Security in all new Avatar

Today, the faint dream that Pramoud Rao and his team chased with their hearts has surpassed all expectations of business success in the retail support service domain. The new avatar for Zicom, as complete security solution provider, has revived the entire security solutions industry. The company has a pioneered the security category in 1994, when electronic security was in its infancy.

Second innings

The time when Zicom ventured into security services was a time when such services, surveillance equipments and cameras were not bought off the shelf. In 2006, Zicom had over 100 plus retail stores, but by 2008, most of these were shut down. During this period, Zicom concentrated on its project securities business, which helped establish the brand we reckon with today. “The biggest advantage, as well as disadvantage of being a front runner is getting to do things first. People were not ready to pick their safety; there were multiple factors, a major one being that technology intimidates people. But now, certain terror activities have changed the face of the entire security and surveillance industry. Earlier our retail stores stood vacant, but now we have people pick up security equipments off the shelf from our shop-in-shop stores,” says Rao.

Serving solutions

It is so conspicuous today that the social economic barriers are in very bad shape and it is getting worse. The gap between “haves” and “haven’ts” is increased. So, there is going to be the imbalance between what you get and what you want. With rising impropriety, crime is growing rampant. Also, India is a young country. More than 50 per cent of the population is below the age of 30, who are aspiring, technology savvy, mostly from nuclear families, with greater disposable incomes. Security is now a real need. It was this changing phenomenon that got him motivated to create personalised security solutions for homes and retailers which was more affordable and realistic.

“Most people, who set up big stores or small shops, invest in security systems, and forget about them. There is no one really checking whether the system is on or off. The fire alarms lapse most of the times, same things happen with the CCTV cameras when a burglary is happening. We understood the gap – people need complete solutions and we provide them just that,” explains Rao, as he moves from being a macro service provider to micro-monitoring security.

Zicom is now positioning itself as an end to end security solutions service provider. In its recent initiatives, Zicom has gone an extra mile for small retailers and shop keepers, by offering hardware bundled with services on a “Monthly Recurring Payment”. A bulk of all the manufacturing of equipments for Zicom is done abroad. They also have a manufacturing unit in India where most of the customisation is done for the Indian market. The R&D team stays abreast with the latest development in technology, and works round the clock to keep systems and processes up to date. With a strong focus on creating better solutions to everyday security concerns.

Resilient for growth

Zicom is currently a pioneer in providing retail security solutions and its clientele includes most of the A-listed retailers, ranging from McDonald’s, Blackberrys Clothing, Gitanjali, D’Damas and ICICI to name just a few. Rao is upbeat about opening of FDI, and happily reveals that Bharti Wal-Mart is already a client for them. He candidly admits, “Opening of FDI in retail will actually bring in big ticket retailers, and we are the best company who can take advantage of that situation. We might also face some competition, but you can’t run away from competition. Only thing I can do or others can do is to concentrate fully on improving ourselves, our processes and systems and all. In every business there is a competition and competition is very healthy. We are never worried about competition. The bigger advantage we have created is our brand Zicom, its synonyms is a category right now.”

Zicom enjoys a strong pan-India presence in 400 cities covering typically tier I, II, III and IV. They plan to extend their presence across more cities, and at the same time tap smaller retailers and shop keepers with their e-SaaS model (Security as a Service). Zicom is set with a clear focus to be the Big Daddy in the services business of security. “We don’t want to sell product, we want to sell services, and we want to do that down the line, and across the globe,” quips Rao.