Aiding retail growth!

The driving force behind the formation and personality of LACS, Mahendraa Kumar Jain, CEO, LACSand his entrepreneurial zeal, have helped shape the strategic direction of the Devraj Group towards new and innovative business fronts. In an exclusive interview, he talks about his company and future plans.

Shubhra Saini (SS): What does LACS do? Define your core business in simpler terms?
Mahendraa Kumar Jain (MKJ): LACS is the abbreviation for LAKSHMI ACCESS COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS Pvt Ltd. LACS, earlier known as Sagar Info Distributors Private Limited, has evolved from IT distribution towards offering end-to-end telematics and interactive infotainment solutions and services for retail and enterprise customers. 

SS: What do you mean by cross-domain telematics? How is it helpful to retailers?
MKJ: Cross-domain telematics leverages potentials of telematics across a variety of technology domains, on a single platform to deliver a wide array of services for an end consumer.
LACS’ approach to introducing consumer telematics to the retail consumer opens up a new world of product and services sales for retailers across the country. The LACS products offer a whole host of features ranging from utilitarian, infotainment, connectivity, and localised-media services, entertainment such as games and social networking. 

SS: Is there a specific category within retail that you cater to? If yes, why? 
MKJ: We cater to mostly all formats of retail sales. LACS will be introducing these unique products and services to the Indian retail consumer (not limited to the urban city centers) through five different retail verticals: IT distribution, telecom products channels, automotive accessories sales, large format retail/modern trade, and consumer electronics.  

SS: Please brief us about your range of products and services? When did you start the business and what motivated you to venture into this unique space? 
MKJ: LACS is going to create a radically new and different approach to access real-time interactive information on-the-move, through a high-technology telematics platform. LACS will offer Indian consumers services to access interactive information on-the-move across products such as mobile infotainment devices, automotive interactive devices and multiple level automotive safety and security devices. 
LACS, in its previous avatar was involved with IT distribution for the HP range of products across south India, for over four years. LACS entered the telematics domain as an enterprise end-user. However, noticing the lack of standardised approaches to providing such telematics solutions and services, the core team at LACS decided to investigate and research this domain. On significant assessment and analysis of the telematics industry, LACS made this move of taking telematics to the retail consumer and to evolve this technology to the next level. 
 
SS: Are you eyeing large retail outlets as distributors? Please share your clientele with us?  
MKJ: We are not limiting our sales network to large retail outlets for distribution. The primary factor to decide on a distributor is the connectivity and foot-fall access to retail consumers. We prefer our distributors to have an existing distribution business in any of the following verticals: AV-consumer electronics, car accessories, IT, FMCGs/large format retails and telecommunications. 
 
SS: What kind of promotional activities are you doing to promote your telematic services?
MKJ: We are creating awareness about our brand through public relation activities, we give a demo about our services and we will even launch various road shows for the same.

SS: What are the company’s expansion plans?
MKJ: We will soon have our presence across the country.