Interview with Mr. Naveen Sawhney Managing Director of Cords Cable

Friday, Jan 07, 2011

What makes CORDS CABLE unique to the cable & wire industry?

The primary focus of Cords Cable is the customised design and manufacture of high quality, value added special cables in the Low Voltage category. This gives the company a unique position in the Cable Industry.

Some such special products are: Foundation Fieldbus cables, Fire Survival cables, Solar PV cables, Low Temperature cables and Special cables for Oil & Gas and Desalination Industries. Apart from the above we have a large variety of Instrumentation, control and LV Power cables in our kitty.

What targets does CORDS CABLE have in place to counter the current financial climate?

These are challenging times, and in India we are in a unique position where in spite of the financial crisis we are witnessing a good economic growth. It is a position where we need to grow as well as adapt to the times with increased efficiency and market reach.

We are investing in further diversification of our cable offerings with focus on development of more value added cables. We have invested considerable amounts in modernisation and increasing the automation level of our manufacturing, and taken strict cost-cutting & disciplinary measures throughout the organisation.

We are also renegotiating terms with our Bankers, Vendors and Customers to reduce the interest burden on the company.

Apart from above measures, we feel this is a good time for movement into new markets.

1. Our Export Division is working to further develop our market in Africa, Middle-East, Europe and CIS which should widen our reach, improve profitability and increase visibility
2. We are also quite focussed on emerging markets in India such as Nuclear Power, Solar Power, Metro Rail and Airport modernisation.

What percentage of CORDS CABLE business is based on the domestic Indian market compared with foreign exports, and how has the percentage changed over the last 10 years?

We decided to enter into International Business about four years back. At that time almost our entire top-line came from domestic (Indian) sales. We participated in MEEE 2007 exhibition at Dubai where we received an excellent response. Our products were very well received and over time the quality and level of service appreciated. Since then we have not looked back. Today, our export division accounts for more than 20% of our top-line and should see further growth in the coming years.

Export business not only helps us to have a wider market, but also brings with it opportunities to understand the needs and varied requirements of customers. This has inspired and continues to inspire us to develop and tailor our products to these varied requirements.

Do you see CORDS CABLE market base expanding into new markets in the future? i.e. opening production plants in areas such as China, West Africa, and Asia?

As stated earlier, we are quite focussed for an increased market share outside India. We have entered or are entering into long-term agreements with experienced professionals and organisations in Middle East, Europe and Africa to effectively market our products.

Our new and state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at Kahrani, India is sufficient to meet our requirements for a few years. We are also parallelly looking at few proposals for a manufacturing facility in the Middle East or Africa.

Are there any new products and technology developments in the pipeline?

We have strengthened our R&D wing and are designing and developing new products which shall be available progressively. One area that we feel has a high potential is the development of specialised Rubber cables for industries such as Ship-building, Material handling, Mining, Wind Power etc.

Some of the products that we have developed and marketed successfully in the last few years are Foundation Fieldbus cables, Solar PV cables, Fire Survival cables, Low Temperature cables, EPR insulated cables, specialised cables for Oil & Gas etc.

With climate change becoming an issue; how does CORDS CABLE see this affecting the energy sectors?

As a result of Climate Change there has been an increasingly greater interest from Governments towards adoption of Green technologies for Power Generation, such as Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Nuclear etc. But with the World’s dependence on conventional methods (Thermal) for power generation is paramount and shall remain for many years to come.

The West is far ahead of the rest of the World in terms of adoption of these technologies, but we expect to see a slow catch-up and change towards greater adoption of Green technologies around the World esp in Asia and the Middle East which are our focus markets.
Speaking specifically about India which still accounts for more than 75% of our business – we find that the Government is serious about Green Technologies, namely, Nuclear, Solar and Wind. There is a strong thrust from both the Central as well as various State Governments towards greater adoption of Green methods of Power Generation by way of bold policies and incentives. The country is at the helm of witnessing a boom in these sectors.

