A major provider of elevators, escalators and cooling solutions in the country has embraced a new name to reflect a strategic shift for the building industry and address the changing demands of customers.
Concepcion Building and Industrial Solutions, the commercial division of Concepcion Industrial Corp., changed its name to Alstra. It remains the company behind Carrier, Otis and Toshiba brands in the Philippines.
“Alstra is a name we created. For us, it is synonymous to building solutions itself. It is the same business unit of Concepcion Industrial Corp. Only, we are trying to fit in more sophisticated solutions that will be the trend of the future,” said Alstra director and head of the building and industrial solutions group Rajan Komarasu.
Komarasu, who grew up in Singapore, studied in Australia and was posted in the Philippines in 2007, said the transformation idea was conceived three years ago, “when we said we needed to cater to what customers are looking for – the requirement of business to business.”
“This required us to totally look at the culture of organization, the people, the systems that we use. We said we need to change this but as we change we need to market ourselves as building solutions expert in the Philippines,” said Komarasu.
Komarasu said that in the Philippines it was a big challenge to change old habits, but “we had this huge progress to bringing the organization closer to customers.”
“We put in a lot of effort into the areas wherein people might not normally think we are capable of or not worthy of any effort like engineering and project management,” he said.
Assistance on engineering design starts right from the concept to implementation stage as well, he said.
Alstra will be carrying the same cooling solutions and vertical building solutions such as escalators and elevators.
With the rebranding, the company will introduce an expanded menu of building solutions including fire assistance, security protocols, lighting solution, controls and automation using IoT (Internet of Things) that can be packaged however the client wants it.
The trend in building solutions, Komarasu said, is slowly getting ahead of the game, “although, in the Philippines, the ones that can only procure these are the bigger companies. That’s why we’re slowly getting into the game.”
Alstra still caters to all segments of the construction industry, with projects in the manufacturing sector, hotels, restaurants, BPOs, service sectors and even banks.
It maintains its focus on the commercial and industrial side of the business without losing sight of its beginnings as Filipino white-line manufacturer Condura.
The company continues to manufacture and sell window-type air-conditioning units, its bread and butter once, but sales had since simmered into a single digit growth as it shifted its focus to more technically-challenging cooling solutions on a bigger scale in partnership with Carrier.
Condura-Carrier is the first air-conditioning brand in country to be ISO certified. By 2020, Alstra aims to have the entire company product line ISO-certified.
Alstra still holds the title as market leader in the air-conditioning industry quickly. While its vertical solutions in escalators and elevators have struggled in the past, it has since moved on to a comfortable pace due to consistency in quality and after-service.
“We want to make sure there’s consistency in everything we do. On top of this, we want to continue our CSR [corporate social responsibility]. So far, Alstra has spent more than 30,000 hours over the last three years educating our customers, our supply partners and some contractors about efficiency, safety and technology. We want to make sure we have the right partners and most of all, create synergies in the way we operate,” Komarasu said.
Mergers and acquisitions will remain part of the company’s expansion plan. “If we do not have the expertise for the solutions we are offering, then we make sure that we partner with the industry’s best experts,” he said.
Alstra’s sales in the first half of 2017 hit P1.8 billion, on track with the company’s target to grow revenues by 15 percent to 20 percent from 2016’s P3.5 billion.
This has not yet factored in about P2 billion worth of projects in the pipeline that started coming in the second half.
“Based on government figures, there might be a slowdown in construction activities in the next two to three years. Construction permits were down by 3 percent in the first half of 2017 compared to 2016. That’s what is in the PSA [Philippines Statistics Authority] site. Since we’ve expanded our portfolio, we don’t see this dilemma affecting our operations,” Komarasu said.
The big drop, he said, came from the Visayas region but the bigger share was still accounted by the National Capital Region.
“I think there’s gestation period going on. Although there’s a lot of commitment on the construction side but developers are pulling back as well. We believe that contractors and developers are moving forward with cautious sentiments. There are too many projects out there but because of shortage of manpower and professionals, there is this temporary impact. We believe this is temporary and will not be a lasting trend. What we see now as growing are industrial businesses and institutions,” he said.
Komarasu said the company would continue investing in more solutions and improving at least 90 solutions.
“As a business, we always need to think positive. We will be very cautious at the same time, so we can achieve our vision to reach P15-billion sales by 2020,” Komarasu said.
