Prime logistic provider

Home automation solutions are highly modular, whether used for retrofitting in existing homes or adding new devices, with new technologies in Home Automation, one can conveniently expand on the existing devices, says Bengaluru-based Ramachandra Tallam, Managing Director, Shilpa High Rise Pvt Ltd.

What kind of home automation products and services you provide?

iCasa provides wireless Z-wave solution, which is a proven state-of-the-art technology for Home Automation. Being wireless, retrofitting in existing homes is possible without any new wiring or change of décor. Solution is highly modular and you can expand in future by adding new devices on need basis.

With iCasa we can inter-operate between different Home Automation Protocols i.e. current existing protocols can be controlled with our solutions, which is a big plus for existing automated homes where expansion is not possible.

Who are your target group of consumers?

Anyone who would like to experience Home Automation can now afford it at a very reasonable price. Scope for expansion is an added feature that we provide. Today, Home Automation is not a luxury it will become part and parcel of every one’s life. It adds sense of comfort and security combined in one package.

Do you provide products and services to retail brands, if yes, who are they?

At this point, we are not sure of promoting our products through retail chains, but yes, we have in the pipeline to create DIY kits and promote the same through large-size retail format stores.

What is your biggest achievement till date?

We are the first company to deal and provide Z-wave technology in India. We follow the standards and norms set by the Indian Government and Law, for eg- frequency. We will also be the first company to open/start an online store for Home Automation products, which are in the DIY segment.

What kind of new products and services you are going to launch in the near future?

We will be launching new products that can be added or extended with your existing Home Automation System. We will also be launching with Future Technologies like GPS watches for kids and senior family members and Robots to help in your domestic work. Our mission is to enhance human lifestyle. 

Loyalty programmes are turning out to be the best way to keep your customers intact and reward them in return. In a recent development, Future Group joined hands with Payback to offer a loyalty programme to its group of retail brands and stores. Future Group’s CMO, Pawan Sarda, along with making it as a customer loyalty programme, also plans to study the complete customer shopping pattern and then work further on it. While on the other hand, for Payback, this tie-up adds another feather to its hat. Florian Wolfframm, Head – Marketing and Rewards, Payback, now plans big in India in the coming years.

The company is contributing a great deal in terms of saving time and money wherein no travel is involved and all can be done now at a click of a button. Vrinda Oberai connected with Vishal Purohit, CEO and Founder of Wooqer, to learn more about the company’s initiatives and areas of specialisation.

A group, which offers to its members Xxtra discounts on almost anything from reputed vendors, is an interesting business model that we have come across in the recent times. In a candid conversation with Nikunj Bubna, Director, Power Circle, we learn more about how this model works and how it is set to take off in the times to come….

Vrinda Oberai (VO): I understand that you work on a limited member base, wherein a limited number of members can get good Xxtra discounts from reputed vendors. How does the same work?

Nikunj Bubna (NB): We want the Power Circle member base to be premium and concentrated only around metros and tier I cities and each such city will have its own preset limits to member registrations. For eg, in Mumbai (including Navi Mumbai and Thane), we would want only 750,000 privileged and active members benefitting without cannibalising the existing direct sales of the vendor.

VO: What is the USP of Power Circle? Who is your target audience? How did you zero in on the concept on which Power Circle rests?

NB: Power Circle, to the best of our knowledge, is the only ‘pull model’ kind of platform in India (and probably also in the world), which serves like a purchase manager for individual consumers, helping them get Xxtra discounts on whatever they wish to buy (apparels, cars, furniture, restaurants, property, movie tickets, etc) whenever they wish to buy, and that too from reputed vendors. While e-commerce companies target the online shopping community, our target audience is the entire Sec A and Sec B urban population, which is probably over 400 million in India. After having successfully piloted the concept under our ‘Purple Swarms’ brand since 2009 for HNIs in Mumbai, we thought why not benefit and reach out to a much larger audience since the market size is huge. Even vendors have a long-term sustainable gross margin per sale, which they wouldn’t mind sharing with a large consumer community and hence, we believe this concept of a ‘buying power aggregator’ cum ‘purchase manager’ has a clear, evergreen and long lasting potential.

