Spotlight

Cable manufacturer targets 3x growth

Siemon plans to grow by 300 percent in the coming year, says Chirasrota Jena

Networking cable manufacturer, The Siemon Company, intends to expand its reach in the country. The company has decided to focus on the ABC (architecture, builder and construction) segment of the Indian market in pursuit of its objective. Siemon is a leading player in designing and manufacturing standards-based structured cabling systems and components across the globe. The company wants to replicate its global success in India by becoming the leading player in the cabling market in the country.

Siemon commenced its Indian operations in 2003. The first year saw it spend time in educating itself about the Indian market. Says Rajesh Kumar, its Country Manager, “We had to put in place a good channel network, and train and certify our partners. We also had to acquaint ourselves with prospective customers. Hence we’ve been actually in business only for about two years. During this time we have had more than 40 reference sites up and running.”

The manufacturer recently tied up with Punjab National Bank to provide its 10G IP copper and fibre end-to-end solutions. Comments Kumar, “We are focussing on niche areas where we can have value addition as a premium solutions provider. Having set up our offices in New Delhi and Bangalore, we are also planning to open an office in Mumbai by the beginning of the coming quarter.”

Regional focus

Siemon has decided to focus more on regional distributors to expand its base in the sub-continent. Having appointed Advent Infotech as its national distributor, the company is in the process of appointing regional distributors. It has also appointed Anixter, which manages global accounts, and is responsible for providing delivery and logistics for the same. Kumar informs, “We are also seeking sub-distributors for the southern and western markets as we see a lot of potential for our products in these markets. We would be looking for partners who are equipped with appropriate technical know-how. We believe that such partners add value to our business in meeting our goal to provide quality solutions to our client.” Siemon has more than 40 certified installers.

IT managers in India are working with stringent budgets for infrastructure deployments. They face a dilemma whether to go for a solution that fits their pocket or to deploy a solution that will see them through for years to come. Explains Kumar, “Siemon solutions are typically the world’s best available at the high-end, and therefore come at a premium. The client’s dilemma is one of our challenges, but we are trying to overcome that through educating the customers on the huge benefits that they stand to gain from deploying our solution. The second challenge is global, and pertains to India too: the rising prices of copper have raised the price of structured cabling solutions across vendors. Some IT managers may be compelled to compare cabling against wireless solutions, but then bandwidth and security are the challenges with wireless networks. In fact, wireless is complementary to structured cabling.”

Exponential growth

Siemon witnessed 220- 240 percent growth last year, and is targeting 300 percent in the coming year. Globally, the company invests 14.5 percent of its revenue in R&D. Notes Kumar, “Our strategies for the Indian market are simple yet precise. Enter the market with the world’s best products, appoint the right partners to sell, support the partners in every aspect of business operations, and offer top-notch post-sales support.”

Though the company is a new entrant in the Indian market, and the first phase of its operations has included educating the customer on the latest technologies such that they migrate to them and future-proof their IT infrastructure, when it comes to high-end solutions it has a good marketshare.

Verticals in its sight

Along with BFSI, the growth potential for the cabling industry lies in the Indian BPO sector. Observes Kumar, “As we have a wide range of quality cabling solutions mainly for data centres, we are also targeting them. Further, we are planning to enter lucrative verticals like communications, healthcare, and banking and finance.” Because the government is a major IT spender in India, the company is also planning to enter this segment.

Enterprises are under pressure to balance long-term costs with current expenditures. Rising copper prices have led some to explore fibre as an alternative. Although fibre can provide a future-proof option, it is not capable of supporting the growing demand for power over Ethernet applications, and the cost of fibre electronics remains prohibitively high for horizontal applications.

To address different verticals, Siemon has recently introduced its TERA fully-shielded end-to-end cabling solutions in India. Kumar tells why: “As enterprises face difficult network infrastructure decisions, it is a well-established best practice to install a future-proof cabling solution that is capable of supporting the next generation of application speeds. The total cost of ownership on TERA 10Gb/s-capable cabling is far better than lower performing options.”