We Stand By Our Commitment To Indian Market
With an in-house PCB designing, manufacturing unit and a corporate office indigenously designed, Laxmi Remote (India) Private Limited (LRIPL) is one of the oldest names when we all have these remote controls in our palms. With today’s dynamic changing digital world, Niloy from BISinfotech was eager to know the company’s never-forgotten journey, ahead plans, strategies and their unique offerings. Vijay Kumar Sachdeva, MD & CEO, Laxmi Remote (India) Private Limited (LRIPL) has the sheer prowess in understanding business which has made the company taste success for decades. The untold edited nub below.
An anecdote about Laxmi Remote (India) Private Limited (LRIPL)? Establishment, key offerings, business model and footprints across the country.
Laxmi Remote (India) Pvt. Ltd, a pioneer in remote control technology, is a leading manufacturer of remote controls, set-top boxes, adapters, power supply, mobile chargers & AV cables. The company formerly known as Remotec Industries was rebranded in the year 2000 as Laxmi Remote India Pvt. Ltd. Our trading business came to a halt in 1998 and we debuted into the remote control manufacturing industry. We opened our first manufacturing plant in Bahadurgarh, Uttar Pradesh in the year 2001, and by 2003, we had established our in-house PCB designing and manufacturing unit along with a corporate office in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
We established another manufacturing unit in Noida Phase II, in the year 2006, with a focus on manufacturing remote controls and set-top boxes for our business partners. After achieving tremendous success, we decided to further expand our portfolio by adding FTA set-top box and AV cables in our manufacturing capabilities to cater to the need of end consumers as well as businesses. In 2018, we established our R&D centre at Hyderabad with a more focused approach to drive innovation for setup box & software division. Laxmi Remote India has its own Conditional Access System (CAS) under the brand name of Pro CAS.
We have spent the past 25 years working hard to build a challenging reputation and breakthrough innovations in operations and manufacturing. What differentiates us from other players is that we provide end-to-end solutions to our clients. Our round o’clock support, cost-effective technology and quality assurance make us the trusted OEM/ODM partners to our clients.
Make in India vowing a larger sentiment across the nation, LRIPL role to foster it further and how has been the company playing an instrumental role across the manufacturing sector in India.
With the changing world dynamics and the massive push from the Indian government to create an Atmanirbhar Bharat, India is looking at a big opportunity to be a global electronics manufacturing hub. India is our biggest market and with a focus on Government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, we have decided to strengthen our position by bolstering local production and manufacturing of remote controls to more than three million per month. Laxmi Remote today has emerged as a leading Indian OEM, ODM & EMS player, bringing back a focus on boosting local manufacturing and add to the job opportunities in the market.
With a clientele of over 60 companies, LRIPL has partnered with big enterprises such as Daikin, Blue Star, Voltas, Havells, Orient Electric, Bajaj, Luminous, Livpure, Whirlpool, Lloyd, Amber, Usha, Halonix, Carrier Midea, Ricoh, SUN TV amongst others. The strong customer engagements and services have been a testimony to LRIPL’s 25 years of manufacturing excellence. With the ever-changing electronics manufacturing world, Laxmi Remote India is ready to meet the needs of the new normal through its advanced and sustainable infrastructure, capacity and manpower. We stand by our commitment to the Indian market and constantly challenge ourselves to deliver the best cost of ownership to our customers. As ‘Make in India’ campaign is making efforts by backing local firms and manufacturers to increase domestic manufacturing in the electronic sector, we will take hold of this opportunity and achieve greater success in our forthcoming endeavours.
Given the pandemic situation what shall be the company’s revenue target and strategies to achieve it?
We are planning to strengthen our facilities and targeting 20% production growth in the near future. In the next 5 years, we aim at becoming a 500 crore company while generating mass scale employment opportunities in the manufacturing and services sectors. With the vision to maximize India’s electronics manufacturing potential, we also aim to lead OEM remote control business.
Additionally, we are also considering the possibility of entering into LED TV manufacturing business with a manufacturing plant in the near future. Currently catering to 25% of the overall remote control manufacturing demands in India, we are working on technologies like Radio Frequency (RF), Touch Screen, and Voice Control along with Bluetooth technology in the category of remote controls. As the Consumer Electronics and Appliances Industry in India is expected to become the fifth-largest in the world by 2025, we are focusing more on the sectors like Medical, IoT, Consumer Electronics & appliances and working towards manufacturing electronic products to support these segments.
With advanced technologies (IoT, Predictive Maintenance) becoming a new cognizance across the EMS industry. How do you look into the change and impact of it in the business?
While the winds of change are favoring our country and major economies interested to invest in India, the domestic industry really needs to scale-up vertically and horizontally. This basically means that we need to size-up our capacities to manufacture quality electronic parts while various sectors need to invest strongly on research and development of trending and emerging technologies. Our factory and production lines will also adopt the latest technologies that will boost production volume and quality of products. There are several domains with strong emerging technologies such as IoT, Automation, 5G etc that can be the biggest demand creators for the electronics manufacturers. By capitalizing on the mentioned technologies, India is soon expected to consolidate its position as a major market leader in the world.