VO: How do you categorize your members? Do you also categorize the discounts that you offer?

NB: Primarily, the brand Power Circle is there to cater to the mid-income consumers while our other brand Purple Swarms is purely for the high income consumers, typically having an annual income above Rs 20 lakh. Within Power Circle, at the time of registration, we categorise members mainly on the source, eg they may be employees of HSBC, customers of Angel Broking, our direct registrations, etc. Once they are in Power Circle, the service is the same. Since there are thousands of products, it’s not practical to show the exact amount of Xxtra discount. The walk-in discounts might also change frequently, but we communicate the range of Xxtra Discount members can get. If the Xxtra Discount is up to 5 per cent, then we call it ‘nominal', if it is between 5 per cent and 15 per cent, then we call it 'attractive', and Xxtra discounts more than 15 per cent are classified as 'huge'. For example, if the walk-in discount at the vendor is 12 per cent and the Xxtra discount through Power Circle is 10 per cent, then even though the member gets a total discount of 22 per cent, it will show as 'Attractive' Xxtra Discount since it is between 5 per cent and 15 per cent.

VO: How much is your responsibility in the whole transaction?

NB: We have a battery of purchase managers and enquiry managers to support the service back-end. A customer can make an enquiry either online or call the purchase managers for the same. Enquiry managers take it over from there and are responsible for smoothly resolving any issues that may arise between the vendor and the customer during the course of the purchase. We tie-up with reputed vendors, who are responsible for product quality, delivery, warranty, etc. A potential five million-plus huge member base makes our job of getting customers better service from vendors easier, but finally it’s between the customer and the vendor.

VO: Who comprises your vendor base? On what basis does your relationship with your vendor(s) work?

NB: Our vendor base is as diverse as the categories in which we serve in, ranging from pest control to a panditji (Hindu priest). We have car and bike authorised dealers, restaurants, cafes, pubs and bars, a pharmacy chain, gyms, cakes and bakery shops, electronics and consumer durables retailers, banquet halls, caterers, movie theatres, event planners, apparel stores, jewellers, accessory retailers, real estate developers, travel agents, furniture, bath fittings, modular kitchen and home décor retailers, etc. Since, we are taking up the role of a ‘purchase manager’, our business development team carefully researches the market and then approaches the shortlisted vendors with an exciting proposition of increasing business volumes and market share through an exclusive association with Power Circle without any upfront marketing cost or deposit. The vendor just needs to offer us a sustainable and special Xxtra discount (typically ranging around 10-15 per cent) on his/her product range, depending on the category margins. In select categories, we might also request for a small commission, which vendors would not object to, since they are paid at the month-end based on successful purchases made by our members.

VO: Apart from increasing the number of vendors you work with, is there any other way that you’re looking at to expand?

NB: Within the next six months, we are looking to expand on all counts – touching our targeted member base of 50 lakh across 18 major Indian cities and having 10,000-plus vendors. Considering our service back-up and involvement in the purchase process, we would be looking to build a 1,500-plus strong team.

VO: How quick is your revert to a call/query that you receive from a prospective customer regarding a purchase? How much time does the process take?

NB: Make an enquiry for a product or a vendor either online or over the phone takes less than 40 seconds, post which the customer can directly connect with the vendor to close the purchase (since the vendor’s contact details have been shared via SMS/ email). Every enquiry made has a respective enquiry manager responsible to ensure that the customer gets the pre-negotiated Xxtra discount in the most hassle free manner from the reputed vendor partner. Since we already have a shortlisted vendor, the customer’s purchase time can be reduced by over 50 per cent than the time she would have usually taken.