We at Cords Cable are absolutely geared to serve the specific cable requirements for these sectors. We are an approved vendor for Nuclear Power Corporation of India and have successfully developed our Solar PV cables.

Has it been a good year for CORDS CABLE and are there any particular projects that re-iterate the strength of the company?

It has been a challenging year in terms of the tough financial climate and recessionary conditions. But we have managed to successfully commission our key projects –

1. Commissioning of Kahrani plant – We have recently commenced commercial production from our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at Kahrani. The Kahrani facility has a modern, very well planned design and layout.

We have carefully selected our machine suppliers with a focus on reducing our dependence on man-power, improving efficiency and quality. Much of the machinery has been imported from Europe. We have also invested heavily on our in-house copper wire-drawing and tinning facility which should be among the best.

This plant is geared towards the production of high quality Control, Instrumentation and Special cables. In the first full year of operation (FY 2010-11) it should give us an additional top-line of up to US$ 55-60 million and would further strengthen our position as a leader in India for Control, Instrumentation and Special cables. Also, the plant is designed keeping in view the next few years – it gives us scope for addition of new products and further increase in capacity by up to 25-30%.

2. Commissioning of Enterprise Resource Planning software (ERP) – We commissioned the 1^st phase of our ERP from 1^st September’ 2010. The 1^st phase includes – Finance & Accounts, Sourcing, Inventory, Sales and Tendering modules.

The ERP is based on latest Microsoft Dynamics ‘Navision Ver. 6.0’ and has been customised to meet all our requirements.

This implementation should considerably streamline our various processes and bring about greater efficiency and better & faster reporting.

Since the past one year we have been working on developing our own Cable Costing module, building on the same Microsoft Dynamics Navision platform. The user testing is underway and we are confident of going live with it within the next 2 months. This will greatly reduce the time required to respond to customer enquiries and help our technical team to focus on more complex product design and development.

How does CORDS CABLE view on-line media, advertising and promotion and how can this help a company like CORDS CABLE increase their global brand?

Our view about on-line media and promotion is that it is the easiest and most cost-effective way for us to increase our brand visibility. It can be an effective tool to build our brand image and identity.

We had some time back redesigned our website. Now we have plans to start few country-specific portals, which is in-line with our focus on International market.

What have been the key factors behind the success of CORDS CABLE?

The key factors behind our continued success are:

1. Honouring our commitments – with respect to price, delivery, service etc. This has been the greatest factor and forms the core of our values.
2. Consistently maintaining high quality – We give ‘Quality’ a very high importance in all our activities.
3. Having long-term relations and partnership – with our customers, suppliers, bankers and sales & marketing partners.
4. A focus on product-development to meet specific customer requirements – this has helped us place ourselves in some niche markets.

The acceptability of our quality products and services can be seen from the success of Cords in the export business which was initiated only four years back and now accounts for 20-25% of our top-line.

Are there any other recent developments by CORDS CABLE that our readers should be interested in?

There have been several positive developments for Cords in 2010.

1. We got approval from Power Grid Corporation of India for Control and LV Power cables. This has greatly increased our scope in the Energy Distribution sector in India.

2. We became the first Indian cable company to receive an order from Engineers India Limited (EIL) for Foundation Fieldbus cables. India was dependent on imports for these special cables used for high speed digital data transmission which Cords can now locally manufacture and supply. We had been working on development of this product since over 1 ½ years.

3. We have successfully completed factory assessment and documentation towards EIL approval for our LV Power Cables. EIL Approval of our LV Power cables shall prove to be a boon for the company in the coming years.

4. Cords has in 2010 successfully developed EPR insulated Control and Instrumentation cables. This is a new market for the company.

5. Cords has successfully developed cables for PV based Solar Power Plants. We launched our CORDSOL brand of Solar PV cables in Mumbai on 14^th December during the Inter Solar India Exhibition.

We shall continue to strive for development of new and improved products in the coming year as well as work towards increasing our reach and visibility in the Global market.

Source: Cords Cable