On the occasion of Vashi Electricals celebrating 40 years of successful and delightful customer services in industrial electrical products, Madan Dodeja, CEO, Vashi Group, shares his mantra of success. What's new at Vashi Electricals? As you know, Vashi Electricals is India's largest channel partner of reputed international brands of industrial electrical products. For us, 2018 is a year of celebration as we mark 40 successful and delightful customer service to industrial customers. In today's competitive business environment, this is a happy achievement, so to celebrate, we have planned long year celebration activities for our loyal and committed customers, stakeholders, staff - some who've been employed for over 30 years. To say, Vashi Electricals is more than just an electrical channel partner. We are a company of procurement specialists helping customers to lower supply chain cost and increase in efficiency. We provide a basket of products under one roof to meet project or emergency maintenance requirements under one roof. We have recently started our e-commerce portal and that has seen major traction across industries and geographies. Could you tell us about your company, objectives, achievements and core competencies? Our success mantra is customer oriented. Our core purpose is to provide world-class solutions to our believers through innovative systems and processes. We aspire to delight our believers (aka customers) by performing better than their expectations. Our state-of-the-art 2 lakhs sq ft mother warehouse at Bhiwandi has more than 20,000 different products being stocked to cater the diversified needs of the customers on time. SAP ERP software, systems, processes and e-commerce portal are the backbone of our organisation. Our committed 700 workforce is proud of its glorious past, but the team believes that it has a future which will extend beyond their lifetime. Which are the leading products, brands and solutions you offer? Vashi Electricals majorly sells industrial electrical products such as Siemens switchgears, Legrand MCBs, ABB switchgear and automation components, Bonfiglioli geared motors, Siemens motors, Hindustan motors, Panasonic compact AC geared motors, Finolex wires and cables, Polycab wires and cables, Philips lighting, SKF bearings, Omron industrial automation, Connectwell terminal blocks, Elmeasure digital panel meters, Continental V-belt, Castrol industrial lubricants and Sapphire automation Scada solutions. Under services, we have an in-house service station to help industrial customers repair their gearboxes and motors. All our service engineers are certified by the brands and adhere to premium quality. We have four service stations at Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Gurgaon and Bangalore to help our industrial customers, just a call away. An industrial customer can also enter into rate contract with us and procure the items with us, without worrying about the constant price fluctuations. What is your medium and long term growth strategy for the electrical supplies segment? We aim to have our presence in every industrial town in India in the next three years. We must be in a position to meet the requirement of the customers in these industrial towns within 24 hours in any part of India. The e-commerce portal is one step towards that diversified business portfolio to cater demands of customers at ease. How was the FY 2016-17 in terms of business achieved, operating profit and new initiatives launched? A lot has happened last year. Demonetisation, GST implementation, new export laws and compliances has opened new doors to the organised players like us. After GST, we have seen phenomenal rise in the customers. That is the indication that a lot of people now wants to work with organised players and trusted ones in the industry. Just to put rough numbers in perspective, our sales grew by 11-15 per cent and our EBITA by 11 per cent for the last financial year. Which are the verticals and geographies you are catering to? Who are your major clientele? We are present in 38 locations, pan India. Our regional offices, on-ground workforce and relationship managers work with our customers closely and are just a call away for their queries. The major client base is the OEMs, panel builders, industrial end user market and project requirements. What challenge you foresee in the current year? Credit management and inventory planning are the biggest challenges and continue to be a main pain-point. However, through swift planning and stringent processes, these challenges can be overcome.