'Our effort is to simplify the complexities of the end user'

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Molex is among the fastest growing cabling vendors in India. Having its own manufacturing and R&D facilities in India, has also given it a unique advantage. Senior officials from Molex, Dennis WJ Curtis, president, Premise Networks Division; and SA Mohan, regional sales director, India and Asean, share with VOICE&DATA, the company's expanion plans and innovative strategy for cabling.

How are you further strengthening your India presence, given that you have a manufacturing as well as in-house R&D center here?
Dennis Curtis (DC): The manufacturing and R&D facilities in India are key to our development in the region. We are doubling our strength and investments in India. By end-2007, there will be 160 employees in India of which 110 will be in the production division. Molex India manufactures a number of products for both premise networks and the core Molex (OEM) business. The manufactured volume of products for the premise networking market has doubled since 2003.

SA Mohan (SA): Our plan is to be the number one cabling brand in India by 2010. All our efforts are toward that goal. We are concentrating on increasing the customer base beyond tier-1 customers.


Dennis WJ Curtis (Left), president, Premise Networks Division and SA Mohan (Right), regional sales director, India and Asean, Molex

Molex has grown by over 60% in the last two years. What has led to such an impressive growth?
SA: Molex has been a best-kept secret of sorts in the market. To start with, we focused on large projects and limited distribution. We built our business model as a consultant rather than just a vendor, focusing on building a brand value and establishing a long-lasting relationship with each of our customers. This meant taking a longer route, but today this is what has paid off with a strong customer loyalty. We positioned ourselves differently from others on the enterprise side.

How are you positioning structured cabling as a service solution?
DC: We are spending a lot of effort in focusing more on non-traditional efforts on the services side. Our approach is different from most top players who are focusing just on designing and layout of data centers. The idea is to simplify pain points of the end user through value added services. For example, if an end user is interested in an upgrade, the client's query typically goes to a project manager, then down to the system integrator and finally to the cabling vendor. This system of information flow is complex and time consuming. Most often, the client gets inaccurate and insufficient information. Therefore, we looked at this piece of problem and are looking at solving this pain point. A pilot project is underway in Australia, which will be completed in six months' time. You can expect it worldwide in the later part of next year once we establish its success.

Your global position in the market remains small. So how do you plan to propel growth?
DC: Yes, globally our market share is in single digits close to 8% and in India our market share is around 12%. However, even as the structured cabling industry is growing 5% globally, we are growing five times of that. We are open to acquisitions and have identified a company to acquire, which will add to our premise networks business. We also focus on including value added services to our solutions to get an advantage over other vendors.

What are the key technology trends you see in the industry?
DC: We continue to focus on 10G related products. We feel FTP has a major role to play now with the demand of bandwidth increasing. Intelligent infrastructure management is also an exciting area.

What is different about India as a market?
DC: We find India to be a very mature market. Here, customers understand technology better and are well-informed. Also, it is a challenging market with a shorter time-to-market goals. The enterprises are very demanding when it comes to technology and shorter installation cycle. Anywhere else, it takes upto 6-8 months for an enterprise to choose and install cabling infrastructure, but in India the cycle is as short as six weeks. I am glad to say that there is less bureaucracy and this helps us in taking quick decisions. We want to use our learnings of the India market and apply it to other markets.

How are you strengthening your relationship with channel partners?
SA: Our channel partners work very rapidly here. In India, we were first in the industry to have developed a website that is dedicated for channel partners. The website has content specific to their needs and addresses their concerns. This has not only strengthened our relationship, but also helped us to grow the community in a qualitative manner. Currently, over a thousand partners are using this website.

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