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Established in 1903, Siemon is one of the leading network cabling players in the global market today. The company boasts of over 400 active patents specific to the structured cabling market and a huge R&D focus. In an exclusive interaction with Jatinder Singh, Carl Siemon shares the companys strategy and India centric plans. Excerpts
Q:Siemon is rapidly expanding its presence in the global market. In view of this, how challenging is it to stay flexible to adapt with the regional market conditions?
I believe it is more of an advantage than a challenge. In the past few years, the main focus was on the core global company values. Over the past 7 years, we have invested heavily in our global expansion and added over 25 offices and R&D operation centres worldwide.
To set things straight, we see all our regional operations as a single global unit. It helps us to leverage assets and expertise around the world and multiply our effectiveness. For instance, if a global enterprise account adds a location in India, the local sales and technical services group can reach out to their counterparts in the other regions to gain knowledge and leverage information on the account and successes in other regions. This pooling of information enables us to provide consistent solutions to our customers and partners in a better way.
Q:Innovate or die is the golden rule followed by solution providers across the globe today. How well does Siemon understand this?
Innovation is definitely a critical component, if one has to outlast the competitor in the present day market conditions. We therefore, consistently innovate and engage with industry bodies and development organisations such as TIA, ISO/IEC, IEEE and BICSI, etc., to understand the key business requirements of the customers. This helps us to bring in the best of breed solutions for the end user. For example, Siemons category 7A TERA connector interface was standardised by ISO/IEC, way back in 1999. This fully shielded solution is still the best performing twisted-pair copper cabling system available in the industry and is being considered for speed beyond 10Gb/s. So customers who installed our TERA system in the last 10 years, still have a future-proof solution that will last them, as long as, or even longer than any industry-standard copper cabling system installed today.
Moreover, in the past year alone we have launched innovative products across all of our product families which includes the Z-MAX copper cabling solution, XLR8 pre-polished fibre connectors, enhanced MTP-based fibre solutions, MapIT G2 next-generation intelligent infrastructure management, and VersaPOD data centre cabinet solution, etc. These products were specially developed to meet the global customer and market needs.
Q:Pertaining to the current economic slowdown, what are some of the challenges as well as opportunities that you foresee in India?
The recession did slow down the growth to a certain extent; however, there are several opportunities as far as the structured cabling market is concerned. IT-driven enterprises such as data centres, knowledge centres, BPOs, and disaster-recovery centres are fuelling the growth of structured cabling in India. High-bandwidth and high-speed demands are pushing the limits of data transmission in LAN networks.
India is a huge market for us. The demand for advanced applications such as fast Ethernet and gigabyte Ethernet are pushing cabling solutions to reliably transfer voice, video and data information. The challenge is to continuously innovate as per the market needs and there lies our main focus.
Q:What are your India centric plans for FY 2010-11? What are the major focus areas?
We do plan to launch few of our latest offerings in the Indian market. As far as technology is concerned, we will continue to update both our customers as well as partners on the developments besides offering the latest technologies to the Indian structured cabling market.
We will also focus on educating our customers so that they can take well-informed decisions and add value through design assistance and technical expertise. Besides, we plan to leverage our knowledge and successes within the global accounts to position ourselves locally. Siemon will continue to invest in resources and expand its partners in India. This will help to grab a high market share in the near-term and prepare for a certain rebound. Nonetheless, we are committed to focus on R&D and bring innovative and futuristic products to the Indian and global market as well.
Q:Are you planning to establish a new R&D centre in India?
Not at the moment. Currently, we have R&D and manufacturing operations in Watertown, CT USA and Shanghai China serving the Asia-Pacific Region. In addition, we also have manufacturing and warehouse operations in Mexico, Brazil and the Czech Republic. But I must add that India is a key market.
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