Manufacturing Talks

Viren Popli from Mahindra talks to us about the farm tractor business

Jim Vinoski

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For Episode 141, we got a great education in the state of business for farm tractors. Mahindra is a tractor maker headquartered in India, and they happen to have the best-selling model in the world. The President and CEO of their North and South America business, Viren Popli, joined us to fill us in on all the latest and greatest in this vital manufacturing sector. Here are the highlights.

Chapters:
00:00 - intro
04:15 - Mahindra's overall business overview
06:00 - the India and China dynamic
08:30 - India's big opportunities over the next 10 to 15 years
11:15 - the farm equipment sales slowdown: inflation, politics, labor, commodities
16:00 - focus: mechanization
17:30 - tech solutions for the labor challenge - precision ag, autonomy
18:45 - the roles of AI and data
19:15 - the power needed to drive AI
27:30 - energy in India: primarily coal and solar
29:00 - nuclear
31:00 - Mahindra's start in the US: 20 years ago one guy in Texas, now 500 dealers in US and Canada, all family-owned
32:30 - new tractor line
33:15 - manufacturing in Detroit and Houston

Yep, it was a rich conversation! Check out the whole thing, and be sure to like, comment, and subscribe - and share it with your friends!