BEML hires IIM (B) to become Rs 10,000 crore company

"We have appointed a consultant –IIM Bangalore Strategic Management Group – to look at how to take BEML to be a Rs 10,000 crore company in five years (from 2011-12 to 2016-17)", company's Chairman and Managing Director V R S Natarajan said./

According to Natarajan, BEML plans to reach its ambitious goal by diversification, expansion and export. He added that the company was looking to start acting on the IIMB strategy road-map report by March 31 or first quarter of the next fiscal.

The Bangalore-headquartered Mini-Ratna company clocked a turnover of Rs 3,558 crore in 2009-10 and is set to cross the Rs 4,000 crore mark in the current fiscal. It is projected to reach Rs 5,000 crore in the coming financial year, Natarajan added.

As per an earlier plan, BEML was targeting to become a Rs 5,000 crore company only in 2013-14, but faster-than- expected growth enabled it to achieve the milestone much ahead of the schedule.

Natarajan said the company has now decided to foray into manufacture of dredgers – an annual Rs 6,000 crore market in India – with the support of the Ministry of Shipping and is confident of converting this into Rs 1,000 crore for BEML in next three years.
BEML is now scouting for technology partners for this new line of business. India currently imports dredgers.

"We are also now getting into products to be supplied to freight corridors", Natarajan added.The company, which executes outsourced projects that amount to 60-65 per cent of its total production across all the categories, says it wants to take that figure to 75 per cent in the next two-three years.

"We want to be assembly-driven company," the CMD said.BEML’s current order book runs into Rs 4,700 crore and it expects contracts worth at least Rs 3,000 crore vis-à-vis mining and construction equipment, rail and metro coaches and defence sector in the next six months.

Natarajan said BEML has envisaged a capital expenditure of Rs 2,000 crore in the next five years. He was upbeat on company's export prospects and termed Indonesia, Syria and its neighbouring regions and the UAE as "great markets".Natarajan said BEML would pursue opportunities in rail, metro and freight-corridor segments in Syria and the UAE.