Hamilton Jet is the world’s largest manufacturer of water jet propulsion systems. Its waterjets are installed in high-speed marine vessels such as passenger ferries, patrol boats and rescue crafts around the world.
Recently the company has rekindled an old relationship – with India.
Hamilton Jet sold its first boats into the sub-continent in 2000 after working with a distributor who helped establish a relationship with the Indian Navy.
After that association ended, Global Sales and Marketing Manager Mike Shearer says it took a long time to find a new partner and re-establish the relationship.
The company now has its systems in seven of the Navy’s large 47 metre crafts as well as 130 smaller boats used by the Coast Guard and the Ministry of Home Affairs that has the responsibility for patrolling harbours.
Initially the company looked to grow the relationships by itself but understood that to take advantage of potential commercial opportunities it would need specialist assistance.
It also realised that despite its rich and iconic heritage, it was not something the company could use to trade on.
(Sir Edmund Hillary went up the Ganges River in a Hamilton Jet in the late 1970s -photo courtesy of Hamilton Jet).
Sir William Hamilton designed the innovative jet propulsion system in the 1950s using a 2,000 year old principle first described by Archimedes.
While his early systems were designed for craft that transversed shallow rivers in the remote corners of his sheep station in the MacKenzie country, they’ve been adapted over the years to fit high speed commercial craft.
In 1977 Sir Edmund Hillary led an expedition with his son Peter to the source of India’s sacred Ganges River using the Hamilton Jet boats.
“It’s a heritage we are proud of,” says Shearer. “But it’s not actually something we use because it can be difficult especially in the government sector which tends to rotate every three years. It’s more important to have the ability to get in front of the right people.”
Shearer said what was really helpful for the company was to have been part of the Prime Minister’s visit recently. “NZTE were able to set up some government-to-government functions for us and invite some key parties. It put us on a level playing field when it came to discussing business.
“We are now using NZTE quite extensively to review opportunities in different commercial markets in India,” says Shearer. “Potential industries include ferries, offshore oil and gas fast supply vessels and we would like to consolidate our relationship with the Coast Guard and Navy.”
Shearer says having an appreciation for how business is done in India is the first step to being successful in the country.
“You need to take time to understand the hierarchical business practices in India and realise early on that it requires a certain commitment in terms of resources.
“When we started we didn’t recognise the fact that we personally needed to have enough resources to be able to spend time physically in India,” he says.
In addition he says it’s important to recognise the level and depth of personal relationships that have to be nurtured.
“It’s a unique business environment,” says Shearer. “It is not typically Kiwi in anyway. We had to learn to foster personal relationships with business partners while at the same time maintaining the ability to be fairly tough. You don’t want to be thought of as naive.”
Hamilton Jet doesn’t currently have an office in India but is considering the option as a particular challenge the company faced was finding a suitable professional partner to work with, especially from a distance.
Shearer says the market in India has the potential to be bigger for Hamilton Jet than all of South America. However, it’s a unique market and a whole new way of doing business.
