Comments
“We are not just making in India, but innovating here too,” maintains Akshay Dhoot, Head of Technology & Innovation, Videocon Industries.
And it is this innovation — with increasing research and development spends — that Videocon has bet on to claw back in the highly competitive consumer durables’ category. The aim is to double the turnover from the segment over a three-year-period. “There is a change of mindset. Earlier, we used to focus on cutting down the costs and embarking on price wars. Now, it is R&D and increasing the features of the product,” the 24-year-old Akshay, who spear-headed this change of mindset in the company, told BusinessLine . He is the son of Rajkumar Dhoot, founder of the $6-billion Videocon Group.
Niche offerings Nearly 50 per cent of the company’s sales in consumer durables are expected from the premium segment, if Akshay is to be believed. Pricing wise they will be higher by about 15- 20 per cent. “We intend to play on technology and create a niche within the existing product categories,” he says.
Some of Videocon’s niche products include the “liquid luminous” TV range that is set to compete with LG’s ‘OLED’ TVs. A mobile app (application) powered AC – called Wi-Fi AC – has also been rolled out.
New product features — air conditioners, refrigerators, or washing machines — that have been recently rolled out include focus on cooling in extreme conditions (for ACs); sleek designs (for washing machines), energy efficiency (for refrigerators) and so on.
For this to happen, R&D is the priority area. And, it’s evident with there being no cap on it for these years. “We have removed a cap on our R&D expenses for the next three years as this is our priority,” Akshay points out.
The wing has also been ramped-up. The headcount has been doubled to 250 in these four years. The company’s R&D units are located in India (Aurangabad and Noida), Korea (Seoul), Japan (Tokyo) and China (Shenzhen).
Manufacturing too, will be ramped up. The company has 13 manufacturing facilities. Sources maintain that ₹1,000 crore will be spent over the next three years as capex towards setting up new facilities as well as upgrading the existing ones.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.