VO: How do you, as a company, reach out to your target customers? How do you plan to build on your customer base? What is your marketing strategy?

NB: At present, our main method of reaching out is via corporate contact programmes, where we partner with large companies like Indiabulls Group, WNS BPO, HSBC, Datamatics, etc. having captive bases of at least 5,000 well-paid employees/clients in India. Right from HR managers to Country Heads have liked our unique proposition of ‘Xxtra Discounts on Anything, Anytime’, which would really benefit their own people well. We believe that since our service can be experienced by anyone immediately and the customer can get an immediate gratification with a ‘Wow’ experience, word-of-mouth will play an important role along with our mass media advertising campaigns that will be launched sometime later.

A unique marketing platform, Mr Raj Iyer speaks at length about how Groopoffers works and how has it proved beneficial to the small/mid-sized businesses in terms of investment and its presence in different verticals  

Samrita Baruah (SB): Since you are a newly launched company formed in 2011, how do you aspire to be different from other e-commerce companies? How many SKUs you offer?  

Raj Iyer (RI):  Groopoffers was launched in March 2011 in the Group buying space. The uniqueness of groopoffers.com lies in the fact that we are present in almost all verticals where the concept of Group Buying can be utilised such as social deals, product deals, properties, travel, second homes etc. Very soon we are foraying into automobiles and Fashion as well. No other site has yet tried to or implemented all these categories on this scale.

SB:  How do you market your deals? What kind of marketing strategies do you employ to pull in more and more customers?

RI:  As of now, we use SMS/email marketing as well as active presence in the social media sector such as FB, Twitter, Google Buzz etc along with SEO/SEM to spread the word around. We also have a unique 3-2-1 referal program like none other wherein every registered customer gets 3% on the sales of the 1st member he has referred, 2% on the second member he has referred and 1% on the third referral.

SB:  How are your business clients going to benefit from the discount offers that you offer?

RI:  Group buying is a unique marketing platform in the sense that a business pays only when they receive results through footfalls. This is something which every small/mid sized business has been yearning for a long time. Adverts in print media and offline media results in massive upfront investments with no guaranteed ROI, whereas in group buying there is no upfront investment, visible ROI and payment of commission only on results. Importantly a local business is known only in the circles or a small radius where they are present in, but by using our platform they get known all over the city. This results in new customers sampling your wares and they are being repeated over a period of time.

SB: With the festive season starting very soon, are you introducing any special offers or deals for your customers?

RI: At Groopoffers.com this is a continuous process and for every festival there are special offers keeping the festival theme in mind.

SB:  Which are the cities you are present in currently? Are you planning to expand your business further? What's your science of managing the inventory?

RI:  We are present in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad. We expect to foray into 14 cities within the next 2 months.
We do not have inventories or warehouses. All goods are shipped directly by the vendors themselves straight to the customers using established Courier services. This keeps our costs down.

SB: How long do you usually run a particular deal? How do you decide on how long will a deal run?

RI: Each deal runs for 3 days on our site irrespective of whether it is doing very well or not. The intention is to keep the site loaded with fresh content at all times.

SB:  What are the modes of payment you offer to your customers?

RI:  Credit card/debit card/RTGS, all other pre loaded cards available in the market like Itz; COD [Cash on delivery] is in the process of being implemented.

Companies have resorted to various privilege programs in order make the employees feel taken care of. benefitsPLUS is one such leading player that successfully manages Employee privilege programs for hundreds of corporate allowing employees to shop and save money across a large variety of products and services that affects their lifestyle. We have Mr. Vikramjit Singh Sahaye, head of Marketing & Operations for benefitsPLUS, who highlights the growing need of companies to address the challenges of bringing delight to their customers, employees and channel partners.  

AS: Talk us through benefitsPlus, its services and programs?

