An Interview with Sivakumar Narayanan
Executive Vice President, Marketing and Business Development
Uster Technologies AG, Switzerland.
TEXtalks: What is the big idea behind the concept “Assistant Q”?
Sivakumar Narayanan: “Assistant Q” – those who have visited the USTER booth at ITMA Asia + CITME 2016 or ITME 2016 they probably have seen that this is a big story. Today, there is a lot of information and data in front of our customers but there is no time to analyze it, there is no experience or knowledge to actually conclude the data and take some action out of it. So “Assistant Q” is trying to do both those things: Analyzing the data, taking USTER’s experience and knowledge and bring it into some conclusion that our customers can use and get some benefits out of it. In other words, it tries to bridge the gap between generating data and converting data into an action. “Assistant Q” is an embodiment of the USTER knowledge so we say; he is 65 years old, he is being educated at the USTER quality university and he will grow in knowledge because when he is an assistant he is also learning from the cases at the same time. So at the end of the day, he brings his knowledge but he is also gaining customer’s knowledge. Ultimately, we think that he provides benefits like translating data into tangible results for spinners. This is the essential idea behind “Assistant Q”.
TEXtalks: What does sustainability and industry 4.0 mean to USTER?
Sivakumar Narayanan: Everybody is hyping industry 4.0 and sustainability and all these topics. I will keep it simple. For USTER, both of these topics are related to one thing: How do we keep our customers more sustainable? How do we keep their profitability more sustainable? And how do we sustain their reputation? So, for us industry 4.0 and all these things are technologies that can be used but ultimately with a goal of somehow making a customer continuously successful. Sustainability is the same thing. It’s not about green and clean and all these stuff only, of course they also mean a lot to many people but for us it’s about our customers being substainably successful over the time.
TEXtalks: What are USTER’s main products and how important is the Pakistani market for your products?
Sivakumar Narayanan: One of the things that I know about the Pakistani market is that this is indeed a market we are proud of. Every customer in that market has high expectations of us and given a lot of support for many, many years. In fact, our history goes back to seven decades in that market and we are also fortunate to have good people in our company through our agents SIMAG and Rauf Electronic, actually very experienced and competent people to keep customers satisfied and to get the best out for them.
As far as products go, in fact the Pakistani market is one of those markets which take all of our products. But specifically these days, contamination is a big topic so we see a lot of USTER® fiber cleaning systems going to this market. The USTER® QUANTUM 3 is been very popular in that market since its introduction. In fact, the USTER® QUANTUM 3 is the most selling yarn clearer in Pakistan. So, those are the products moving fast into that market but recently of course USTER® TESTER 6 has started taking off. Pakistan is one of those markets that understand the idea of the Total Testing Center and spinners have trusted USTER to imagine and actually come up with something like this that has value for them. In some cases they are even replacing their old ones to go with a new USTER® TESTER 6 with its vision to fulfil total testing.
TEXtalks: As an innovative company what are USTER’s goals in the coming years?
Sivakumar Narayanan: Our customers know that we are continuously innovating. When customers come to visit USTER at exhibitions they experience something new and this won’t be any different in future. One of our focus areas will be the Total Testing Center. We will try to add more and more connectivity, knowledge and intelligence to the system and also customers experience so that the spinners are ultimately able to realize the benefits that we are talking about which is profitability, going as far as building up their market reputation.
