Sparsh is working aggressively towards fulfilling Made in India mission by creating Indian Intellectual Property.
1. Sparsh has been the best Indian brand in video surveillance industry. Please share your achievements.
Sparsh is pioneer and leader in manufacturing Electronic Video Surveillance products in India with product presence in more than 10 countries, presence in more than 150 cities in India, channel strength of more than 2000 and manufacturing over 100K security products per month.
Sparsh has revolutionized the Indian security market by being India’s first company to manufacture CCTV cameras in India in 2007 and in just span of seven years Sparsh is today the pioneer and leader in the security industry having global footprints. Our focus on indigenous designing and manufacture of technologically advanced electronic security devices has put India on the global map for designing and manufacturing high quality and technologically advanced electronic security products. In short “Sparsh strives to have Global Footprint for ‘Made in India’ products”.
Sparsh has won admiration and trust of its partners, customer and industry as large and has a proven track record of a lot of firsts, technical advancement, corporate maturity, and achievements and has won many awards, some which are as follows:
- National Award for Quality Products by Ministry of MSME (2013)
- Most Admired brand of India (VAR India 2016)
- Best Security Solution Provider (NCN 2012)
- Technology Evangelist of the year (VAR India 2012,2013 & 2014)
- “Top 100 Most Trusted Companies in India” (VAR India 2012, 2013 & 2014)
- “Leaders of Tomorrow” in Electrical and Electronics category (ET Now-IndiaMART 2010 & 2013)
- "Best Security System Company” by South Asia’s most popular electronics magazine (Electronics for You (EFY) 2009,2010 & 2011)
- Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence in Manufacturing (Elcina- Dun & Bradstreet 2009)
- “Entrepreneurial Company of the Year 2007- CCTV” Frost & Sullivan award.
2) Could you brief us about overall business activities of Sparsh (tie-ups, associations, reach, network)?
Sparsh has been at the forefront for introducing new CCTV technology in the Indian market. Because of our focus on innovation, quality and customer service, many multinationals have chosen to work closely with us including but not limited to Sony Electronics, Texas Instruments and Aptina.
Sparsh has a PAN India network with more than 2000 resellers with presence in more than 150 cities in India and we target to double our partner base and reach in Indian cities. We aspire to be a true Indian company with global outlook.
3) Can you elaborate more about key product portfolio & it’s applications?
Our product and solution portfolio includes:
Products:
- IP Camera – 1/1.3/2/4 MP
- HD Analog Camera
- Analog Camera
- IP PTZ Camera
- HD Analog PTZ Camera
- Analog PTZ Camera
- Network Video Recorder
- HD Digital Video Recorder
- Digital Video Recorder
- VMS
- Video Analytics
- Power Supply
- CCTV Accessories
Solutions:
- Mobile DVR – Mobile Surveillance Solution
- I-MAS – Intelligent Monitoring and Announcement System
- PMS – Parking Management System
- ANPR – Automatic Number Plate Recognition Solution
- ATM Solution
- Event Camera
CCTV today has application in all fields of life. Our products are used in all security applications including government and public buildings, Transportation – airports, railways and bus stations Education – schools and universities, Retail – shops and malls, Banks, Hotels, Residential buildings and we have products and solutions for each industry vertical.
4) Which are the some of your pioneering products introduced in the market recently or new product in pipeline?
Sparsh has introduced Automatic Number Plate Recognition(ANPR) solution which finds application in Red Light Enforcement, Toll Collection plazas, Traffic monitoring. ANPR cameras can read and detect license plates automatically pf vehicles with speed up to 80km/hr.
Other solutions introduced include Event camera for surveillance anywhere & anytime. It uses 2G/3G network to send video stream to remote location with a battery backup up to 4hrs.
Our I-MAS solution is also a unique solution which integrated CCTV and analog PA system thus giving multi-client access and faster response to events. It finds application is schools, colleges, hospitals, traffic junctions, railways, etc.
Our Enterprise Smart series IP cameras are a big hit in the enterprise space with features like triple stream, 120dB WDR, bi-directional audio, edge storage, auto sync, smart bit rate control, QoS, Heart Beat Keep Alive.
We would soon be launching Enterprise cameras with edge based video analytics, home based surveillance and security products.
5) How do you explain innovation? How do you make sure that your organization constantly innovates?
There are three significantly different ways to drive innovation, innovating through operational excellence, innovation through customer experience & product innovation.
By placing the customer at the center of our strategy & we are developing collaborative partnerships with key customers or customer segments. This is about developing what people need and want, not building the "field of dreams”.
We have the largest team of innovators in India in the video surveillance industry to bring in new products and solutions to make our customers secure. We spend more than 5% of our annual revenues in R&D.
Sparsh has fostered the culture of innovation since its inception. This includes asking our product development & R&D to dream up new ideas and forming an "innovation board" that meets monthly to review new product ideas and pass good ones onto the company's executive team.