Vijay Sachdeva, you have been a known veteran across the EMS industry. How do you collar defining the strategic roadmap for the organization?
Being responsible for overall growth and development of the company, my main focus will be taking care of scaling up the venture, reinvent business processes, discovering new revenue streams, diversification, strategic alliances and balance risk and reward. At the forefront of the company’s growth, I support, formulate, and implement clear short-term and long-term operational and business strategies. I work closely with my production team to evaluate and ensure that we deliver the most effective production outcome for clients. There should be a right balance between being ‘customercentric’ and ‘employee-centric’ in order to benefit from and provide benefits to both.
We are expecting the Indian market to bounce back as electronic manufacturing in India is expected to grow in the coming months, considering the new schemes and steps recently introduced by the government. We are more focused towards trending and emerging technologies for us to establish ourselves as the leader in electronics manufacturing and further bolstering LRIPL’s position as a global thought partner. We are going all out in building partnerships with enterprises and different industries and are putting insufficient time and investment into it.
Given the growing competitiveness, what factors are been kept of pivotal focus to explore new markets and drive holistic growth of the company?
Competition is good, in fact, a healthy competition always challenges you to work smarter and pushes you to offer better services, product quality and customer experience. Our focus has always been on quality, just-in-time delivery and reverse logistics. What differentiates us from our competitors is that we provide end-to-end solutions to our clients. Right from the development of moulds to building sophisticated cabinets, design & development of PCBs to assembly and to manufacturing the final products, after an appropriate stringent quality process, Laxmi Remote India controls the entire production process.
We are constantly working on new technologies and innovations that are approaching the market and training ourselves in order to stay on top of industry trends and opportunities. We keep on upgrading technologies and equipment to best utilise mankind, material and machines. We have built a well-diversified portfolio with time.
In today’s complex marketplace, a well-maintained portfolio is vital to any business’ success. Initially, we started with remote controls manufacturing and moved to the production of set-top boxes. We continued to invest a portion of our assets in other verticals and started producing adapters, power supplies and mobile chargers considering the growth of mobile phones and consumer durables in India. Going forward, we are also planning to expand our product portfolio by foraying into internet-based category products for the Broadcast & Cable industry such as IPTV, Hybrid Box, Android box & other products in the same categories.
Key markets (cities) in India that is strategically important for LRIPL’s business in 2020-2021?
We have established a strong foundation in India by bringing innovations and services for our clients. We have successfully maintained the right balance between our B2C and B2B businesses. Since customer satisfaction is the absolute core of our business, LRIPL is committed towards understanding their evolving requirement. Impacted by the covid-19 outbreak, we have taken major initiatives for adopting our manufacturing processes as per the new normal to facilitate our clients with their orders with us. We are executing all necessary provisions in manufacturing processes so that we don’t face any halt at any point of time and accomplish our clients’ orders and a requirement on time. We cater not only to the local but also to global demands. With a strong pan India presence, we will continue to delight our customers and partners with our range of product line-up. We are proud to manufacture some of the cutting-edge products catering to varied segments, strengthening our portfolio and further consolidating our presence in the industry.
According to you, what are the major changes and trends you foresee in the industry?
The electronics manufacturing is yet to see its golden days in India. India’s manufacturing sector is expected to grow with a compound rate of 25-30% in the near future. The industry might witness a huge demand that will certainly shift the trend to automation processes and technology upgradation along with better infrastructural and logistical development. We can expect reform in medical electronics, consumer electronics, communication, broadband equipment and also defence electronics sooner. With a host of benefits they offer, IoT and AI technologies will also have a large role to play. Considering the same, the role of robotics in the manufacturing processes will be encouraged. As the government is focusing more on local manufacturing and rolling out different schemes, we can also think of developing infrastructure for components and other raw materials.
Lastly, what is the major challenge and way out you mull given the current EMS industry?
The dependency on China for components is still there and it will not go down soon. We need to develop an ecosystem for components. It is not possible to reduce dependency on China overnight. We need to take a comprehensive look at China’s innovative capacity. China has arguably the best technology infrastructure outside the western world. Backed by its technological dominance, Chinese software developers offer the best services not only technical but managerial too. The Chinese software companies and their cutting-edge technologies and revolutionary ideas are used by several industry giants. Anti-dumping duty on those Chinese manufactured goods which are already being made in India is extremely critical. We need a strict policy to tackle the presence of excessive under value import of raw material and other components.
Apart from components, the shortage of skilled workforce and advanced technology is also a challenge for the EMS industry where it is witnessing irregular demands. The higher cost of infrastructure, logistics inefficiencies and infrastructural bottlenecks, resulting in greater turnaround time and costs. These issues need to be addressed to further boost the growth of the EMS industry in India. In spite of all the above-mentioned concerns and with the help of appropriate industry initiatives and government interventions, electronics manufacturing is expected to rise in the future. Although the government has come up various schemes and initiatives such as ‘Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat’ to improve the business environment in the country, it further needs to set up a base which can scale up industries and facilitate ease of doing business in India. To further enhance the competitiveness of the Indian electronics manufacturing industry, these initiatives must be sustained with regular monitoring.
