Interview with Kunwar Sachdeva: Mr. Kunwar Sachdeva, Managing Director, Su-Kam.
First of all we would like to know about Su-Kam? And how this fancy name came into being? As everyone is aware that Su-Kam is in inverter business but we do lot of other businesses like solar business, battery business and inverter business. Su-Kam was found in 1992, and initially we started with the cable TV business and then in 1998 we moved into the inverter business, that is power business and since then we have been continuously growing into this power field only. So we are slowly, slowly getting into a power solutions company rather than an inverter company or a UPS company so we are trying to build a whole system around the power back up solutions that is why we call ourselves as a power solutions company and as far as fancy name is concerned, I think I was in college then I thought of this name and it was not for an inverter or for cable TV it was for pens that’s how name came into the system.
You started from a garage so please share the whole experience? I would not call it a garage, I got a shop and I started from there. Definitely at one time my parents had a home where on the top of it I created a small garage for manufacturing also. So definitely you can say that. How your journey has been from there till today? Journey has been very exciting and good because there was always a change happening and we were developing products, developing markets, developing branding and learning throughout these career and I think learning was very high. I am very fortunate that I came to this position and I think the kind of learnings I had in life were very exciting and challenging. What did encourage you to start this venture of manufacturing inverters? I do not understand that how this happened. Actually I was already in manufacturing business, I was manufacturing Cable TV equipments so one day I opened my inverter at home and I realized this inverter was not a real good product, it was troubling me at home and since I was into a manufacturing business I thought I can make it better that’s how I thought of manufacturing inverter but I was already a manufacturer of electronics making cable TV products. You are not from the technology background and your company is running on technology…How challenging it was for you to enter in this new world? I think it’s an interesting thing that I am not from the technology background because it helps as I have no boundaries. People who learn that one plus one is equal to two and two plus three is equal to five they know this is the only thing they can think of and since I do not know what is one plus one and what is two plus three so my imagination can go to any direction so that is one thing where I think creativity has no boundaries. When you are not technical so your creativity can go to left right and center and sometimes it is good and sometimes it is bad. Because sometimes when I go with some ideas to my R&D guys they tell me sir you should learn technical things first then I do learn but I think it helps. Secondly I think if you go to any field whether it is politics, films or anywhere people who have got very successful they were not from those fields so I do not see any field where people have to, have that education to make it successful so this it’s all passion, interest and your learning which helps you. We love being there and we honor it and motivation for success is AKC, motivation for being ethical is AKC. It’s our pride. That’s the landmark Dr Chauhan has put for us, and at no cost during our breathing tenure on the planet we can let the flag go down because of anything which points a bad figure towards AKC. With the change in time, do you think our government is supporting aspiring entrepreneurs of our country? I think the major shift which has taken place in the last 20 years which I feel is that earlier people used to think that the businessman is a “chor” so any businessman having any enterprise people always used to think that he is a “chor” or businessman is not honest, entrepreneurs are not honest and I see in these 20 years that thing has changed. People who are in government sector they are preparing their kids to join the private sector rather than a government sector so I think this is the major shift where the thought process of people have changed and middle class or upper class people want their kids to join the private sector. In last 5 years I have seen that lot of people want to hear the entrepreneurs and next decade I think belongs to entrepreneurs. How important is it filing patents to your company? And how many patents are in the pipeline? When we were doing this R&D research and we were already made lot of technologies like Sine wave technology, big inverters, lot of charging technology we stumbled upon and we did not know that these are the technologies which are not made across the globe so we started exporting, we started going out then we realized that we have really developed certain technologies which are not developed by the other companies and the technologies which we develop were advanced compared to those companies which were dealing in the industry. So we started filing for patents and we filed the first patent in 2004 which we got that time. Our engineers did not have the time and they did not know how to file a patent, so in 2007 we became serious and outsourced the patent services then we realized that our company is sitting on lot of technologies so we need to bring everything on papers, so we started working very aggressively on this and nowadays we are filing almost 2 technology patents in a month so we have filed more than 60 technology patents so far and almost few patents are in process that we are going to get. When I am talking about 60 technology patents all are published so they are final patents that we have filed so I think the list is growing. What are the next technologies Su-kam is coming up with? We are working on lot of technologies like Solar, power, stabilization and power monitoring so basically we want to save the power whether it is a home, office, factory or complex we would like to save the power whether it is the power generated by the diesel, gensets or it is generated by any other source. So we would like to save the power because I think in India the power wastage is very high so we are working on those technologies and in India solar has lot of challenges because government wants to give subsidy to the solar industry but government faces lot of challenges in terms of technologies. So we are working on lot of technologies where we are bringing up with the new concept in inverters, where government can also watch what kind of generation we are doing, one house can easily integrate those systems at home or their offices or in the factories. Also we are working on LED’s; improving the battery technologies because storage is a big business worldwide storage is going to be a very big business. Kindly tell us about Su-Kam R&D? That’s a very interesting subject. We created R&D in 2001 in fact we started doing R&D in 1990 itself but formally we got the R&D certificate from government of India in 2001-2002. We have a very strong R&D where we have more than 40 people working. It is one of its kinds in India where I think we have all the equipment, testing equipments, we have all the certifications in place and as we are working on lot of new technologies so R&D is the backbone of the country. How big is the R&D? We have 10,000 square feet area, 40 people are working there and we do not have any fixed budget for R&D, we just invest whatever is required for the R&D. How do you see demand for your products in the coming years? Our products are changing from time to time so right now there is a power shortage so we are into inverters which we are making, they are used by household applications may be 5-7 years down the line that application is not there because power scenario is changing in India. So we are bringing in lot of new technology products where you can do the storage or save the power, store the power or we can use the power as and when required or we can get the power from the solar or wind. So renewable we are working on, so I think in the coming times the same technology will go ahead I don’t think so, that is why we need lot of changes to use this technology in some other areas. Like inverters are used in fuels, solar and various applications so we are working in lot other applications where we can use the same technologies with the minor changes. The same inverter technology is used in UPS also. So this is a very interesting area where we can explore more even when the power distribution is taking place. We can play a major role there in the transformation, where there are transformers they are reducing the voltage there also we can play a major role. I think in the coming years technology needs change which is a constant change which is happening and it’s a need of an hour.
How did you start export and where the industry stands today? Actually in the year 2004 when we sent our first consignment to Sri Lanka there was some power problem going on and somebody called us who knew us. We sent few inverters to Sri Lanka and the moment we started with Sri Lanka we started exploring other countries, we made a small team and people who never travelled abroad they were the part of that team. I myself travelled initially then we started with Bangladesh, Nigeria Uganda, Kenya, Middle East slowly, slowly we also learnt that there are countries facing the similar problems so we started exports in a very small way and today our exports are more than 100 crores. There are 70 countries we are covering and there are more countries we need to cover. Even in the existing countries we need to expand, there are many challenges in terms of servicing, support structure so we are expanding. It’s a new industry we just came as an export because what we did it was followed by others. If you see India is the world leader in this technology, it is the biggest exporter in this Industry.
Source : http://www.caclubindia.com/catalogue/kunwer_sachdev.asp
