"This year TVS-E is positioning itself as the hub in transaction segment"

As the VP-Marketing and Business Development, KR Chandrasekaran’s mission
is to ensure that TVS-E becomes a leading brand in the dot matrix printer (DMP)
segment. With the launch of TVS-E proton, Chandrasekaran is very optimistic
about capturing a major share in the retail printing market. Under his
supervision, TVS-E is also exploring other fields within the DMP umbrella and
holds a target to achieve over 50 percent marketshare by the year 2003. In a
chat with DQCI, Chandrasekaran outlines company’s plans towards achieving its
goals.

Could you outline TVS-E’s performance during the past two quarters?

TVS-E posted a turnaround performance in the JAS ’02 quarter, with a net
profit of Rs 32 lakh as against a loss of Rs 93 lakh during the same period last
year. Net sales grew by 18.49 percent to Rs 53.76 crore. While the interest
charges rose to

Rs 2.47 crore, the depreciation was higher at Rs 1.03 crore.

The eServices business clocked a 33 percent growth in the same quarter with a
revenue of Rs 20 crore. Under the IT appliances division, keyboards business
grew by 17 percent sequentially and 26 percent over the corresponding period
last year. It was in this quarter, TVSE launched world’s quickest billing
printer – TVS Proton. After the launch of this product, our monthly sales
increased from an average of 250 units to 1,000 units.

We also have our focus clearly on the transaction segment in the retail
market with a range of IT appliances. Early next year, we plan to launch Point
of Sale (POS) machines. We are well placed to take on the challenges of the
future. For the IT appliances business, we have a breakthrough product in hand
to increase our business prospects in the local and global markets. We also have
a steady inflow of business due to the growing needs of global companies for
competitive value-added electronic manufacturing services.

What is the distribution strategy you have adopted?

TVS-E strongly believes that channel is a part of the company’s DNA and we
don’t consider it as an external element. We also impart to them the company’s
latest information in terms of training and competence to help them keep abreast
of the entire range of TVS-E solutions. TVS-E’s business model in India is 100
percent through channels. We believe that our channel partners have played an
important role in the company’s growth in India. It gives TVS-E the ability to
offer best-of-breed solutions to the customers, a clear value proposition over
some of its customers. Infact, our whole eBusiness strategy is to support our
channels and the business model. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that TVS-E
virtually can’t exist without its channel in the country. Today, our channel
partners can have online access to any kind of product information, order status
and event information.

What was the strategy behind rolling out a DMP specifically for the
transaction segment? And how much has this helped TVS-E in increasing its
marketshare?

TVS-E has stirred the DMP market, in which we are leaders, by launching a
completely new generation indigenous printer called the TVS Proton. We are
aiming at tapping the fast growing transaction segment. We have increased our
overall DMP marketshare to 41 percent. This year TVS-E is positioning itself as
the hub in transaction segment. We are in the process of re-inventing and
revolutionizing the segment with TVS Proton. Our target is to scale up our
marketshare from the current 20 percent to 60 percent. This will translate into
sales of Rs 60-70 crore from Rs 40 crore in last two years. We believe that
India has around 1.3 million retail outlets, out of which, only five percent is
covered by automation.

The printer is the outcome of the 20 month effort of an young research and
development team headed by General Manager V Sughosh, plus an extensive market
research done with 600 small retailers across 12 cities. The project has
entailed an outlay of Rs 4 crore.

The new printer also comes with the patented ink-savings bank technology. It
prints up to 10 million characters per ink bank against three million in a
normal printer. This will reduce the cost of printing by a whopping 50 percent.
It also has a unique built-in roll paper feeder. We have launched a completely
new generation printer and it is a milestone for TVS-E and the industry.

What kind of marketing initiatives have you planned to increase your
marketshare in the peripheral segment?

TVS-E has charted a corporate strategy to corner a bigger share of the
computer appliance and peripherals market. We have plans to strengthen our three
business segments, which include the appliances, e-services and technology
division, by designing innovative products and services. In the appliances
segment, the main products of the company are printers, keyboards, power
solutions and language products. Our launch of TVS Proton is a major milestone
in this path. Automation of transactions, especially mass retail transactions,
in micro business is one of the fastest growing sectors in the IT industry
today, with a market opportunity of over one million retailers in India.

TVS Appliances, with its design capability and thorough understanding of the
Indian consumer, plans to become the e-transaction hub in India. The new product
from the company, TVS Proton printer, has a contemporary design and will
redefine speed and performance in bill printing. By replacing the traditional
CPS (characters per second) technique metric with BPM (bills per minute), TVS
Proton has developed the world’s quickest bill printer which will generate 10
bills per minute, making it 20 per cent faster than any other transaction
printer in the world.

E-services and E-tech products also constitute important business groups of
TVS Electronics. The company’s revenue for the year ended December 31, 2001,
stood at Rs 216 crore. While the unaudited revenues for the first half (January
to June 2002) were Rs 100.27 crore.

SUNILA PAUL in Chennai