Mohit Anand, Managing Director, Belkin India, His core job responsibilities include enhancing visibility for the Belkin brand across market verticals and geographies, bringing customer centric product innovations to market, increasing consumer touch and experience across product lines, establishing strong retail partner relationships, streamlining distribution and supply chain logistics, and to overall increase the company’s market share in the rapidly growing CE and IT market in India. Mohit comes to Belkin from Star TV where he was Senior Vice President and he was heading Channel [V]. At Channel [V], Mohit was aggressively involved in building the channel into the country’s most sought music channel for the urban youth.
Belkin offers a diverse product mix that provides seamless integration of electronic devices in homes, cars, and on the go. Founded in California in 1983, Belkin is a privately held company and the recognized leader in connectivity solutions, in addition to accessories for MP3 devices, computers, and more. Belkin provides extensive solutions for networking, home theater with PureAV line of cables, power, and digital wireless accessories. You can view and purchase them at www.belkin.co.in, as well as through a network of major distributors, resellers, and superstores. Belkin's phenomenal growth has also resulted in the rapid expansion of Belkin’s global presence. In addition to corporate headquarters in Los Angeles, Belkin has offices Its India office in Gurgaon.
While speaking to Anurag More of India Infoline, Mohit Anand says, "We are working towards being a Rs10bn company by 2015."
What is your current market share?
Belkin is a leading technology innovator in its various product lines, consistently expanding into new markets. Belkin strives for leadership in technology, market share, production, and fill rate. Belkin does this while maintaining a solid financial foundation and the highest standards of quality, integrity and customer service.
Explain to us your business model?
We are headquartered at Gurgaon, Haryana in India with 7 esteemed distributors. Our business model is very simple and consists of motivated channel partners, high quality products and to supplement that we have world.
Which are the products that give you the maximum revenues and margins?
We gain majorly from the networking products and surges protector.
Give us a geographical spread of your business?
In India we have employees in 14 cities and only three offices, two of which are field offices. At present the company has seven regional distributors spread across India.
Brief us about your expansion plans?
We are currently present in 14 locations with 26 people. We intend to expand to 20 locations by March 2010.
Comment on your financials. What is the outlook?
We are working towards being a Rs10bn company by 2015. It is a difficult path but with the kind of products we offer, the kind of customer service we provide and the effort we put in training our partners, I am sure we will be able to achieve it with ease.
What are your plans in India? How much have you invested so far?
India is a very strategic market for us. We intend to pretty well in here. We are focusing on the channel improvement and launching new products for the Indian market.
We currently have 3000 partners across India and we are making sincere efforts to reach 5000 partners by March end.
Tell us about your growth strategies?
We plan not to battle competition on the price and provide quality solutions at widely affordable costs. With increasing trained channel partners and products that cater to consumer needs, we intend to register good growth.
Tell us about your recently launched Skype Wi-Fi phones?
The easy to set up Belkin Wi-Fi Phone for Skype doesn't require a PC and will work anywhere in the world where you can connect to a Wi-Fi network. It can be used at home, in the office, at a café or at a municipal wireless access point that is compatible and does not require browser-based authentication.
Pre-loaded with Skype software and featuring the familiar Skype interface, the Belkin Wi-Fi Phone is ready to use straight out of the box. To make a call, you have to simply use the intuitive on-screen color menu to locate a contact and view their online availability - exactly like you use Skype today.
Backed with the Call history, Clock and auto list import features the handheld Skype phone (F1PP000GNakSK) is available at an MRP of Rs. 9,712 and backed with a one year warranty.
Which are the new opportunities that you are tapping?
We are willing to tap the growing Wi-Fi market in India. The Wi-Fi market in India will grow tremendously by 2011-12, thanks to a boom in…, and subsequent Wi-Fi adaptation by, Indian houses, retail, SOHO and SMEs. This growth figure includes chipsets, laptops, PDAs, cell phone handsets and other devices. Wi-Fi has an important role to play in India's economic development. Wi-Fi brings easy-to-use last-mile connectivity to homes, offices, and public spaces and can enable communities and enterprises to grow and thrive.
Comment on your R&D initiatives? Do you have a major R&D center in India?
We have no R&D centre in India. Our R&D centre is in the US. There we have a complete team in there which understands the specific demands of a country and develops a solution for such demands.
What is your assessment of the opportunities in India?
The India business opportunity seems to be progressing at a very good pace. The scope for business in India is increasing every day. While checking out the prospects and the scope of doing business in India one should be careful in taking all the relevant information regarding the options that are available to a non Indian company for investments. Since 1991, India has been through a big change in its outlook and attitude towards foreign investment and global collaboration.
Who are your close competitors? What about competition from Chinese products?
Belkin has a wide variety of at home, on-the-go, at work and in-car products. In every category we have a different competitor. In terms of mouse, I would say Microsoft, Logitech are my competitor. With regards to routers, DLink, Netgear etc are my competitors; so on and so forth. Chinese products play on prices and my mantra is do not battle competition with price. They cater to an all together different audience. They have a different market for their own. We do not consider them to be our direct competitors because we provide quality solutions.
What are some of the impediments you face in doing business in India?
The economic slowdown is one of the concerns at this point of time. The sentiments of people are not allowing the market to perform at its best. Also, India being a price sensitive market, it becomes difficult for us to provide the best quality products at cheap prices.
What advice would you give those who wish to join this industry/company? Typically what kind of people would you look for from the B-Schools?
This industry has a lot of scope and growth. A thorough knowledge and strong foundation can really help benefit them. We would appreciate people who are performance oriented, who can find answers and are solution providers along with giving due respect to the company ethics and socially responsible.
What do you think B-Schools need to do to make their students ready for the job?
Well, in my opinion B-schools should give more focus to identify and develop the interests of students. These institutions must emphasize on the importance of knowledge as well as supplement it with practical training. The student needs to get familiarized by the working environment. B-schools must encourage lateral thinking and open questioning.
What are your hiring plans etc?
We are expanding nationally. A lot of recruitment has happened and gradually keep on happening as per the requirements of the India operations. We are hiring our own Belkin team and in the 10-12 months we will have a Belkin people present across 31 cities in India.