Face-to-Face: Glen Sharkowicz

The increasing demand for high quality and high performance lubricants is encouraging global majors to focus on Indian market. Companies like ExxonMobil™ are adopting innovative ideas and latest technologies to help customers optimize their maintenance programs, improve equipment performance, ensure safety and enhance sustainability. In an interview with Jhumpa Mukherjee of Machinery Lubrication India, Glen Sharkowicz, Director of Brand Strategy-Commercial Marketing, South-Asia Pacific, ExxonMobil™, talks about delivering next generation lubrication technologies in India.

Glen Sharkowicz has developed an in depth expertise in a variety of commercial sectors during his more than 20 year career. In Glen’s current capacity, he is the Director of Brand StrategyCommercial Marketing, SouthAsia Pacific and is currently based in Singapore. Glen began his career with the Mobil Oil Company as an Industrial Sales Engineer in Charlotte, North Carolina, responsible for industrial lubricants sales activities in North and South Carolina. Glen holds a B.S. in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Penn State University.

The Indian Lubricants market has been witnessing a positive momentum, what do you have to say about Lube Market in India?

India’s lubricant industry has been on a strong growth path in the past few years. India is becoming more technologically advanced. There are so many opportunities here. There is so much energy in India and so the future is looking very bright.

India is a market with strong growth opportunities. Increasing demand for lubricants is also forcing global majors to shift to local manufacturing instead of imports. Keeping in line with this trend how does ExxonMobil look at “Make in India” campaign?

India is very competitive not just in this region but around the world in terms of becoming a manufacturing hub. We are constantly evaluating investments in manufacturing and we do manufacture a number of things only through third party blenders. That is an important area and we look at it in a very holistic basis as to what is the right investment to make and when. ‘Make in India’ campaign is a great initiative and we want to be part of that for sure.

Some companies are now comparing the overall cost of lubrication vs. cost of lubricants. How does ExxonMobil support the customers in getting their overall cost of lubrication lower?

Noria, Machinery Lubrication® and ExxonMobil have been telling the same story for quite some time that lubricants are not a disposable item, it's a part of your plan to maintain a high efficiency manufacturing environment. So what is important is the right lubricant in the right place at the right time. This is a simple statement but very true. Having products like Mobil SHC elite in the right kinds of applications where one can get maximum benefit of extended life, energy efficiency, backing with our Field Engineers under the Mobil Serv brand and bringing those types of services that really tie the solution together drives lowest cost. Because it's not just about the lubricant itself it's really about what the lubricant does for your business.

Customer’s needs are evolving from commodities to customised speciality products and ‘value addition’ is a buzz word today, so how does ExxonMobil provide a complete solution to the customers than just a product?

Let me take an example and try to answer this question. Manufacturing and machine tools rates as the biggest consumer of lubricants here in India and we are really looking at that holistically about how somebody would manage that environment. Using the right kind of cutting fluid, for example Mobil cut products that we market, using the right kind of lubricant that actually is compatible, interacts well with the metalworking fluids & as a result the life of that metalworking fluid is extended and using products like Mobil DTE™ 20 for the hydraulic system which meet the most rigorous performance requirements of a wide range of hydraulic system and component manufacturers, allowing use of a single product with excellent performance characteristics. The area where our customers tend to struggle a bit in what is the right product for this application? May be it’s a synthetic maybe it's not. So we ensure educating them about how to choose & use lubricants properly and effectively. We also provide an oil analysis service which is to extend and manage the life of oils and in more advanced things like a good inspection for a piece of equipment or bearing inspections etc. So the solution in trying to fnd the lowest cost is the right product, the application expertise and the services.

What is the R&D set up that ExxonMobil has?

There are three main business protocols within ExxonMobil- the upstream, chemicals and downstream which I'm a part of and we rely on a network of research and development that supports all of us. There is a corporate strategic research group where people think about things that are really quite far out and could be just about anything. Then we work our way down to the more tactical five year types of deployments which is where the lubricants space ends up being. This group is located in the U.S. (New Jersey) and then we have a little more localized research and development in China (Shanghai) and Germany (Hamburg) as regional offshoots and their role is a little bit more about the adaptation and deployment of our technology platforms into the local markets. For example if we need some sort of a small tweak or a little bit different flavour for someone in India or China etc.

Do you also provide lubricant & coolant management services to your customers? How do you support for oil analysis and interpretation services?

Yes. We do, in some cases through our distributors. Our distributors are an integral part of our offer to the market. They provide their own value and add value to the technology. They’re very much involved in day to day activities. So our distributors in many cases provide those services as well.

MSLA (Mobil Serv Oil Lubricant Analysis) is our core program around oil analysis that is the day to day analysis. The samples are sent off to the lab. The registration and information is web based, though registration can also be done via a QR code on the bottle as well as the machine. So you take the human interaction out for data and technology purposes. We do operate our own labs because we really do know our formulations better than anybody else and we feel we could do the best interpretation and beyond. Tat is one of the key values we bring in. We've been collecting a lot of data and everybody would agree that the data is the new currency today. This is where we are starting to spend a lot more time and effort. This is how we tap into that data and provide the best analysis possible especially when it comes to interpretation. We are looking at not just the viscosity change by 10 percent but the viscosity changed in a particular type of equipment at this point in time, what does that mean? This is where we really want to take our services.

How was the previous year for ExxonMobil and what are the goals for the next year? What are the new initiatives of ExxonMobil?

The last couple of years especially in India have been fantastic. Yes, I'm very bullish on where we are going to go from here and in terms of what can you expect to see. You'll see a lot more of how we bring some innovative products and services to market. Our recent addition to SHC series is Mobil SHC Elite- the best synthetic product we have ever brought to market in terms of oil life, energy efficiency and equipment protection. Do stay tuned in to hear more about our new products that are expected to be launched in the near future.