KB Prasad, DGM, marketing, structured cabling systems, Finolex Cables

What has been the focus of Finolex?
We are targeting projects in the range of 700 to 1,000 nodes and our target customers are government and educational institutions, which contribute around 60% of our revenues.

What is the break-up of the market in India?
The structured cabling market can be divided into three parts-high end, mid end, and low end. High end contributes 40%, mid end contributes 30% and low end contributes another 30%. In terms of technology, Cat5e contributes around 50%, Cat6 contributes around 40% and others i.e. Cat6e, Cat7, and Cat7+ contributes another 10%.

What is Finolex's revenue projection from structured cabling business in FY 2005-06?
Last year we had done business worth Rs 12.5 crore and this year plans are for around Rs 18 crore. This year, growth will come from banking, PSU, software and ITeS industry. In the banking sector there is lot of restructuring happening. Software and ITeS is gaining ground in smaller cities like Pune.

How has been the performance till date?
Till date, Finolex has been doing pretty well and has done business worth Rs 8 crore. In terms of projects bagged, the company has got Indian Navy SeaBird project in Karwar, NTPC projects in North and East.

What are the visible trends in FY 2004-05?
No system integrator can talk about exclusivity as it is presently a customer choice driven by system integrators. In terms of prices, it has dropped by around 8-10%.

What is the USP of Finolex in structured cabling business?
First, it provides better logistics management to its system integrators. The company has 18 warehouses located across the country so the product movement hardly takes time. In terms of channels strength, the company has around 30,000-plus electrical channels of which the company has cherry picked one or two big distributors in each city for structured cabling products and this strategy is paying off.