VSS: As employees, we spend most of the time at our workplace. The employers face a continuous challenge of balancing compensatory increments to match the lifestyle requirements of employees and keep them motivated. The HR departments are looking at means to stretch the power of Rupee for employees and innovate in the rewards system to bring delight to employees. Keeping this in mind, we’ve created a close-group e-commerce platform and convert it to a privilege program, which contains special deals from leading brands only for the employees. This is a completely managed, white-labeled employee engagement program and hence presented as the company’s own program for their employees.

The platform is accessible from the workplace and has a wide range of products from leading brands across segments such as mobiles, appliances, gadgets, electronics, travel, food & dining, fashion and lots more. The offers and privileges however are secured and only meant for employees of benefitsPLUS’ clients. benefitsPLUS partners with HR to drive engagement In employee savings, R&R (Rewards & recognition), gifting and even corporate merchandise.

AS: What is the role of loyalty programs that you undertake? How is it benefitting them?

VSS:   There are two parts to this proposition. Firstly, HR promotes these programs as their own platform to their employees having their own brand name, such as the “Wipro Advantage” for Wipro employees and “My Exclusive Privileges” for Essar group employees. We provide end-to-end solutions to the enterprise for their employees, where a person is issued an access to a platform, personalize the program,  provide a wide range of products with exclusive deals, ensures proper fulfillment of orders, prove customer service and give real-time intelligence reports to HR. Secondly we have very good content, where our  brand alliances such as Aircel, Kuoni, Blackberry, Goibibo, Sony, Barista, VLCC and many more who offer special offers for this segmented corporate platform. We give them the provision to target customers to give differentiated offerings and .increase market share

AS: You are primarily catering to the employees, why is that so?

VSS: Our platform is highly scalable and easy to integrate. Therefore, in addition to Employee privilege programs, we undertake customer-loyalty programs with certain telecom & banking players and also manage Channel partner R&R programs. From the open consumer space, we’ve recently acquired Koovs.com which is amongst the fastest growing B2C ecommerce companies in the country.

AS: What is your view of the online shopping in India? How has it evolved over the years?

VSS: If you look at the internet penetration figures in India, there is a humongous scope for growth, which is visible to everybody. Over the years, apart from internet penetration, the acceptability of internet as a medium to research and make a purchase for lifestyle products & regular local services has increased significantly. Having said that, e-commerce has also become an integral part of the marketing strategies for most brands and benefitsPLUS provides them the opportunity reach the corporate segment nationally.

AS: With a wide range of brands present in the e-commerce vertical now, how have you differed from them with your products & services?

VSS: I always maintain that there are 3 important reasons why somebody would shop online; these are “Convenience”, which means buying and having it delivered at your door-step. Secondly, the “Range” of products that you get, for e.g. if you go to traditional shop you will not get the whole range of products, which is available on the internet, because there is no requirement of actually stocking it before showing it.  Finally it’s the ”Pricing”; it should be attractive and is kept so on the e-commerce space. At benefitsPLUS, we’d like to believe that we are adequately aggregating a wide range of brand offers and cater to all these needs.

AS: What has been your role in bringing in benefitsPLUS into India?

VSS: benefitsPLUS is an Indian company and evolves from a need that we realized. Today, we are catering to over 100 companies and reaching out to half a million employees, with a total reach is 20 million and growing.

AS: Could you enlighten us about the programs that you offer?

VSS: Under benefitsPLUS, we undertake programs for three key segments. ”Employees, “Customers” and “Channel partners” for corporate. Prominent sectors amongst our clients are IT, Telecom, Banking & Insurance.

At a time when brands are looking to retain their staffs with incentivised schemes, Accentiv doesn’t want to stay behind. Mr Ashok M.S, COO justifies that only an employee’s satisfaction can guarantee efficiency.  

Aadeetya Sriram (AS): Accentiv is a uniquely positioned solution provider, what is the core objective of the company?