6) How do you foresee “India” as a potential market, what are the prospects?
We as an OEM brand foresee a lot of opportunities in the domestic market with lot of focus coming on “Make in India” and “Make for India” with schemes like Preferential Market Access (PMA) providing a leveling field for Indian manufacturers. Fast adoption of standardization in electronic products would also help the growth of the organized market.
The need for security in almost every walk of life is driving the demand for CCTV cameras thus providing attractive business opportunity for multi-nationals, local companies and traders. Based on various estimates, global CCTV market is still growing at double digit rates and Indian market is growing more than double the global growth rate.
7) What are the distinguishing facts of global market as against the Indian market?
Indian video surveillance market in India is growing almost at double what the world market is growing at and we would continue to see this fast growth. CCTV globally is an organized and technologically advance industry, because of the past social and politically charged global atmosphere Video Surveillance has gain prominence much before India realized. Technologically India is now at par with their global counterparts and now we could witness lot of global launches and see Indian market being used as testing ground for new products by many global MNCs.
8) How Sparsh is poised in the Indian security market?
Our biggest advantage is our vast experience in manufacturing and R&D. We always sell our products not as box but as a solution. As the consumer, will get educated, we do believe people will start asking for surveillance solutions which truly would be useful to them in extracting useful information and not just only actin as deterrents.
We believe our unique offering will attract system integrators too for promoting our products more this giving value addition to their customers.
9) What are Sparsh’s future plans?
Sparsh as a brand will target Government, Safe City, Smart City and SMB market and which is the large and sizable business opportunity for us. In the Union Budget, there were many provisions for “Make in India”. We are benefited by such initiatives as an indigenous Indian manufacturing company and brand.
Smart Home solution will be another area we would be targeting for growth. In near future we have plans to launch many new products in this space.
10) As per you what are the various types of difficulties that the Security Industry faces in today’s world, which needs to be noticed?
Despite such a growing market, Indian CCTV market is still majorly unorganized with many traders flooding the market with inferior imported products. Customers need to be educated so that they can buy the right product and technology for their security needs and get best return on their investment. In addition, government needs to set standards for security devices that can be sold and provide guidelines for import of electronic security products in India.
11) What Kind of technical support do you provide to your customers?
We have a highly trained team for technical support which has extensive product as well as implementation knowledge. We empower our partners with the below so that they always have an edge against the competition.
- Support for all technical requests
- Preferential processing of urgent cases
- Support even for products which are no longer available
- Personal contact person for your requests
- Support via remote diagnosis
- Making technical proposals for large requirements
- Support for customized solutions
- Technical product demo for large requirements
Our specialists have extensive knowledge about the system service, commissioning, system test and they also consult their colleagues from the sales and development department when required to give you a suitable solution for your need.
12) The National Award for the year 2013 on Quality Products in Micro & Small Enterprises in Electronic Surveillance & Security System, do you feel it has come as recognition to your focus and innovation?
When we received Leaders of Tomorrow award in 2010, we said this award will pave way for the development of the Indian Electronic security product manufacturing in India and recognition of the Electronic Security Industry.
The National Award for the year 2013 on Quality Products in Micro & Small Enterprises in Electronic Surveillance & Security System is recognition of the Industry and thus has renewed our focus to a bigger target and instilled encouragement and confidence in us to achieve them.
13)How is the feeling to be recognized at the National Level for the Quality?
The feeling is Great!
The evaluation for Award has been done with stringent parameters and evaluation techniques, specifically designed for the purpose. The critical areas include:
– Testing of raw materials
– Growth rate of Annual Sales and profit of Products
– Obtaining ISO-9000 Series/14000/22000 /HACCP/GMP / equivalent certification
– Providing Services after sales
– Technology involved/Use of Technology
– Quality Assurance Techniques
– Standard of Packaging
– Standardization-Obtained BIS Mark/ International Standard /equivalent (DGQA, RDSO, GMP /BEE etc.)-
– Export Growth
– Energy Conservation
– Whether any reward scheme introduced for employees for leading quality circle/productivity
– Pollution Control Measures
– Inventory Control
Sparsh is working aggressively towards fulfilling “Zero Defect, Zero Effect” mission. Zero defect means that the products would have zero fault and Zero effect means that the products would not be harmful to the environment.
14)What are the quality procedures being used by Sparsh?
The Company quality policy calls for continual improvement in its quality management activities and business to be conducted according to the following principles:
- Comply with all statutory laws and regulation
- Follow a concept of continuously improving the effectiveness of this quality management system and make best use of all management resources in all quality matters.
- Communicate our quality objectives and our performance against these objectives throughout the company and to interested parties.
- Take due care to ensure that activities are safe for employees, associates and sub-contractors and others who come into contact with our work.
