Vikas Gupta, Director of PG Electroplast | Rare Techy

Almost a decade after it stopped making TVs due to a sudden market change, PG Electroplast is making sets again as the company copes with increasing demand for local manufacturing products. The return of televisions to the company’s portfolio of cutting-edge products is the latest phase of expansion that is generating strong growth for the Uttar Pradesh-based industry, according to CEO Vikas Gupta.

This marks the beginning of a new phase for the company, founded in 1977 by his father Promod, an electrical engineer. After more than ten years with the Ministry of Promotion, Promod decided to start its own business, manufacturing components for televisions. His eldest son Anurag joined the industry in 1991, followed by Vikas and his twin brother Vishal in 1995.

“We have been in this business for over 25 years now. When we started as a very small business, but with the support of our father and our customers, we have been able to grow this business, diversify, and move in different directions,” he said. and Vikas.

The brothers’ entry into the business marked a “turning point”, says Vikas. “We are involved in the production of televisions. Before then we were mainly a component manufacturer,” he explained. Although the company started out making black-and-white television sets, it soon progressed to color.

“It was a very busy time for us. We added new customers, opened new factories, and we started making televisions for most famous brands – India and many countries, like LG,” he said. I later came VCD players and DVD players, rounding out the company’s product portfolio.

It was a sudden move

But in 2011-12, the company faced a major setback as market demand shifted from its core product of cathode-ray televisions (CRT) to flat screens – a shift in trends that and Vikas came out with “a terrible shock”. “About 80 percent to 90 percent of our revenue came from that one product,” he reflected. “We couldn’t imagine the changes in technology.”

Earnings fell sharply when PG Electroplast suddenly stopped making televisions. But there is a silver lining on the site. The company has already started to enter the world of plastic production and, realizing the mistakes made in front of the television, began to pay more attention to this side of the business.

“We also diversified into the automotive industry, bathroom accessories and electronics industry. We started adding more customers,” says Vikas. “We learned our lesson, so we wanted to eliminate disruption to the industry and stop our customers, so if there is a problem we can overcome it.”

Another obstacle came in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased the prices of basic goods – an issue that continues. “Payment has become a big challenge,” admits Vikas. “We have to start working with different materials and different designs and we can optimize the price.”

We learned our lesson, so we wanted to de-risk the business and de-risk our customers, if there was a problem we could overcome.

Delays in deliveries due to disruptions in supply chains are also a problem, as are moves to reduce reliance on foreign buyers. “We are trying to bring the supply chain into India,” says Vikas.

The pandemic brought home the importance of PG Electroplast’s relationships with its customers. With the lockdowns and closures affecting the production process, the long-term understanding established by the company and its business partners will be “very helpful”. “We developed that deeper bond during those tough times,” Vikas said.

“The importance of customers or partners, as we call them, is important,” he said. “We are trying to create a strategic relationship with them and aim to support them in the off-season, where we can use their production.”

Customer financing programs, training programs, frequent visits and financial basis are included in the procedures established by PG Electroplast. “We also have a customer support team that we engage with our customers to check on them regularly and support them with quality control systems,” says Vikas.

Back to its roots

At the same time, the Indian Government also came up with a plan to help the country out of the problems of the epidemic. In March 2020 it announced a number of linked incentives (PLI), then in May of that year it unveiled the Personal Insurance India scheme.

A view by Vikas and PG Electroplast. “Times are very exciting. We are riding the wave of local manufacturing, helping to realize this vision of a self-sufficient India,” said Vikas.

Times are very exciting. We are riding the wave of local manufacturing, helping to realize this vision of a sustainable India.

With this new focus on promoting local manufacturing, PG Electroplast suddenly finds itself, once again, in a good place. “We saw that the policy landscape was changing, and we knew we had to get involved in product development as well,” Vikas said. “But now we know that we have access to those products that have a small import challenge, and a large area of ​​plastics.”

Fortunately, the company has developed a wide range of core competencies in plastic manufacturing. “The first product we focused on was air conditioning. We developed the entire design of a product for our client Voltas, and we started manufacturing air conditioning for them in 2015,” he recalled. each. “This is the first time we’ve started working on a finished product.”

The second finished product that the company decided to manufacture washing machines, started production in 2017. “We developed a design, we made our equipment, and we started to creating an original design (ODM) offer for our customers.” In 2018-19, the company decided to expand its ODM business model to include air conditioners (AC). “At that time, the government was looking to announce the PLI scheme for AC manufacturing, so we started focusing on the AC business,” says Vikas.

A huge investment of around US $40.3 million in the project followed, with PG Electroplast setting up a fully vertical AC manufacturing plant in the state of Maharashtra. “It’s a green house, we got the land parcel in February-March 2021,” says Vikas. “We started construction there in June 2021 and we can start production before January 2022. So we have been able to build a new factory for AC production in at the time of writing.”

Full circle

The best sign that the company is back is that it has re-entered the television space by the end of 2021, and Vikas is optimistic about the prospects. “Times are very exciting right now and electronics is making a comeback in India,” he said.

“This role for me has many opportunities to take our company to the next level in the coming years, because we are in the right place at the right time. We’re trying to see how we can develop new product lines, new business lines, and how we can reach more sets of customers to grow this type of business. .

This role for me has many opportunities to take our company to the next level in the coming years, because we are in the right place at the right time.

The products business currently accounts for around 50 percent of PG Electroplast’s revenue. Vikas expects this to rise to between 70 percent and 80 percent in the next two years. “I think we can grow our business three or four times in four to five years,” he says.

Attending to the needs and wants of its customers will be an important part of the plan to achieve the important goals of PG Electroplast. “We are trying to be customer focused – to be a one-stop solution provider to our customers, we need to be quick and flexible in our response to meet the dynamic needs of our customers,” says Vikas.

“We are trying to streamline our organization and see how we can meet the needs of customers in the shortest possible time. We are seeing the growth of the industry. consumer electronics many times, and we want to be a big and dominant player in this industry in the coming years.

Research and development play an important role in helping the company achieve this goal, and PG Electroplast uses the latest technologies to create “different” products that stand out on the strength of strength, is more important to consumers.

For Vikas, success means protecting the interests of all the company’s stakeholders – its employees, its clients and its customers. “If we can inspire them to do new things, to do new things, then I think we can measure our success in those terms,” ​​he said.

“Success is not an end, it is a journey. Because we have to constantly evaluate our responsibilities, how we do it, we have to constantly aim for the benchmark for innovation and how we can sustainably grow our business.”

Going forward, that means reducing the company’s carbon footprint, a project Vikas says is a “big deal”. It also incorporates renewable energy wherever possible, with most of its electricity generated by solar energy.

This ability to react to changing market conditions is something that Vikas is confident that PG Electroplast has mastered, which holds the future. “Success is a very fluid thing,” he insists. “The targets keep changing.”

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