Bombardier delivers rail services solutions for success in Southeast Asia
The Canadian company’s plans to grow its market share in the region by building enhanced local services capability for urban and mass transit systems…
As one of the world’s leading mobility solutions provider, Bombardier Transportation is expanding its services business in Southeast Asia to realize its long-term vision of ‘Creating faster, safer and greener journeys and connecting cities and people in the region, every day’.
Bombardier has been providing reliable operations and maintenance (O&M) services for more than 40 years, ensuring that customers gain the maximum value for their assets over the lifetime of their systems.
Jayaram Naidu, Regional President of Southeast Asia, shares the company’s plans to drive services expansion in the region.
What are your goals for the region?
Our business units are set up to achieve significant growth in Southeast Asia. On top of that, we are also responsible to extend our value chain coverage ranging in scope from full O&M to refurbishment and overhaul. Bombardier’s services ensure that rail operators get the services they need, where and when they need them regionally. Safety, people and product, remains the number one priority for Bombardier Transportation and we continue to deliver our globally proven maintenance solutions to ensure safe and reliable train operations across the world.
Apart from the flagship O&M offerings, the company also establishes adoption of predictive and condition-based maintenance methodologies. With a strong and established local presence, we understand the specific local requirements and need of both rail authorities and operators with a strategic focus on maintaining existing and future customer fleets.
Our goal is to be the preferred rail leader in the region, and we also aspire to be the fastest-growing business unit in Bombardier Transportation.
Why has Bombardier Transportation decided to expand in the region?
Bombardier has come a long way in Southeast Asia, from winning its first turnkey systems contract for a 27-kilometre rail network in Kuala Lumpur in 1992, to winning Bombardier’s biggest asset replacement contract in Asia on Singapore’s North-South and East-West Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) lines in 2018.
The rail industry has been continually growing, especially in the emerging markets of this region. These markets each have their own demand to improve rail infrastructure and transport network. So in recent years, we launched our local services framework that are relevant to the local requirements to boost rail sustainability and reliability for authorities and operators.
What are some of your key markets in the region?
Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are our current core markets, while Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam are the fast-growing markets in our portfolio. We have great plans for the whole region.
In Thailand and Singapore, for example, the company was awarded with two long-term services contracts separately to maintain Bangkok’s first monorails for Pink and Yellow lines and Singapore’s automated people movers for Bukit Panjang light rail transit (LRT) line. In Malaysia, our mid-life refurbishment and overhaul project modernises Kuala Lumpur’s metro trains for Kelana Jaya LRT line by converting the original fleet from a two-car to four-car trains with inter-car walkthroughs.
These projects further boost our customer intimacy in this important ecosystem and Bombardier intends to continue to contribute to the success of rail operators in the region.
This reflects the benefit Bombardier can bring to our customers throughout the full life cycle of our systems, which has garnered sizable market share and continues our growth story in the Services business across Southeast Asia.
What do you view as your company’s key success factor?
People and performance are the key factors to our success. Across Southeast Asia, Bombardier oversees four specialised centres with 200 skilled engineers’ experts. To drive a sustainable performance, we proactively orchestrate succession planning and develop local talent as next-generation leaders.
For example, we have local graduate program students who joined Bombardier 10 years ago being promoted to leadership roles. They are currently leading projects in Singapore. Our commitment is to continuously invest in employees and build a sustainable team to increase innovation and performance.
The company also fosters transparency and trust between the employees, and it all starts with the environment we built. We value open communication, encouragement and collaboration to achieve our common goals.
How has Bombardier built diversity into the organisation?
An important part of the company’s strategy is fostering diversity among its teams by ensuring a robust mix of talent from different nationalities, genders and experiences. This makes Bombardier a place where every member of our diverse workforce can be their best in a truly inclusive environment, free of barriers and biases. Reflecting this commitment, we continue to increase ratio of female leaders in senior management positions in our region.
We strive to create a work environment that encourages people in the organisation to have respect for others and to work together regardless of their differences. We believe this unique corporate culture is the key to delivering technology and performance that can help us succeed.
Source: https://www.railprofessional.com/magazine/june-2020/bombardier-delivers-rail-services-solutions-for-success-in-southeast-asia