- Work closely with customer and supplier to establish the highest quality standards.
- Adopt a forward looking view on future business decisions, which may have quality impacts.
- Train our staff in the need and responsibilities of quality management and provide the personnel and resources to ensure that the importance of meeting and exceeding customer requirements is communicated and understood throughout our organization.
15) Do you have any message for the aspiring entrepreneurs?
Launching new product or service is very difficult. Chances are you might fail, but you should not give up and try. You can’t sit back when you are 70 years old and regret that you didn’t go for it. FAIL is ‘First Attempt in Learning’, so keep trying.
16) What are the new initiatives taken by Sparsh in the year 2016?
Sparsh has recently joined hands with Logix ITS, Canada for Speed Radars signs with camera & ANPR for global market.
We also have started our new campaign “Bharat Ka Apna CCTV Brand “. This along with the other Make in India initiatives will surely bring more customer trust for Indian brands like us thus further strengthen Sparsh’s market position as the largest Indian CCTV camera manufacturing brand.
17) What are the latest projects implemented by Sparsh?
Sparsh’s current customers in India include AAI, CISF, NDMC, IAF, Army, PSU’s, Prisons, Police, and many more.
We have recently completed a unique project for teacher and child monitoring for Delhi schools which was highly appreciated by customer and thus helping us establish our position as a true solution provider in the highly fragmented Indian surveillance market.
We also have won a single project worth 13cr of Food Corporation of India and is under implementation at this stage.
18) How new government policies are bolstering growth for security market?
The latest reservation for security & surveillance in the Union Budget is testimony that the government is acknowledging the industry. Announcement of Smart cities and making CCTV mandatory in various customer segments adds to the opportunities.
While this is great news for the industry, there remains need for making security solutions more affordable to the users. Creating standardization for products have been a requirement for long thus providing users with true security products and pitting barriers for products getting dumped in India form China.
19) You are also the Founding Chairman of Security Promotion Group of India(SPGI). How is SPGI playing a role in the growth and addressing challenges faced by the industry?
SPGI’s major focus is to bring all the stake holders – Manufacturers, Importers, System Integrators, Policy Makers, End-Users and Academia together so that overall industry growth can be achieved. Manufacturing of Security Equipment in India is at a nascent stage and hence focus is on creating a conducive environment for manufacturing and make “Made in India” a dream of our Hon’ble PM Sh. Narendra Modi a reality.
Electronic Security Equipment has been recognized as an industry by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and it has been added as a category in MSIPS under National Policy on Electronics. Preferential Market Access (PMA) has been forwarded on Video Surveillance and Alarm Systems. In this year Union Budget Differential Duty benefit has been also passed onto CCTV Cameras and Recorders.
Rate Contract(RC) by DGS&D and PWD have been few more achievements of SPGI in its 4 years of existence.
20)How successful is the Made in India campaign?
There is much enthusiasm in the industry on “Made in India.” Government has also announced policies for encouragement. At least in Electronics manufacturing things have started happening. Electronic clusters have become reality. Mobile Phone manufacturing has seen a major boost in last one year. People have started feeling proud in producing and using Made in India products. But real benefits on ground will reflect in two years.
21)Are Indian manufacturers getting benefit of policies like “Preferential Market Access (PMA)” and “Public Procurement Policy (PPP)” for Micro and Small Industries?
PMA has been now accepted in various central government departments. DGS&D, the biggest agency for procurement through Rate contracts has implemented it for almost all Electronic Products. RDSO, an agency for Railway procurement too has implemented it.
Still many departments don’t accept it but with due representations by industry bodies like SPGI it would be accepted for all central govt. purchases.
Public Procurement policy for MSE’s is also now accepted in most of the Public Sector Companies and Central Govt. departments
22) What are your thoughts on training and standards in the electronic security industry?
Security industry is one of the fastest growing industries in India, thus skilled manpower is a challenge couples with customer un awareness makes a much bigger challenge to address. Hence training and standards becomes much more important in such scenarios and industries. The solutions usually are involving multiple systems thus system integrators should be properly trained to provide the best solution to varied customer needs.
Sparsh addresses this through its training programs like Tekniksha which it provides in different parts of India thus enabling system integrators to effectively and rightly use the products and give best solutions to its customers.
23) The internet of things is going to be the next buzz, what is your plan for the market?
The Internet of Things or IOT is about the convergence of applications to deliver performance improvements and information to make intelligent decisions.
We have bunch or products which we would soon be launching under our IOT range of products like personal tracker, smart home camera, etc.
24) What are your observations about the latest development in the Smart City Mission and Safe City Projects?
We have technical and design competencies to meet the challenging requirements of a typical Smart city project. We have end to end competencies g from both product and solution perspective.
We are approaching Smart city projects from perspective of surveillance, Integrated Traffic Management and Mobility.