Shell Lubricants, the global market leader in finished lubricant launched ‘Power of Partnerships’ in Mumbai, to encourage industry collaboration and harness relationships to achieve operational efficiency together. The campaign is an extension of ‘Together, Anything is Possible’ (TAIP), the first global brand positioning for Shell B2B Lubricants, introduced last year. Moving forward from TAIP, which first introduced the concept of reducing ‘Total Cost of Ownership’ (TCO), ‘Power of Partnerships’ aims to demonstrate the significance of powerful collaborations in advancing industries and helping companies overcome their challenges now and in the future.
Highlighting the message of forging strong alliances, Shell launched ‘The Bat Doctor’ video, featuring Mr. Ram Bhandari, a celebrity bat doctor, who has made bats for cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, to name a few. The video demonstrates the importance of striking the right partnerships across situations to brew a solution for success; just as the cricketers’ bats were instrumental to their own.
As part of its renewed focus on building greater collaboration with customers, Shell Lubricants undertook a study to understand lubrication practices in the manufacturing and construction sectors in India. Findings reveal that India’s manufacturers are engaged and optimistic about Industry 4.0 technologies, with 46% of those surveyed anticipating that the resulting savings could exceed INR 33 million. India’s construction companies on the other hand recognise the benefits of a proactive maintenance approach but are not necessarily succeeding in its implementation. 86% of those surveyed believe that effective equipment maintenance can lead to cost savings, but 82% still feel that maintenance is often deprioritised until there is a breakdown. An absence of senior management engagement in the importance of maintenance has come to light as one barrier to effective preventative action.
The findings shed significant light on lack of expertise, third-party support combined with under-resourced teams, hindering the widespread uptake of new technologies and effective lubrication practices. There are also concerns about the implications on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) with majority companies expecting TCO to increase as a result of introducing new technologies.
In light of this, collaboration will be key to unlocking progress. Optimising lubrication can have a significant impact on component life, maintenance costs, and unplanned downtime, and as such, can contribute to reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and improved equipment productivity.
With the ‘Power of Partnerships’ campaign, Shell Lubricants, together with OEMs and industry experts, aims to help bridge the gap, with the industry knowledge, people & expertise, and strong relationships to help deliver value to customers and support them in daily maintenance challenges. Shell today offers its expert technical services, including a mobile chat application called LubeChat, designed to help customers upskill their teams and provide the services they need to implement effective equipment lubrication.
Speaking with TIMES INTERNATIONAL on the occasion, Mr. Troy Chapman – Vice President, Global B2B and OEM Marketing, Shell Lubricants said, “As a part of our continuing promise on building greater collaborations with our customers, Shell Lubricants has undertaken an extensive exercise to understand the current lubrication practices and core challenges that affect industrial operations. Companies realise that proper maintenance is important but are not set up to succeed. Maintenance teams are under strain, and lacking knowledge around effective lubrication. Hence, we are aligning our Global outlook to reach out to our customers better, offer our people expertise to ensure we can all power progress together.”
Adding to this, Ms. Mansi Tripathy, Country Head of Shell Lubricants India Cluster said to TIMES INTERNATIONAL, “At Shell Lubricants, we pride ourselves on working closely together with customers to help improve their equipment maintenance practices and enhance their competitive advantage, now and in the future. This sharing of expertise will become only more valuable to help companies navigate the changes that lie ahead. We have helped companies in India achieve cost savings of close to INR 57 crores as of today, helping them enhance their competitive advantage.”