CEO Insights India

A dearth of skilled manpower in the equipment manufacturing domain causes delays in providing realtime solutions to the organizations. Chaitanya Reddy Velagala, Managing Director of Keyrock Mining Solutions, started his company which attends to their clients immediately in time of requirement and makes sure the item is delivered on time. Keyrock Mining Solutions is a leading productivity partner of Epiroc Mining India for the mining, heavy civil infrastructure. They develop and produce innovative drill rigs, rock excavation and construction equipment and provide world class services and consumables.

Chaitanya Reddy Velagala has completed his Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical & Electronics from Anna University, Chennai and his Master of Sciences in Electrical & Electronics from Rochester Institute of Technology. He worked as a Software Consultant in the US & Canada for five years before moving back to India. His interest in Infrastructure and Equipment led him to start Keyrock Mining Solutions in the year 2020. He also runs a restaurant named ‘EatnPlay’ which he started in the year 2010. With his hard work and dedication, he has brought lots of laurels to Keyrock Mining Solutions.

Chaitanya Reddy Velagala engages in an exclusive interaction with the CEO Insights Magazine.

Tell us about Keyrock Mining Solutions’ presence and impact across the Equipment Manufacturing Domain.
We started as a distributor for Epiroc Mining India and being a niche segment in infrastructure, Initially, we needed to spend a lot of time visiting project sites to understand the technical part briefly, applications, and competition in the market. This segment is highly unorganized and being from a

technical background, we wanted to bring structure to handle the processes and products. After realizing the gap of skilled manpower in this segment, we started making policies within our company which is an “employee first” to cater to the requirement of skilled manpower. Here we created an environment in which employees feel comfortable sharing concerns, feel their voice heard and respected, and see opportunities for growth and diversity. This allowed them to express their opinion because when the employee is happy, he will make sure that the company delivers.

Tell us about the kind of customer experience you deliver through your products and services. What are the value additions you offer to customers?
The main problem with this industry is skilled manpower, the stock availability where the customer has to shut down their machine even if there is a small spare missing part which will incur them huge amount of loss on productivity. We make sure that the customer is happy by attending to them immediately in time of requirement and making sure the item is delivered on time. Also, by assigning proper service engineers from our side to their sites we make sure the machinery would have minimum downtime.

Tell us about the vital lessons you have inculcated from your previous career experiences and how do you find them helpful in your current role and operations.
With my previous experience of the software and hospitality industry, we have designed an ERP for our system to make sure the customer has the stock available and the service engineers can be assigned immediately at the time of need through our software. My hospitality experience has helped us to follow the customer’s machine utilization and to make sure that the customer is always delighted.

Could you share instances of how these strategies have been beneficial in embracing the company’s push towards designing products and solutions around mining and infrastructure?
As we have a strong presence of our service engineers at customer’s site, we get to know the real problems at

the customer’s site in real time. Their feedback is taken and would be given to the sales team to make sure that the problems would be addressed as soon as possible. The next step would be once we get good expertise of manpower, we
can take up refurbishment of machines. We can invest and set up huge workshops, and then spread our wings to other product lines in this segment like Volvo, Caterpillar and more.

Describe your leadership style and the success mantra in your professional journey so far. What is the future destination you are heading towards?
My belief in the employee first policy had really helped to give a positive environment in our company where every employee owns the company and struggles to get the best for the company. Developing their skill set in the longer term whether the employee stays with us or not, he/she will represent the brand of Keyrock. We had and will continuously invest in this segment to expand and bring a lot of processes and systems like ERP & data analytics as this is grossly missing in this segment.

There is a long journey ahead, it’s neither the destination nor the journey we are looking for now but it’s the people we are counting in. We even do not know how it unfolds, but we can see a lot of scope for automation and digitization in this segment and we have plans for creating an e-commerce website in this segment which would be first in India if we can execute this.

Chaitanya Reddy Velagala, Managing Director, Keyrock Mining Solutions
Chaitanya Reddy Velagala has completed
his Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical & Electronics from Anna University, Chennai and his Master of Science in Electrical & Electronics from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Quick facts:
•Hobbies: At least 1 hour of workout, travelling, socially active.
•Favorite Cuisine: Likes Italian and Indian cuisines. Most favorite are Pizza and Biryani.
•Favorite Book: Business Maharajas by Gita Piramal. The Goal by Eliyahu. M. Goldratt.
•Favorite Travel Destination: Niagara Falls, US, Maldives, Venice and Rome.