'Our effort is to simplify the complexities of the end user'

Molex is among the fastest growing cabling vendors in India.

Having its own manufacturing and R&D facilities in India, has also given it

a unique advantage. Senior officials from Molex, Dennis WJ Curtis, president,

Premise Networks Division; and SA Mohan, regional sales director, India and

Asean, share with VOICE&DATA, the company's expanion plans and innovative

strategy for cabling.

How are you further strengthening your India presence, given

that you have a manufacturing as well as in-house R&D center here?



Dennis Curtis (DC): The manufacturing and R&D facilities in India are

key to our development in the region. We are doubling our strength and

investments in India. By end-2007, there will be 160 employees in India of which

110 will be in the production division. Molex India manufactures a number of

products for both premise networks and the core Molex (OEM) business. The

manufactured volume of products for the premise networking market has doubled

since 2003.

SA Mohan (SA): Our plan is to be the number one cabling

brand in India by 2010. All our efforts are toward that goal. We are

concentrating on increasing the customer base beyond tier-1 customers.

Molex has grown by over 60% in the last two years. What has led

to such an impressive growth?



SA: Molex has been a best-kept secret of sorts in the market. To start with,
we focused on large projects and limited distribution. We built our business

model as a consultant rather than just a vendor, focusing on building a brand

value and establishing a long-lasting relationship with each of our customers.

This meant taking a longer route, but today this is what has paid off with a

strong customer loyalty. We positioned ourselves differently from others on the

enterprise side.

How are you positioning structured cabling as a service

solution?



DC: We are spending a lot of effort in focusing more on non-traditional
efforts on the services side. Our approach is different from most top players

who are focusing just on designing and layout of data centers. The idea is to

simplify pain points of the end user through value added services. For example,

if an end user is interested in an upgrade, the client's query typically goes

to a project manager, then down to the system integrator and finally to the

cabling vendor. This system of information flow is complex and time consuming.

Most often, the client gets inaccurate and insufficient information. Therefore,

we looked at this piece of problem and are looking at solving this pain point. A

pilot project is underway in Australia, which will be completed in six months'

time. You can expect it worldwide in the later part of next year once we

establish its success.

Your global position in the market remains small. So how do you

plan to propel growth?



DC: Yes, globally our market share is in single digits close to 8% and in
India our market share is around 12%. However, even as the structured cabling

industry is growing 5% globally, we are growing five times of that. We are open

to acquisitions and have identified a company to acquire, which will add to our

premise networks business. We also focus on including value added services to

our solutions to get an advantage over other vendors.

What are the key technology trends you see in the industry?



DC: We continue to focus on 10G related products. We feel FTP has a major
role to play now with the demand of bandwidth increasing. Intelligent

infrastructure management is also an exciting area.

What is different about India as a market?



DC: We find India to be a very mature market. Here, customers understand
technology better and are well-informed. Also, it is a challenging market with a

shorter time-to-market goals. The enterprises are very demanding when it comes

to technology and shorter installation cycle. Anywhere else, it takes upto 6-8

months for an enterprise to choose and install cabling infrastructure, but in

India the cycle is as short as six weeks. I am glad to say that there is less

bureaucracy and this helps us in taking quick decisions. We want to use our

learnings of the India market and apply it to other markets.

How are you strengthening your relationship with channel

partners?



SA: Our channel partners work very rapidly here. In India, we were first in
the industry to have developed a website that is dedicated for channel partners.

The website has content specific to their needs and addresses their concerns.

This has not only strengthened our relationship, but also helped us to grow the

community in a qualitative manner. Currently, over a thousand partners are using

this website.