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Arjun MenokilChief Strategy Officer

Personal correspondence

Planning for the engineering clients take back

Chief Strategy Officer India

A client's own engineering centre can be our next contract rather than the end of the account.

My father repaired agricultural pumps in a small workshop in Palakkad. Farmers brought him motors that a dealer had declared beyond repair, and he would ask what the pump had actually been asked to do before he opened it. I did not think of that as a method until much later. I studied mechanical engineering at Kayalveni Institute of Engineering, finished in May 1987 and took a train to Pune for my first job.

Most of our clients will eventually decide that some of the engineering we perform for them belongs inside their own organisation. I would rather help shape that decision early than discover it in a renewal we did not win. Strategy, in our business, means choosing which capabilities remain worth buying from us after a client has built its own team.

Company revenue
₹2,840 Cr
Year ended March 2026
People across three Indian centres
11,600
Pune, Hyderabad and Coimbatore, plus three client offices abroad
Revenue from mobility clients
52%
Down from 64 per cent in 2019-20

I plan an engineering-services company around the work its clients will one day want to do themselves.

I am chief strategy officer of Varunthal Engineering Services, a Pune-headquartered engineering research and development company listed on the NSE and BSE. We design, simulate, validate and document products for vehicle makers, industrial-machinery companies and medical-device manufacturers. Revenue for the year ended March 2026 was ₹2,840 crore. About 11,600 people work in our Pune, Hyderabad and Coimbatore centres and three small offices abroad. I report to the managing director and chief executive, lead a team of 24 and present the five-year plan to our board. Pricing, delivery and people decisions rest with business and functional heads; I frame the choices that they and the directors make.

My view of this industry was formed from the buyer's chair before the seller's. I spent seven years designing steering and suspension parts for a Pune supplier, then seven more in the Indian subsidiary of a German truck maker, packaging engineering work for Indian vendors. Once that subsidiary understood a task well enough, it brought the task in-house. When I joined Varunthal in 2001 I saw the same pattern from the other side. I later ran our vehicle-engineering delivery centres and then the mobility business unit, before the board created this role in April 2019.

Three decisions since then show how I work. We helped a European chassis-systems client build and own an engineering centre in Pune, then transferred it after thirty months, rather than defending the account with a discount. We redirected capability spending away from our dependence on vehicle programmes, accepting slower progress in electrification. We opened a third centre in Coimbatore instead of enlarging Hyderabad. Each choice had a cost that someone in our leadership team argued was too high, and I keep those costs beside the results.

A transferred centre that kept part of the account

The chassis client's business with us was ₹212 crore a year before the transfer. We earned ₹46 crore in build, operating and transfer consideration and still carry about ₹68 crore a year of specialised validation work. The difference is revenue we gave up, and I report it that way.

Dependence on vehicle programmes reduced, short of the stated aim

Mobility clients produced 64 per cent of revenue in 2019-20. The board's stated aim was below half by 2025-26; we reached 52 per cent. Medical-device revenue grew from ₹97 crore to ₹454 crore in the same six years.

A third centre with lower attrition and a slower start

Coimbatore now employs 1,450 engineers, and its attrition in 2025-26 was 11 per cent against 17 per cent across the company. Its first eighteen months lost ₹21 crore, close to twice the ₹12 crore we had planned.

Current focus

I am working with our three business heads on a map of the client relationships most likely to move towards a captive engineering centre within three years, and on what we would offer each client before that conversation begins on its side.

Conversations I welcome

I would welcome one independent directorship with a listed or larger unlisted Indian company in industrial manufacturing, engineering or technology services outside my employer's competitive field, and a few advisory conversations. I can offer about twenty-four days a year, with my employer's written approval.

The leadership record

Trusted with consequential decisions.

Formation

  • Bachelor of technology, mechanical engineeringKayalveni Institute of Engineering · 1987
  • Executive postgraduate programme in management (part-time)Kharvelan School of Management · 1999
Arjun brings me options I would rather not have to consider, with the dissenting view written as fairly as his own. When the Coimbatore centre lost more than he had forecast, he presented the variance himself before anyone asked.
Kiranmayi VelluvarManaging director and chief executive, Varunthal Engineering Services
The full record ↗

Contact

I would welcome one independent directorship with a listed or larger unlisted Indian company in industrial manufacturing, engineering or technology services outside my employer's competitive field, and a few advisory conversations. I can offer about twenty-four days a year, with my employer's written approval.

  • Board appointments
  • Advisory roles
Write to Arjun Contact page