Ashok M.S (AMS): Accentiv’, a part of Edenred, is an expert in rewards, recognition, incentives and loyalty solutions that can deliver multi-local and international end-to-end solutions from programme design to rewards fulfilment.

AS: Your services seem to be catering to different segments and sectors, could you elaborate on them?

AMS: Accentiv’ has three core areas of focus in terms of segments – Business to Business, Business to Customer and Business to Employees. We cater to a whole gamut of organisations in the BFSI, IT/ITES, retail, FMCG and hospitality sectors.

AS: Explain your client-base for varied solutions?

AMS: Our services include loyalty programme conceptualisation, managing the point’s engine, campaign creation and communication, analytics and rewards sourcing and fulfilment. We are India’s largest rewards solutions company. Our clients include the veritable who’s-who of the credit card industry (customer loyalty programs), IT companies (for channel loyalty programs), IT & ITES (employee rewards & recognition), Retail (customer loyalty programme).

AS: What is your understanding of the loyalty market in India? What are the challenges that the market faces in the country?

AMS: The loyalty market in India is growing and is reaching a mature state. However, most loyalty programmes offered in the country are still basic, offering points for value of purchase which can then be exchanged for in-store merchandise or redemption from a rewards catalogue. The key challenges that the market faces in the country are: automation at point of sale which is still first generation and resultant lack of access to internet. KYC (Know your customer) is still a huge challenge as customer acquisition strategies leave much to be desired capturing only name and phone number and companies are not willing to enrich the database with key profile information. Most programmes which are not well structured do not see the kind of ROI that is required to stay invested in the loyalty programme.

 AS: What is the need for effective loyalty marketing programmes to build long lasting relationship with consumers in retail space? How effective are they for ramping up sales?

AMS: Since the frequency of purchase in retail is high, it lends itself well for loyalty programmes.  With the overall buying experience offered by most retail stores beginning to be on par, well structured and well communicated loyalty programmes can be the key differentiator. It has been demonstrated that the average ticket size of a loyalty program member can be 30% to 50% more than that of a customer who is not a member of the loyalty program. The example of the loyalty program of Tesco in UK demonstrates the effectiveness of leveraging data and segmented communication for achieving a high market share. Programmes like Shopper’s Stop First Citizens Club in India have been trailblazers demonstrating high penetration amongst the customer base and showing significant repeat buying behaviour.

AS: Who are your clients in India? How much retail is contributing to the total turnover generated?

AMS: Some of our key clients in India include Citibank, HDFC Bank, VanHeusen, Tommy Hilfiger, Louis Philippe, HDFC Life, etc. Most of the points issued through the credit card programmes are also those for purchases in a retail store. However, retail alone will constitute around 10% of the turnover generated.

AS: How does Accentiv design its solutions especially for the retail sector? How is the customisation undertaken?

AMS: Accentiv’ has a very powerful loyalty platform and a very user friendly analytical platform. Accentiv’ also has a number of unique rewards solutions to cater to different needs of the corporates. The solution design for the retail sector is customised to individual clients based on their customer profile. The underlying principle of the design is to make the programme attractive to a wide spectrum of customers at the points earning level and differentiating the higher value customers in terms of the privileges and bonus points. The customisation is also done in the form of more personalised and increased frequency of communication for high value customers. Based on the transaction patterns analysed through the tool, customised offers and campaigns are designed and executed for multiple customer segments.

AS: What are the latest formats in loyalty programs doing the rounds in the country? What does future hold for such innovative catchment schemes?

AMS: The latest format in loyalty programmes doing the rounds in the country is the coalition loyalty programme where multiple brands with identical customer segments offer points to the customers, thereby enabling them to accumulate more points and redeem the items of their desire faster. The growth of national chains in various categories of retailing includes branded shops and fast food chains that will facilitate the launch of coalition loyalty programs. India has the potential for 3 to 4 large coalition programs. One key issue that coalition programs need to tackle before they become widely accepted is the issue of the ownership of the customer and transactional database.

