Let there be light

MY BIG IDEA/NAVNEET KAPOOR

Navneet Kapoor is one person who doesn't grumble when there's a power blackout. The managing director of inverter manufacturer Luminous Electronics has built an empire that has grown as power shortages have become more critical.

Kapoor took an electronics engineering degree from Chandigarh in 1991 and worked briefly with a communications company. Soon afterwards he set up Luminous with an initial investment of Rs 2 lakh.

Today Luminous products are sold through more than 1,000 dealers across the country and are also exported to over a dozen countries.

Though Kapoor is hesitant about revealing turnover because he is talking to a venture capitalist for funding, he claims that the company has grown at nearly 70 per cent since inception.

If you think the power situation is bad today, you should have seen it in the late '80s and early '90s. Every household needed a generator or an inverter. One felt extremely handicapped without it.

At that time there was no organised player in the inverter market. Most players were fly-by-night operators who did not provide any after-sales service. The net result was that inverters had got a bad name and people preferred generators.

I believe that inverters are inherently better than generators. They are automatic and there is no pollution "" neither air nor sound.

The generators available today are hi-tech, but the ones available then needed to be switched on manually. There was a wire which had to be pulled.

This required a lot of strength. So women and children often couldn't switch them on. Inverters, on the other hand, switch on automatically when there's a power-cut.

I was sure there was a market for inverters. The only problem was to overcome the negative image they had. So I felt that if I could provide an inverter and also the after-sales service, it would sell. In 1992, I set up Luminous but the first product was launched only in 1993.

We had studied the defects that the existing inverters had and our aim was to launch an improved version. Our inverter had a better charging system which ensured faster recharge of the battery and also a longer life.

Moreover, our inverter did not get damaged because of overloading. And most importantly, we provided after-sales service. Our serviceman would go to the customer's house at regular intervals and top-up the battery.

Initially, we did not sell through dealers. One reason was that we wanted to interact directly with the customer but there was another reason. The dealers did not want to sell inverters. They thought there was no market.

So we started selling them on our own and till 1997 all the inverters we sold were through referrals. By this time the brand was established and people realised that inverters were good products.

It was then that we approached dealers. Initially, we started in a small way in north India but in 2001 we went national.

It was then that we started brand building exercises. Advertising played a major role. Besides print and electronic, we also did roadshows where the product was demonstrated.

Today, besides inverters, we are also selling UPS's, water purifiers and home appliances. Next summer we plan to launch our coolers.

Around eight months ago we set up service franchisees in UP and Madhya Pradesh. We plan to double the number of franchisees by the middle of next year. Even the dealers provide service.

We have a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility on the outskirts of Delhi. Across the country, our products are marketed through SAR Silicon Systems.

Today the inverter industry is around Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 1,200 crore but nearly 70 per cent is still unorganised. In the organised sector we enjoy a 12 per cent market share.

As the power situation shows no signs of improving and cities are thrown into darkness, the future seems bright to us.