tesa tapes (I) Pvt. Ltd., a subsidiary of Hamburg-headquartered tesa SE group (sales in 2009 at euro 747 million), a leading maker of technical adhesive tapes and self-adhesive system solutions, has set up its second facility in India.
The second unit has come up at Mahindra World City Industrial Park at Singaperumal Koil, some 45 km from here. Set up at an investment of euro 2.4 million, the converting centre has come up on a 2,300-sq. ft space.
According to Pradip S. Sachan, Managing Director of the Indian subsidiary, work on the facility began last September. The plant went on stream on Wednesday, inside nine months, he pointed out.
Mr. Sachan said the state-of-the-art converting centre also housed a quality testing facility. The facility, he said, would commence with an initial staff strength of 25. It had the capacity to make six million sq. ft. of adhesive tapes, he added. He said around 25 per cent of the initial staff at the facility comprised women. Stating that it was a capital-intensive business, he said much of the staff were drawn from the neighbourhood.
Matthias von Schwerdtner, President (Asia Pacific), tesa tape Asia Pacific Pte Ltd., told The Hindu that as a strategy, the company always moved closer to its clients. In this context, he pointed to clients such as Ford, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, BMW and Hyundai, who were located in a triangle from the plant vicinity. Proximity to clients and logistics drove tesa to Mahnidra World City more than anything else, he said.
Mr. Schwerdtner said tesa saw Asia as a new booming market. Also for tesa, electronics and automotive areas were “new booming segments”. With so many electronics and automobile units sprouting up around Chennai, tesa saw justifiable logic in moving to Mahindra World City.
tesa, it may be recalled, has already a unit in Navi Mumbai running for the last 15 years or so. Technical adhesive tapes from tesa have been well known in the Indian market for the last 60 years. It entered India in early 1950s through a co-operative arrangement with Parry & Co. Later on, tesa partnered Goa-based Cosme Matias Menezes Ltd. When the second plant was conceived, the project was named ‘jump step'.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Schwerdtner was optimistic about tesa expanding its hold in the Indian market.
