Systimax to max India opportunity

BRISBANE: SYSTIMAX Solutions, which makes enough cables every three months to stretch four times across the Pacific Ocean, says a big tide awaits them in the Indian ocean.

For the company, India is now growing faster than China, its largest business geography outside of the U.S. The company plans to add new facilities, moving towards tier two cities such as Pune and Hyderabad, boosting the business partner ecosystem and creating more direct employment.

The bag of goodies might not include any Research and Development facility promise as of yet, but the company is “exploring” various geographies to set one up.

Currently, its Research and Development centers operate out of North America.

Vice-president and managing director, Asia Pacific, Dr. Ispran Kandasamy said that India is important to the company from a global perspective, something which justifies its investment plans. An executive briefing center is coming up in Bangalore, besides better and bigger offices than it presently has. Other assets, besides its HQ in Bangalore, are in Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi.

The company has a strong business partner network of about 90 currently, a key go-to-market strategy in India — they give SYSTIMAX the ability to stretch out in large countries, Dr. Ispran stressed, speaking at a media conference here, a manufacturing location for the company.

Expanding to tier two cities has a lot to do with customer demand. Many enterprises are now finding Class I cities cramped for space, expensive and a place where skilled manpower is easily sucked up.

“So from a manpower and cost perspective, it makes sense to be in tier two cities. Customers call us up to know if we have our supply chain in place in tier two cities,” says the MD.

SYTIMAX's solutions, like the 10G over copper, called GigaSPEED X 10 D, has been successfully introduced in India, proving that enterprises here are hungry for the latest and want to compete with the best, company spokespersons said. But as is the case all over the world, the company here too will be at pains to explain why an end-to-end structured cabling solution is an investment and not an expenditure.

Cabling is still considered “unsexy”, but forms the lifeblood of the network and is the foundation for convergence of applications. A cabling investment, says Ispran, is the lowest cost item with the longest shelf life as far as infrastructure implementation goes, ahead of switches, PCs and software.