Vashi Electricals: Mastering the art of customer delight

Established in 1978, Mumbai based Vashi Electricals Pvt Ltd is a major channel partner of many reputed brands of industrial electrical products in India. In an interview with EPR, the company’s MD and CEO Madan Dodeja talks about the company’s expansion plans. Excerpts:

What are your views on electrical market in India?
Electrical market has undergone a massive transformation from the time I started my business in 1978 till today. It has been a multifaceted business model, manufacturing a diverse range of products which range from high technology equipment to low technology electrical components and has been an employment intensive sector, providing direct employment to 5,00,000 people and a further indirect employment to about one million people.

It is natural that such a vast industry has sub-sectors that mostly fall in the unorganised segments and are responsible for the production of a varied range of electrical equipment. Depending on the equipment manufactured, the electrical industry in India can be broadly classified into two categories namely the generation equipment category responsible for the manufacturing of boilers, turbines and generators and the T&D category responsible for manufacturing of transformers, transmission cables, switchgears, capacitors etc.

What sort of business opportunities you are looking for?
An emerging economic power and developing nation like India needs constant improvement of the infrastructure of the electrical industry to maintain the consistent performance of its power sector which in turn will ensure a constant economic development. India’s ambitious plan of enhancing the Indian electrical equipment industry to an output of $ 100 billion by 2022 and becoming a key player in the global export market is on track, major electrical channel partners like Vashi Electricals have a tremendous growth opportunity and we wish to be an integral part in this journey.

What is your USP?
World-class systems through innovative systems and processes is our major USP. The size we deal, the geography we cater, the business volume we handle and the top class resources we have hired to run different business verticals, put us into a different pedestal. We are more customer centric and technology driven organisation which give us competitive edge over others.

Could you explain the challenges you face as a channel partner?
As a channel partner, we face two major challenges: Dead Stocks and Bad Debts. Dead stocks occur due to constant innovation and product upgrades from the electrical manufacturers – the inventory we hold goes demonetised.
Since open credit is highly prevalent in the B2B industry, we face bad debts from customers and for customer retention a channel partner like us has to float huge credit money in the market.

How do you help customers in lowering their supply chain cost?
There is no room for waste when it comes down to your inventory. A lot of inventory runs the risk of waste and money sitting on your shelves. Vashi Electricals has invested in the state-of-the-art warehouse infrastructure across India to customers save time, money and space. Over the years, we have developed expertise in Inventory Management that enables our business partners save money, cost by most competitive prices and offers just in time delivery. Even in the most lucrative economies, cost is the driving factor behind all the best decisions you make for your business. Minimising cost boosts your company’s ability to enhance production and gain that competitive edge.

One area often overlooked in the quest for cost savings is Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) inventories. Likewise running out of any given item could slow or even stop production, and sending employees off site to purchase emergency products is both costly and time consuming. We have developed systems and processes that enables us to keep provide best customer experience, ease of business and thus helping our customers in lowering their supply chain cost.

Brief us on your network expansion plans.
We are aggressively expanding to every industrial town so that we can reach out to customers with our overnight service. The main purpose of Vashi’s existence has been availability of the stock and ease of business. We have invested in the state-of-the-art fulfilment centres across major industrial towns. Further, we will be launching our e-commerce portal and that will help us strengthen our position in PAN India. Aggressive online and offline marketing will help us gain more market share, especially from the retail world.

With GST coming in, we see ample opportunities. Our new facility of e-commerce portal is a key strategy to expand growth across India. It will enable us to provide local support and service to our existing customers and to expand further into the market for retail world.