Mr Khandwala, could you tell us more about your business and the solutions that you are bringing to the market?
Kanderp Khandwala (KK): Axis Electrical Components was founded in the year 1994 primarily with the intention of making quality goods which are used in the electrical industry and selling it in the overseas markets. We have been a highly successful exporter of electrical goods and components for more than 25 years now. In fact, in the current year, we are celebrating our 25th anniversary. We are a star export house and have developed all the products to meet the stringent international standards and that is the root cause of our success. So, we are giving Europe standard products at a Chinese price.
What kind of competition and challenges you face while offering quality products at a lower price?
KK: It’s difficult to maintain quality and price both. So, primarily there are different kinds of customers, there are customers who are focused on the quality and other set who are price conscious in the electrical industry particularly. What I am very fond of saying is that we are not selling products, we are selling assurance to the clients that the product will not fail. That can happen only through stringent and very detailed designing through testing and validation of the products through type testing. While manufacturing, the detailed manufacturing plan ensures that the quality of the product is consistent. Besides ISO 9000, which is the primary requirement, we have test reports of reputed testing laboratories like CPRI or ERDA which state that the products are following a specific standard like UL, IEC, or NFC.
When a family business goes to the next generation, there come lots of expectations and responsibilities. So Sahil, what are the new ideas you are bringing in that can lead to great success?
Sahil Khandwala (SK): Some of the key initiatives that we are presently in the process of doing is introducing IoT solutions for other utility customers because now we are going through a very data-driven expansion. In the Indian utility market, there are a lot of requirements on the IoT side that are not completely met and this is a part of the smart
initiative where we are working. We are also working on the whole digital marketing side of things using social media. Now our YouTube videos have more than a quarter-million views. Our website is also getting a lot of hits every week. So, these are the basic things we are doing to take ourselves to the next level.
Talking about the business performance, what kind of sales are you targeting?
KK: In numbers, we have shown exceptional growth in the previous years. As a company, we have grown more than 40 per cent and as specific components and as a specific product mix in the specific markets in the domestic segment, we have grown by more than 200 per cent. In the current year, we planned for 50 per cent growth and we have achieved.
That speaks for itself that we are a growth focused company. We are pushing ourselves and building a very strong team by getting the best in the industry to achieve growth that the board of directors are enabling.
What kind of new solutions you have brought in?
KK: One of the major factors for Axis is growth and achieving major success has been customercentric and as this, we are focused on identifying the problems the customer is having. We are in negotiation with several utilities in terms of problems identifying on the ground and then going back and discussing it with our technical team and coming up with a proper solution.