AS: Could you please explain Accentiv's travel voucher concept?

AMS: Accentiv’s travel voucher gives the customer the freedom of choosing his or her travel destination and package with a lot of customised options, thereby giving them a memorable travel experience. In most cases travel rewards are for pre-determined destinations and the choice of hotels, airlines and schedule are fixed in the package, not allowing the customers any leeway to go off track to a tourist attraction that they would want to explore more or providing a unique experience that they would cherish.

We also offer ticket compliments holiday gift vouchers which is India’s first multi-brand holiday voucher of SOTC, Thomas Cook etc.

AS: How is Accentiv looking at the Indian loyalty market? What sort of competition are you facing in this space? What's the USP of your services?

AMS: The Indian loyalty market is at a tipping point where the programmes are likely to get larger and more complex, integrating data analytics into the program design for greater effectiveness.

Accentiv’s USP has been the deep understanding that we have of the Indian loyalty and rewards market having been here for more than a decade in our earlier avatars of Royal Images Direct and Surfgold, our strong experience in working with a whole range of clients, our technology solutions, our unique rewards sourcing and fulfilment capabilities where we are the best in the country today.  We are also a global company and leverage our learning from some of the advanced markets as well.

AS: What are your future plans?

AMS: Accentiv’s future plans include growing the employee rewards and recognition space, looking at coalition loyalty programme options especially for the small and medium sized retailers, provide rewards using the mobile platform and expand geographically to some of the next tier cities and exploring opportunities in a couple of neighbouring countries to offer our services.

AS: What are your initiatives for the digitalisation of loyalty programmes?

AMS: Accentiv’ is actively pursuing a strategy of going digital. We intend to offer e and m vouchers for redemption for a variety of brands.

Zicom group has worked quite extensively in ensuring that the hotels in the country are equipped with high-end technological security solutions. Mr. Anand Swaminathan, Director, Product and Solution, Zicom Electronic Security Systems Limited elaborates on their offerings.

Aadeetya Sriram (AS): What is Zicom all about? Please elaborate on your security offerings?

Anand Swaminathan (AS): Currently the largest electronic security systems provider in the country with a domain knowledge & expertise spanning 2 decades, Zicom is a name synonymous with Physical Security in India. Renowned for having pioneered the concept of affordable security solutions in the country, the brand has undertaken numerous initiatives aimed towards creating awareness for security products and services in the domestic market. Zicom’s product offerings encompasses the full spectrum of the market segment – Intrusion Detection Systems, Video Door Phones, Finger Print Locks, CCTV’s, DVR’s, Fire Detection Systems and Access Control Systems. With respect to services, Zicom offers Central Monitoring Services with India’s first and only centralized CMS facility and is also the first security solutions provider in the country to introduce the SaaS (Security as a Service) model, a service intended primarily for large corporate customers who opt for having Security as an opex as opposed to a capex.

AS: Where are you manufacturing your products?

AS: Zicom’s products are assembled in Parwanoo, Himachal Pradesh.

AS: How is the implementation of technology undertaken for your products; enlighten us about your technology set-up? How much have you invested in them?

AS: We have a strong R&D team that works proactively towards developing various innovative concepts designed specifically for the Indian market to suit the domestic market atmosphere. The most recent includes GPRS enabled Video Door Phone Systems amongst others. The investment to execute these activities is a little more than a few crores including research, design, manpower and domain knowledge.

AS: How exactly are you contributing to the retailers in terms of your products? Your future plans for retail segment in the country?

AS: With reference to technological contributions, Zicom is already offering products and solutions for retailers covering issues like Sweet-hearting, Grazing, Tag-switching, opening and closing management, Footfall counting and tracking, Pre-cooling, Remote viewing etc. As for the availability of Zicom products through retail counters, it is important to add that Zicom was the first in the country to offer security products through different formats i.e. large, medium and small. We continue to offer our products through these formats and have expanded our offerings through small-retail stores and dedicated channel partners.

