• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Abhinav Ramnarayan

Plans to set up 100-odd retail stores by year end on franchisee model

Chennai , May 25

Zicom, a provider of security solutions for government organisations and corporates, has put together two electronic security system packages, one for the home and the other for SMEs and small banks.

Already available in Mumbai and Delhi, the company has launched the product in Chennai, according to Mr Santonu Choudhury, Chief Executive Officer, Zicom.

It plans to promote these in a big way. He said that apart from the 7-8 per cent of the turnover that has been earmarked for marketing, the company will embark upon a major retail venture and has planned to set up 100 odd retail stores by the end of the year on a franchisee model. In the following year, the company will set up another 250 stores.

The reason for the venture is that the home segment is a market with serious potential, said Mr Choudhury. `Dink' households (double income no kids), for example, are empty for most of the day. And with increased purchasing power, several gadgets adorn the rooms of today's middle-income household, and the need for security arises. Not to mention the increasing crime rate.

He explained that currently, home security is provided largely by the unorganised segment, and the market stands at about Rs 250 crore. But now, having made a foray into the market, Zicom's projection for its company sales alone is Rs 330 crore by 2008-09.

Mr Choudhury said that the company expects to cater to about 80,000 homes and 20,000 SMEs with this package by 2006-07.

By 2008-09, the sales in the home segment would comfortably overtake the government organisations/corporate vertical that the company currently caters to, which is projected to have sales of about Rs 200 crore.

Two packages

The company offers two types of packages - ZicomHome and ZicomBusiness. The home package includes a motion detector, a magnetic contact, a gas leak detector, a hooter and two remote key fobs. Depending on the package you choose - there are The three packages — basic, premium and executive — it also provides you with a video door phone, which allows you to interact with the person outside each time the doorbell rings, and the whole system is linked with the company's central monitoring system (CMS). The response executives — there are eight of them manning the station round the clock — would alert the house owner in the event of an intrusion.

The ZicomBusiness Package provides a CCTV system, a digital video recorder, a four channel digital video recorder system (it goes up to eight and 16 depending on the package), a monitor, a panel/motion sensor, that detects intrusion through the CMS.

The cameras would have the capability to zoom into an event and also identify unidentified objects, such as a bag that wasn't part of the original scenario.

ZicomHome is priced between Rs 6,495 and Rs 22,995 depending on the package, and ZicomBusiness is priced between Rs 54,995 and Rs 149,995.

Customers will have to pay a monthly rental for the CMS services - Rs 300 for ZicomHome in the major metros - there is a cost reduction for other cities - and Rs 500 for ZicomBusiness.

More Stories on : New Products & Services | Security | Tamil Nadu

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Viiv to target plasma TV buyers

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line