licensed by 2008, April. So they asked for this equipment. So in Europe, they all have associations of airport suppliers.
So the baggage handling system company introduced me to the fire engine company. They introduced me to another company, Runway Rubber Removal System. So that is how we grew.
And all that we sold. I had been a service engineer for several years. So all that, it’s great to sell a great system to a customer.
But if you don’t look after it, then they won’t come back to you. So we stressed on after-sales support very much. In fact, two years, two and a half years, initial period, we didn’t sell anything.
We had to stop and build up an after-sales network and a spare parts distribution. So that is how we grew. And today, we have about 100 old service engineers.
We have 10 times more service engineers than sales engineers. So it kind of evolved. I never planned.
I never made a business growth strategy or anything like that. So it just happened like that. And we were reasonably committed to the market for all the products that we sold.
Mubina Kapasi: So I hope I… So, I mean, of course, India’s airport expansion is well known. The government has set aside some very ambitious plans. I’d like to understand, currently, out of the entire pie of airports, how many are you catering to and how many are left that you’re, I’m sure, targeting?
Unnikrishnan Nair: We work with about 30 airports in India.
Yeah, the big ones, the tier-two cities, airports. So we work closely with about 30 airports in India.
Mubina Kapasi: What’s the nature of the contract like? Because, I mean, clearly, there’s a lot of different components to the kind of services you offer.
So it’s not like you sold it and you’re done. So what’s the nature of contracts that you enter into with all of these airports, the stickiness of it?
Unnikrishnan Nair: About 22 of these airports, we have people present every day. So they go into the airfield.
And most of the equipment that we sell has a regulatory aspect of it. So DGCA, Directors General of Civil Aviation in India, will come often and ask you for these reports, especially fire engines and run their rubber mobile machines. They must be maintained to a certain performance level.
And there are maintenance charts based on which the airports are rated or licenses are renewed. So we play an important role in through these contracts that we check all those regulatory aspects for performance of these fire engines. So all the service reports that we give, they are submitted to DGCA through the airport.
Yeah, so 22 airports, we are there every day. Rest of them, we visit once in a month and go and repair and or maintain and come back. And some refineries, we are present all the time.
Like Jamnagar, we have a strength of eight peoples. They go to the refinery every day. And some refineries like Pathalganga, Nagathane and all these refineries, we go once in a quarter or once in a month. So contracts differ.
Mubina Kapasi: What’s it like right now in terms of import versus make in India? I know you mentioned some numbers over there, but just to get a sense of what are your own capacities like right now? And to what extent your CAPEX is already done? So to what extent are we going to actually see that fructify in top line?
Unnikrishnan Nair: Yes, we were actually, to be frank, we were kind of pushed into that. OK, because we were living nice, comfortable, earning some commissions, selling some equipment and nice.
And then our prime minister completely disrupted the scene. He said, I’m going to cancel all tenders below 200 crores. So these manufacturers, they asked me, now you have to start this in India because otherwise we can’t bid.
The reason is every tender will have a service experience. So they can’t just go and find another company and bid for a project. So we had to be, I must say, reluctant partner in the beginning to this because it involved a lot of money.
We had to establish a factory. We have to now buy all these components, import all these components by paying foreign exchange. So we did that.
And looking back, I am grateful that we were pushed into that position. So we built runway rubber removal machines. So except for some very complex trucks, rest of the things, now today we built a platform that we can import components.
What we also did is that we didn’t buy a drawing or an engineering instruction. We got them to India. Some of these engineers from Germany, Austria stayed with us for many, many weeks.
We together built the trucks and we came into some kind of confidence. So today that has become the largest department within the company to make in India equipment. So it has been okay.
Mubina Kapasi: Excellent. I think that’s all from my side. Thank you very much once again for joining us.