GILCO GLOBAL, SPECIALISTS IN THE FIELD OF MOBILITY SOLUTIONS FOR COUNTLESS APPLICATIONS
Gilco Global was founded in 2014 by Aman Moudgil and Gaurav Moudgil through a collaboration with ORONA S. Co-op, a renowned Spanish elevator group. Along with prior experience in construction, Gaurav and Aman have specialization in Engineering Design & Construction Project Management.
Gaurav and Aman faced several challenges in the initial stage. For starters, creating resources as per the market requirements was tough. The challenge was building brand awareness for ORONA. ORONA is one of the leading elevator companies globally, with a network of over 3,00,000 solutions across 100 countries. Gilco Global being the representative of the ORONA Group in India, had the sole responsibility of creating as much brand awareness as possible in India. For over eight years, Gilco Global has been extending the philosophy of ORONA in India with its exceptional customer service and quality products.
In a conversation with the CEO Review Magazine, Aman throws light on the journey. He talks, at length, about the struggles, experiences, challenges, goals, and more. Read the excerpts from the interview with the Director to know more about the company.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of Gilco Global Pvt Ltd right now?
The biggest strength that we possess is the passion and commitment that you can see in the organization. Some measurable differentiating factors are as follows:
- We are offering 100% European quality at competitive prices. Being European quality, they conform to the latest standards as per the Lift/ machine directive and hence carry an assurance of quality, safety and comfort.
- We also offer comprehensive support to our customers by helping them execute preparatory works (if necessary) to integrate a mobility solution within their facility.
- With our in-house installation and maintenance team, we can render efficient services to our customers through our minimal response times. Furthermore, our in-house team assures quality deliverance of our solutions.
- A wide range of solutions makes us competent to offer mobility solutions to our customers in diverse environments and buildings/ structures with no earlier provision. We have several success stories in this domain.
- As Indian market is very cost conscious and many a times average Indian buyer is unable to opt for high quality products in lieu of cost constraints, we are amongst early players in this sector in India to introduce Financing* option for our solutions. The aim of this move is to make high quality solutions more affordable for the average customer.
What short and long-term goals do you have for the Company?
The short-term goals include boosting cash flows through increased sales with supported infrastructure growth to contain the additional assets. Long-term goals include expanding brand awareness and operations across multi-tier cities in India.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
From my experience, the struggle is a common denominator in leadership across levels in any organization. It reminds me of the quote by the famous American author, Napoleon Hill – “Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle”. While the aspects of struggle may vary from one person to the other and from one level to another in an organization, it is a common factor I have observed in a growing organization.
We have battled several struggles, from cash flow crisis to resource identification and operational nitty-gritties and managing the business in the pandemic. But with every struggle, we got stronger in handling similar problems in the future. If comparing with our competition, our unique selling propositions are:
- Offering a European product & quality at competitive prices.
- Comprehensive support to our customers by helping them execute preparatory works (if necessary) to integrate a mobility solution within their facility.
- In-house installation and maintenance team, we can render efficient services to our customers through minimal response times. Furthermore, our in-house team assures quality deliverance of our solutions.
- A wide range of solutions makes us competent to offer mobility solutions to our customers in diverse environments and buildings/ structures with no earlier provision. We have several success stories in this domain.
- From the economic sustainability perspective, we aim to achieve even more competitive and efficient vertical transport solutions. Moreover, we promote the research capacity of collaborating companies to generate high added-value products and services.
- While these USPs set us apart from the competition. It induces benefit to our customers due to the higher value they are getting. It also burdens us due to competitive prices and noncomparable awareness levels in the Indian market compared to Europe. There the customers are more aware and better understand the quality aspects when making a purchase.
What is Gilco Global’s competitive advantage in the marketplace?
With all global giants already present in the Indian market for over decades and most of them manufacturing the solutions partly in their factories in India, the competition here is fierce.
Furthermore, the ‘cheapest being the best’ mentality of the consumers makes the task even more difficult for us when we are offering a superior product carrying the specifications offered in European markets. While we are offering very competitive prices to strengthen our foothold in this market, we are more on the lookout for the customers who are evaluating their purchases wisely and do an apple-to-apple comparison for evaluation.
