SUPREME & CO. : Maintaining technology leadership with innovation
Q. How did your company managed the growth in power segment?
Electrical sector in India grew exponentially for almost a decade leading to huge shortage of supplies and suppliers. In such a scenario, industry tended to become domestic market oriented and everybody ramped up their capacities in anticipation of ever-rising demand. However, apart being manufacturer, we had also ventured into EPC contracting space. this gave us the view, that surge in supplies were only resulting in accumulation of work in progress and the completion and commissioning was unlikely to keep pace and it would be a matter of time was before there would be curb on this kind of rampant sourcing.
We made a strategic shift from changing the focus from quantitative to qualitative growth for domestic market. We also increased our thrust to international marketing as there were unmistakable signals of impending slow down in domestic market.
Q. What is the overall outlook for of your company & brief us about company’s global & domestic presence?
We are a leading multi-product engineering unit in Eastern India manufacturing wide range of engineering goods mainly for electrical T&D and Telecom. Throughout our organisational growth we have diligently followed policies of technical upgradation, product development, in house tooling, continuous in house research and development and field testing of our products.
Besides a fast growing domestic market, our exports have since grown from strength to strength and we are exporting to over 60 countries. Our products are routinely subjected to rigorous pre and post manufacturing tests and process control, to ensure conformity to international standard.
Q. How about company’s initiatives in power segment? Which are your focus areas?
Apart from Heavy Electricals we are mainly focusing on Alternative Energy, Smart Grid & Smart City Solutions like Smart Lighting, Smart metering, Remote monitoring of UPS/Inverters, Water flow meters, diesel generator monitoring. We have taken initiative to show our presence in Smart Grid Sector. We are part of & major contributors to India’s first smart grid pilot project in Puducherry; an initiative by Power Grid Corporation of India. The first phase consists of deploying AMI, we have deployed smart meters capable of next generation technology like AMR, net metering, remote connect/disconnect etc. to facilitate monitoring & load analysis to utility companies as well as benefits to the consumers.
Q. What are the market opportunities for your products in India? How do you plan to position these products?
India is one of the major economies in the world & its demands are increasing at fast pace. Hence energy crisis is one of the major problems India is facing today. Indian government is committed to provide power to each & every corner of India. But aging infrastructure, huge gap between demand & supply of power & one of the highest T & D losses in the world are the factors affecting the growth & economy of India. Hence with planning of generation, energy saving is one the important steps to reduce the energy deficit. Hence India has got a huge market & potential for power sector. One of the major steps towards this is the Smart Grid initiative. In near future India would be one of the biggest market for smart grid & renewable energy. Hence we want to position very well at the time of huge demand once the smart grid & smart metering are standardized. At this time our products should be one the best available & well positioned to the potential consumers.
Q. What is your marketing strategy for Indian market?
Our strategy of Indian market is simple for the time being. Concentrate on customers and products which will secure credit and secure margins. Besides we are very clear in our understanding that ultra high voltage transmission and ICT empowerment of electric supply chain and intensification of optical fiber communication network will be key business areas in India once solutions are found to bottlenecks hindering infrastructure development in India. We are aligning our long term strategy suitably.
Q. Can you please elucidate the contribution of R&D in the success of the company?
We are well aware of the benefits of investing in R & D. We have come out with really innovative & cost effective solutions required in industries as well as by common consumers. e.g. our remote monitoring solution is very innovative & economic compared to similar kind of products. We have targeted small & mid-size companies to provide cost effective solutions for inverter/UPS, electric meter, Water flow meters, lighting, DG set etc. We are one of the very few companies in India who can provide such kind of solutions.
Q. Can you brief us more about your company’s top line product range?
Our range of products & services are
- UHV, EHV, MV – Substation Clamps & Connectors
- UHV & EHV Insulator Hardware, Conductor, Earthwire & Tower Accessories For Transmission Lines
- OFC -OPGW & ADSS Cable Accessories and Live-Line Installation Solutions
- Transmission & Communication Towers and Sub-Station Gantry & Equipment Structure
- LV, MV ABC and Covered Conductors Accessories
- Anchoring Solutions for Emergency Restoration of Transmission Line
- Poleline Hardware
- Accessories For Earthing & Lightning Protection
We also provide complete engineering procurement & construction services for following areas:
- Smart Grid/Micro Grid Solutions
- Smart Meters: DLMS/COSEM protocol based with GSM/GPRS communication mode, AMR/AMI support, net metering – energy import/export, Time of Use – multiple tariff option, Remote Connect / Disconnect, Theft detection.
- Meter Data Acquisition Solution: Wireless data acquisition of smart meters, load analysis, load management, fault detection, alarm/notification.
- Solar Controller: Inverter, VFD, MPPT, Charge controller complete solar power solution.
- Remote Monitoring System: Inverter/UPS monitoring, water flow monitoring, Diesel Generator monitoring.
- Smart Lighting
Q. What do you think are the strengths of your industry & How it is positioning itself against the global market?
Our strength is our long value chain. We want to leverage upon our engineering capability to be an inter grated solution provider in global T&D market.
Q. Please highlight Global perspective of power industry and what is the differentiating factor?
The global power industry is shifting its focus towards carbon free & renewable sources slowly. The big differentiating factor is the average losses of more than 26% across the national transmission & distribution lines, (major part added by distribution lines which may be up to 50% in rural areas).
The developed countries have much less than these figures. Hence India has lots of potential for development & the market is huge. Millions & millions of meters to be replace by smart meters, making the grid smarter specially the distribution side. In fact India has leapfrogged the AMR technology used in western countries in last few decades and directly jumped to next generation technologies like AMI.
Also India has a very ambitious plan for solar energy, which would be the next big thing in improving grid & reducing the power deficit; i.e. integration of renewable energy. India is already one of the top producers of wind energy. Also the vast telecom network in India may help to lay foundations for GPRS based smart meters. Many rural areas don’t have electricity but they have mobile phones & this may turn out a major contributor for smart metering industry.
Q. According you what are the factors affecting to your business?
Domestic electrical equipment manufacturing industry of India suffers a cost disadvantage of above 14 per cent vis-à-vis imports. Electrical equipment industry is witnessing a sharp degrowth because of increased import of Chinese electrical equipment and poor financial health of state power utilities which have put all major power projects on hold. As a result, the electrical equipment manufacturers across India are using just 40-60% of their production capacities. Many of the smaller players are on the verge of closure.
Around 24% of electrical equipment used in the country is imported from China. Though there are lots of quality issues with the Chinese equipment, the private power producers and those executing projects in the public-private partnership mode, continue to use Chinese equipment for setting up power generation units due to cheaper price and faster delivery.
Since the government was going strong on increasing the power generation, the industry had doubled its production capacity. But because of a slow GDP growth, the state power utilities facing financial crunch and going in the red, slow environmental clearances for setting up new power plants and lack of coal linkages, the additional power generation has been slow.
However, we have been able to take most of above in our stride by increasing our thrust on exports and our large and diversified product range has enabled us to opt out of certain products and markets instead of trying to compete with units intent on self-destruction.