AS:  How do you view the evolution of technology set-up in the country over the years?

AS: It is unfortunate that India is still a long-way off from technological leadership. While we offer a technological prowess and product innovation equal or superior to many companies world-wide, we are not able to offer much for our own country.  But India’s “frugal-engineering” concept is soon gaining acceptance worldwide and this should drive a different kind of technology-evolution and developing a unique set-up in the country over the next 5-10years.

Big City Promotions is India’s premier tactical sales promotion and flexible incentives program agency. It is one of the most innovative experiential marketing companies, which creates high impact campaigns via travel, leisure and lifestyle incentives. Our very own Aadeetya Sriram got further insight about the company from Mr. Bharat Surana, Co-founder & Head - Alliances Marketing.

Aadeetya Sriram (AS): What is BigCity Promotions all about?

Bharat Surana (BS): We are a B2B BTL agency. We started BigCity Promotions in late 2007, with a team of 3 which now employs 95 people around the country and dozens of freelancers. We utilize our partnership with more than 10,000 clients, indulge them in our promotions via different mediums i.e. salons, movie halls, some enterprises, standalone etc. We are geared to promote brands around top 50 cities in the country concentrating on the urban side of the country rather than the rural. We are growing at a phenomenal speed, in excess of 300% growth year-on-year basis.

AS: What is the U.S.P of services provided by BigCity Promotions?

BS: The unique feature of the services we provide is compelling reward at low prices. We basically are a one-stop shop for their promotion solutions, we have an out-of-box thinking, and we never prepare ourselves for the brief, unless we know about the brand. We come across a client, we understand their needs and accordingly solutions to their problems are devised, so we treat each and every client of ours as our own. Anything which we do is completely tailor-made.

AS: What kind of clients do you have in your portfolio?

BS: Except for Auto and Insurance sectors, we handle majority of industry verticals such as banks (SBI, ICICI), FMCG (HUL, Reckitt), Raymond’s, Welspun, Nokia, and Blackberry. We handle network clients like Airtel, Tata Docomo, Virgin etc. We indulge in promoting 10-12 brands every month i.e. 250 promotions every year.

AS: What sort of services BigCity Promotions provide?

BS:  Spend-based promotions, top-up promotions, retention programmes. We did a joint promotion for Blackberry with Airtel, where anyone who buys blackberry phone and connects to blackberry services through Airtel, would get 3 months of unlimited movies at any select multiplexes. 

AS: How has the company fared financially over the years?

BS: Since our inception we attained returns of Rs. 80 Lac in the first year, Rs 10 cr in the second year.We expect to reach Rs. 30 cr within the next 2 financial years.

AS: How can clients avail you services?

BS: Our standard procedure is that we have our business development team; they have an interaction with our client. Our first objective is to showcase our services, range/spectrum of things we handle, provide them with the possibilities that we can achieve, create. Like with Wella, we did not have this product, we created it; same goes for Harpic, we created an army of toilet-cleaners spread across the country. We get the brief, our research team takes-over for the analyzing process and after thorough preparation in association with our alliance team, we provide our client with the best possible innovative ideas to promote their brand.

AS: What sort of training do you provide the personnel you employ?

BS: We train our concierge so as to have an understanding of what sort of customers do they need to entertain. Different clients cater to different class of people, such as a bank which has platinum card holders, is a niche-class segment, so the people to cater to their needs need to be thorough professional and organized. The level of interaction has to be short, whereas a client catering to SEC B and SEC C can be vernacular in general, so we require different people for them who attain varied training methods. The integration set-up has to be precise because we would prefer the call rap-up time to be as minimal as possible, so the staff has to be swift with its functioning, which reduces our cost, and delights our customer.

AS: How Big City is helping the retailers?

BS: We enable the retailers in customer acquisition, increase their average spend, maintain loyalty and motivate staff which in return results in profitable growth of the brand.

