The Hindu Business Line : Stanley Works soon to supply consumer tools in India

Stanley Works Inc of the US, a $4-billion company that produces consumer tools such as spanners and screw-drivers, will begin to supply its products in India soon. Towards that end, the company is setting up a 40,000 sq ft warehouse near Delhi.

According to Mr Alex Judson Claypool, Vice-President - Business Development, Asia, the annual Indian demand for spanners alone was worth $110 million (Rs 500 crore). He said that the company's 18-month-long research revealed that consumers such as auto mechanics buy cheap tools that are of good quality.

Acquisitions

Mr Claypool said Stanley Works would also consider options such as acquiring an Indian company and set up a greenfield project. "There are not large companies to acquire since the consumer and industrial tools manufacturing sector in India was a lot fragmented," he said.

Stanley Works' tools are used in construction, surveying, demolition, assembly lines and maintenance of factories, machines, railways and aircrafts. Its consumer tools include mechanics tools, carpentry hand tools, storage products and hardware.

Manufacturing

It also has manufacturing arrangements with Indian manufacturers to service its global market. The same arrangement would be expanded to service the domestic market as well. Further, some of its products meant exclusively for India would be manufactured at Stanley Works' Thailand and Taiwan factories, he said.

Apart from selling in the Indian market, Stanley Works is also looking to establish engineering support services and back-office outsourcing work to leverage all the resources available in India. This is in keeping with the company strategy to become more competitive globally, he said.

According to sources in the industry, the growing demand for consumer and industrial tools is attracting multinationals such as Irwin, Danaher and Cooper Tools to India. It may be recalled Snap-On, a $2.5 billion American company, announced its India foray last year with its hand tools, power tools, equipment division and cutting tools.