If compared from a life-cycle perspective, our solution would be the cheapest and best in terms of value due to inherent quality and world-class manufacturing practices. However, we have also tailored some solutions whereby we are more competitive in maintaining the EN81 standards for quality and safety.
How has Gilco Global Pvt Ltd changed over the years?
The journey started with several challenges in creating resources needed to sustain marketing, sales, after-sales, and back-office processes. The biggest challenge was brand awareness of ORONA, which is among the top elevator companies. It has a strong network of over 3,00,000 solutions in over 100 countries and the largest lift production capacity in Europe, but unknown in India. Gilco-Global represents Orona Group in the Indian market.
ORONA is the first company to be certified under Eco-design (ISO 14006). Gilco Global extends the philosophy and quality of ORONA in India and is present in India for over eight years rendering its customer with quality products and services. Success with ORONA in India paved the way for collaborations like HIDRAL S.A, ECOSPACE IT, DHLLUIS, ESCAPE MOBILITY, and AEROSWEEP making us offer a range of mobility solutions to our customers, a feat that separates us from any single company in India. Our knowledge and experience in design and construction have several success stories wherein we integrated a mobility solution for our customers by undertaking civil work with mobility solution works.
What are the dynamics of Gilco Global Pvt Ltd with Pandemic?
While the pandemic came surrounded by a lot of uncertainty and pandemonium, our careful planning and teamwork during that time helped us become more efficient in operations through remote techniques in our workplace. Despite the sector being very primitive in practice and philosophy, we used remote techniques to conduct team training sessions using video conferencing, something that we have adopted in regular use as we carry out our training and seminars using remote adaptable technologies. Also, the safety protocols introduced during the pandemic are continued in our offices and job sites.
How do you encourage creative thinking within your organization?
The ethos of our organizational philosophy has been resting on building an organization through creating leadership at various levels and the team working synergistically to drive the vision of the company as it evolves with time. No leadership can be created without a sense of responsibility that is unfathomed with creative thinking and accountability. We also promote exchanging of views during our leadership meets which happen once a month.
Where do the great ideas come from in your organization?
We have observed that the best ideas originate through social interactions. We at Gilco Global provide a conducive environment for all our team members to give ideas to promote growth and an encouraging environment in the workplace. Furthermore, our sales team participates in exhibitions, seminars, and industry group meets where they get a lot of ideas on market requirements, competition metrics, consumer behavior, etc after interaction with customers, industry experts, etc. The results of these exercises are discussed within our team to help evolve our marketing and sales strategy.
Which is most important to your organization—mission, core values, or vision?
Personally speaking, Core Values are something that I can never deviate from, either on a personal note or even from the organization’s perspective. The core values of GILCO GLOBAL have always rested on principles to ensure that the customer is happy.
How do you or other leaders in your organization communicate the core values?
The leadership at GILCO GLOBAL PVT LTD are industry stalwarts who have been known in the industry for their commitment, integrity, and sincerity all which comprise of the important core values inherent in GILCO GLOBAL also. While, within the organization, all recruits are communicated about the same DIRECTLY by the respective mentors; to the market the same is communicated INDIRECTLY through our deliverance and experience with the customers.
While we try to work closely to understand the project requirements and propose the most efficient solution for the customer, we also work closely to ensure that we work towards integrating the mobility solution irrespective of our defined battery limits in the work scope. Our focus is to work closely with the customer to solve his problem and make sure that the process is smooth & effortless for him (even extending our scope of engagement many times and without any added cost). We are very strict in terms of maintaining integrity which is something omnipresent at all levels in our organization.
What is the best advice you can give to our readers? It cannot be better than the famous quote by Steve Jobs – “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, dare to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Briefly describe what solutions does GILCO GLOBAL provide to its customers?
Gilco Global specializes in the field of mobility solutions for a variety of applications including elevators, escalators, moving walks, dumbwaiters, car elevators, car docks, and automated car parking solutions for urban infrastructure (i.e., use in hotels, hospitals, residential housing structures, commercial, industrial, etc.) and solutions for the aviation sector including gate seating, friction matt sweepers for the runway, etc. With our vision and intent aligned with delivering high-quality solutions to our customers, Gilco Global partners with leading manufacturers from around the world to provide high-quality products and services to its customers.