AS: What future plans do you have in the pipeline?

 BS: We will be launching our Mumbai office in the next two months; we aim to be present at top 8 cities in the country in terms of our sales & marketing people and research. At the moment we have a hub in Bangalore, and we deploy freelances in other parts of the country. We plan to make it zonal representation so as to widen our network. We are also looking at emerging countries as well as Tier II cities and we are contemplating venturing into Tier III city in the near future.

Security at retail store has become a major concern today. Anand Swaminathan, CEO, Zicom Electronic Security Systems Ltd shares his experience on some high-utility, pocket-friendly, easy-to-use security systems. He talks about the demand for security devices, investment required for installation of security device and innovations made in terms of specific needs for security devices.

Rajni Pandey (RP): Tell us about Zicom electronic security service.

Anand Swaminathan (AS): Since its inception in 1995, Zicom has been a pioneer in the electronic security market, driving it with innovations through its wide array of products and services. The company entered into retail domain with ‘Zicom Consumer Service Group’ in order to provide complete security solutions to homes, offices, small and medium enterprises etc. Renowned as a change-leader, Zicom has created a niche for itself, bringing to the market superior products and services that best address security needs of its customers.

RP: What is the current market size of the organised security market in India? What is the growth rate?

AS: Excluding Fire Detection and Fire Suppression, the size of the domestic market is approximately Rs. 1,500 crore. Although the growth varies by product category and market verticals, at a consolidated level I would pitch the year over year growth between 40 and 50 percent.

RP: What would be the investment in setting up security equipments in a retail store (depending on the store size)?

AS: It could be as low as Rs 25,000 for a standard camera and DVR solution for a small store. On the higher end it can run into a few crores to have holistic security solution fitted into a large format retail store.

RP: Tell us about your product offerings?

AS: The vast portfolio of Zicom includes product categories ranging from CCTV Surveillance Systems, Fire Alarm Systems, Access Control Systems, Burglar Alarm Systems, Video Door phones, Multi Apartment Video Door Phone and Fingerprint Locks.

RP: Today, there are many companies that offer various security products. So what marketing strategy you adopt to counterpart the competition from other companies in this industry?

AS: Like in any other business sector, the sector of security and safety equipments also has pure-play product players in the market. Zicom is not a pure-play product company. Zicom’s offerings are unique in the sense that we cover all market verticals – homes and bungalows, small and medium businesses, corporates, national chains, banks, residential building developers, etc. In addition, we have CMS. Zicom has also pioneered the concept of “security-as-a-service” model where we have customers who pay us monthly service charges rather than buy the full product.

RP: What is the USP of your brand? How does the brand seek to capture the interest and loyalty of the consumers?

AS: Brand Zicom is synonymous with physical security. Our USP is our ability to slice and dice the market by customizing our offerings to the market verticals with the right product mix, service and value added services such as Insurance, CMS, Onsite support etc.

RP: What are the new innovations and advancements made in this field?

AS: With technologies such as GPRS, 3G, IP getting imbibed in our day-to-day lives and the demand for “everything-as-a-service” becoming more relevant in the market today. We at Zicom believe that innovation is not restricted to just technologies alone. It lies in our ability to pioneer and collaborate towards an integrated technologies, services and solution offerings that keeps us ahead of the pack. And at homes, lifestyle value plays a very important role as opposed to the business segment, where it’s more about functionality and returns on investments.

RP: What are the latest technologies launched in this segment?

AS: GPRS based VDP Systems, IP Surveillance Camera’s, Mega pixel cameras, Hybrid and Remote DVR’s, Affordable Home Automation solutions are some of the latest technologies that customers can look forward to in the future.

RP: How do you see security market growing over the period of next five years?

AS: The security product market has huge potentials. I expect the market to grow at 40-50 percent for next couple of years before it stabilizes at 20-25 percent.