Zicom eyes 2700 shop-in-shops

With the growing rate of crime, security has become a prime concern for both commercial and residential properties. A strong technology base which suits the Indian market is a must. Pramoud Rao, Promoter & Managing Director of Zicom Electronic Security Systems Ltd shares his plans of expanding into a market with products that will offer the best in class solution for the current market need. Retailer caught up with him to explore more.

Gunjan Piplani (GP): How did Zicom happen? What has been the story so far?

Pramoud Rao (PR): Zicom pioneered the security category in 1994, when electronic security was in its infancy stage. With over 450 crores in annual sales, operations in over five countries, 400 cities in India and over 1 million customer’s, Zicom is today synonymous with Electronic Security in India. The group’s strength is approx 400 employees worldwide.

In less than two decades Zicom has established itself as a leader in the security domain, introducing distinct innovations that the rest of the industry has followed.

GP: Who is your ideal target audience?

PR: Horses for courses, as the saying goes, we have a specific target segment for our respective line of businesses including Channel business: Distributors and Channel Partners ( B2B); Enterprise business: Builders ( B2B) and Direct Sales Team: We have a direct sales team to cater to fast growing residential markets ( B2C).

We also have Security as a Service (SaaS). The team here sells Security as a Service to enterprise customer, who are multi location.

GP: What are the segments that your company caters to?

PR: We are targeting various segments that are looking at security, this includes residential, Enterprise – SMB, SME, Realty

Finance and NBFC, Housing Societies and Channels.

GP: How many brands are operated under this company? Please name them.

PR: ‘ZICOM’ in India and ‘Ciao Zicom’ in Brazil

GP: What is the approximate minimum area for an outlet/selling point for each home segment?

PR: Each of our outlet is approx 300 – 500 square feet

GP: Elaborate on your store/distribution presence- number of cities and number of total stores?

PR: Zicom has adopted ‘Shop-in-shop’ format for retaling. We have presence in chains like Kohinoor Electronics, Snehanjali, Next India etc. and many more stores are in pipeline. Future expansion plan considers to have our presence across 2700 stores across the country.

GP: What have been your sales (segment-wise) for the year 2011-2012?

PR: Our group turnover was approx Rs 490 crore during the last fiscal and security contributed over Rs 200 crore.

GP: What are the future expansion plans?

PR: We are focused on building ‘e – SaaS’ (Security as a Service) as a new category, spreading our local presence to over 400 cities and building services as a differentiator.