Apollo CV Awards 2021
A humble tribute to the industry
A humble tribute to the industry
The 12th edition of Apollo-CV Awards (2021) was streamed on Youtube on the evening of April 10, 2021, turning yet another leaf in the life of an event that has come to be the mark a humble tribute to the CV industry and its many stakeholders, including dealers and transporters. Turning virtual against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic for the first time ever, the event accompanied a learning process for many those associated with it. Held amid conditions involving ‘work from home’ and ‘digital ways of working’, the awards was graced by Darrel Huntsman, CEO, Frost & Sullivan, as the keynote speaker. Turning virtual post much deliberation with those from the CV industry as well as those that linked to it, the logistics sector included, the 12th edition did not include panel discussion in its itinerary. Ensuring that all those involved observed the stipulated guidelines of social distancing, mask wearing and sanitizing whenever the need for a field presence arose, the awards began with the nomination call in February 2021. This was unlike every year prior, when the nominations call was announced in October of the year of consideration. The pandemic environment post paid to the delay, creating challenges in terms of manpower, communications and more.
Announced in February 2021, a fourpage nomination form was included in CV magazine, put out on the magazine website and on the magazine’s several social media platforms for better reach. Inviting nomination from both, the fleet side stakeholders and the non-fleet side stakeholders, the nomination call clearly stated the period of consideration (2020 calendar year) and other criteria. There was some worry regarding the nominations that would roll-in given the challenges the CV industry, transporters as well as the other stakeholders faced during the period. The significant transition to BSVI was happened during the period. The worry was largely unfounded as a good number of nominations started rolling in, and before the deadline. Despite the fleet-side categories being brought down to three – small fleet operator of the year, big fleet operator of the year and best CV dealer
of the year, the response was positive. The non-fleet side nominations accompanied a standard template involving technical specifications and a few other values. This decreased the margin for error.
At the beginning of March 2021, the jury met virtually. Kaushik Madhavan, Vice President – Mobility, Frost & Sullivan, and VG Ramakrishnan, Managing Director and Founder, Avanteum Advisors, joined from Chennai. Ruchir Mathur, Product Marketing Manager – M&HCV (Trucks & Buses), APMEA, Apollo Tyres, and Girish Mirchandani, Editor, Transtopics, joined from Delhi NCR. As a new jury member, Shyam Maller, Former Executive Vice President – Sales, Marketing and Aftermarket, VE Commercial Vehicles Ltd., joined from Pune. Bhushan Mhapralkar, Editor, CV magazine, joined from Mumbai. The process by no means was an easy task. The non-fleet nominations reflected the undercurrents and complexities that worked their way through the CV industry in 2020. A definite picture about the new axle norms could be had and influenced a rejig in the categories under consideration. For example, the upper limit of ICV segment increasing to 18.5-tonnes. The transition to BSVI was an important factor. But, that was not the only one as CVs saw an influx of various interesting new technologies, many of them digital in nature and of the kind that leveraged IoT and AI. They made for an important consideration. The emerging shift to applicationbased CVs from tonnage-based CVs too. Highlighting progress in key areas like performance, efficiency, safety, comfort and reliability, the turnout of CVs – trucks and buses, effectively pointed at the changes that swept the CV industry in 2020. Making for a stark as well as a subtle outlook, it made the task of choosing the winners difficult. Especially in the wake of a firm resolve by the CV industry to conquer challenges; to keep moving, and to turn out new and exciting products.
Many intricacies evolved during the judging process. There were debates. Domain knowledge and experience was put to test. Different perspectives and opinions were exerted to arrive at a result that would be truly well considered. The key parameters resorted to were (a) fitness for application, (b) quality of aggregates, (c) fuel efficiency and drive-ability (d) option to have a vehicle better suited for the purpose, (e) price, and (f) sales. The jury unanimously decided to not consider buses this time owing to their lack of sales performance and much movement. The jury also decided to not consider the application builder of the year category for the lack of competing entries. Metric Global vet the fleet and dealer categories by putting them through the wringer. It used the Journey of Excellence parameter derived from the British Quality Foundation. If the picture (in this section) will provide a fair idea of what happened at the jury meet, on the following pages is a synopsis of the keynote address that set the tone of the ceremony. Below are the nominations and the winners.