Kyoritsu plans to increase footprint across India

Our revenue generators are the customers of electrical contract segment, specifically the generation which ventured into the industry 20-30 years back.
Suneel Kapoor, Country Lead, Kyoritsu KEW India Instruments Pvt Ltd

Being your debut at ELECRAMA, how was the experience and what is your cynosure?
ELECRAMA has always been the place for our perceptibility; it is a two way thing reciprocating from both the ends, having resellers at one end with whom we engage and customers on the other. Usually, on such a big platform where industries from different segment concourse, reseller engagement is observed at a much higher level than customer engagement. Kyoritsu has its footprints in India from a very long time, but it couldn’t create an impression amongst the customers due to lack of visibility and awareness in the market. Having sensed the requisites to grow in Indian market Kyoritsu decided to have a joint venture in India which was commenced a year ago. Talking about ELECRAMA, it’s a good platform for industries to showcase their visibility and having said that we aim to be perceptible in every possible way so that our customers are aware about who we are and what we provide. We as Kyoritsu have a clear vision of being the brand of choice for customers in our sector. Constricting our horizon, we are specifically targeting electrical professionals like electrical testing personnel, electrical contracting personnel and also we intent to satisfy requirements of low-voltage electrical professionals as we have forte in low-voltage segment. This can only be achieved with immense focus and determination and we are very determined to do so.

Being in the industry for quite a long time, what are the company’s competitive advantages?
Speaking of advantage, our biggest perk is that we have established roots in electrical contracting segment. There are certain segments where we are focusing on spreading our roots. Our revenue generators are the customers of electrical contract segment, specifically the generation which ventured into the industry 20-30 years back. It has been relatively less with the newer generation, since the company was governed by distributors for almost four decades without being much visible to the Indian market. Although there hasn’t been much visibility, the company was still able to maintain a strong user base due to quality of its products. Now, talking about the user base, we are trying to bridge the gap between the old and new generation electrical professionals by spreading awareness and branding Kyoritsu products amongst young generation. With the help of feedback of senior customers, we are trying to influence the new generation to adapt to Kyoritsu by assuring them best quality of the product with optimum price amongst our competitors.

What kind of strategies does the company plans to create awareness?
Our primary goal is to acquire current and upcoming generation electrical contractors at various levels. This is definitely going to be a hard-hitting task so to make it easier we have decided to segment our sales into three branches viz. retail, industry and direct sales. Amongst the trio, industrial segment is our paramount element through which we can acquire and engage with maximum customers and create visibility of our product in market. Also, nowadays it becomes easier to create our visibility through digital media, thanks to digitalisation. Digital marketing has played a pivotal role for us and will continue to do so for new customer acquisition.

How crucial will be the next year for industry?
The year 2019 will be course changing since we will observe general elections. If there are any changes in the government, it is drastically going to affect the market and as a regular norm we may observe that buying of commodities may be plummeted during that period. The only strategy is boosting up the pace for customer acquisition and establishing a good customer base at start of financial year.

Which are the sectors that will drive Kyoritsu’s business growth?
Kyoritsu’s growth is not constricted to any specific sectors but if asked I would say infrastructure. Infrastructure is humongous sector since it covers wide range of customers. As infrastructure sector grows, it opens market for electrical contracting service companies, utility segment like railways etc. and gives them opportunity to grow along with it. Electrical contractors being our major chunk of customer base, so as their businesses grow it reciprocates with our business and help us grow with them. At the same time we focus on testing and small scale industries as well, so that our business is balanced and we make inroads to all sectors.

The railways sector is set for expansion and government is also trying to push the sector with huge investments. What role can Kyoritsu play in the railways expansion?
Kyoritsu’s forte is in low-voltage general purpose products and we provide majority of the equipment used in regards with electricity either at time of commissioning or at the time of maintenance. Those are quintessential equipment required in infrastructure, so our growth is directly proportional to the infrastructural growth.

What are your growth targets in the upcoming future?
Since our customer base is dinky, we clearly have penetration targets. We have a target of 5-6 utilities with established orders. We expect to scale up in both metros and railway businesses. Previously we have been associated with metros like New Delhi and Mumbai and have done a seamless job. Now, we are focusing on retail expansion in south region specifically in Chennai, Kochi and in east region in Kolkata. Our supreme goal is to increase company’s footprint across the country and become unparalleled in our industry.