One of the few political issues on which all parties
contesting the upcoming elections could agree would be the need the need
to encourage investment, especially in infrastructure. And with good
reason.
India is plunging head-long towards an energy crisis
that will cripple the country's burgeoning economy if government does not
act fast. As a fallout of the global economic crisis, the Indian UPS
(uninterruptible power supply) segment has revised its estimates to expect
a 20 percent growth rate in the coming year 2008-09, a drop of nearly 7%
from 2007-08.
So as we talk about infrastructure at par with the
developed world. Power continuity & quality are main ingredients a
successful urbanized society.
The growing need of e-commerce, the evolution of data
centres and the ever increasing number of servers have all increased the
need for having a well addressed Power Eectronic Industry.
The theory of computer breakdowns being caused by
electrical line disturbances is fast loosing its importance as we observe
a paradigm shift from irregular power no power. The number of power grid
breakdowns reported over the last two years stand testimony to this fact.
To add to wows, there is further shortage of fuel. I
was in Bangalore, on the day the serial blasts
occurred, with few industry friends. When I was told that they had to keep
an additional weekday as Off Day, even the gensets were out of diesel as
it was being rationed. Hi-Tech cities of Mumbai & Chennai have been
facing severe power cuts. The answer to all this is simple, have a well
addressed Power Electronic Industry addressing the needs of the distraught
computers and their users.
Thanks to all this UPS and inverters have grown in
vogue, these are no more subsidiary products sold with computers and
costly electronic equipments.
It is 16 years, since we have been surveying the Power
Electronic Industry. We have been an eye-witness to all the changes, from
SVS to CVT and then to UPS and now to what we can call a complete power
electronic solutions provider. What we are seeing now is a shift towards
alternative energy sources say SOLAR, WIND etc.
We have seen the industry ups and downs. The era when
our surveys nearly touched the figures of over 1400 manufacturers to today
where many even the semi organized to few of the organized once have been
forced to change their line of business. From highly fragmented to some
consolidation. However there are still around 850 players, the competition
is stiffer, SOHO business are purely made out of relationship. This is
where the mid range players have been the most suffers.
And to this new era of where most of he manufacturers
have been prompted to trade the products from the companies from China
& Taiwan. And few have actually pitched in with there own shops
joining the party, thrown to them by the Govt.’s Globalization
philosophy and open economy. Definitely the interest of local
manufacturers is at risk and no wonders they have switched to trading at
least in lower kVA categories.
Softdisk has long been a campaigner of having a well
addressed Power Electronic Industry addressing the needs of the Power
Electronic Equipment manufacturers, constantly egging the Govt. to slash
excise, cut import duty on piece parts and it won’t be any exaggeration
to say that our efforts have yielded positive results. As a result of our
efforts UPS was recognized as IT peripheral, however this back fired as
those with money power, started trading in UPSs with imports from China
& Taiwan.
This year it was clearly visible that the industry is
going through a phase of metamorphosis with biggies getting bigger and
those not having organized marketing strategies being marginalized.
Here we emphasize to our readers that service
capabilities and not just the price must be criterion for selection of UPS
systems. The electronics, no matter imported or Indian, needs proper and
preventive maintenance. It is not purchase it, install it and forget it
sort of thing.
Be it govt. or the Corporate or the manufacturers
themselves, all have acknowledged our efforts and have started consulting
Softdisk for their decision making efforts. Softdisk has always been
trying its level best to educate the end-users. We have always maintained
that it is for the manufacturers who have to identify the users’ need
and provide with cost effective, long term solutions to address them.
No wonders, our readers (the end-users) have positioned
us as Power Quality Consultants. Our mission is to forge partnerships
between Power Protection Equipment manufacturers and end users.
This year Softdisk
approached nearly 740 companies from all angles, turnover, growth,
marketing network, quality certifications, sales under various ratings,
customer support and even contacted the customers to have their view
point. Awarding points to know how the companies are fairing and also
companies were ranked on the basis of Users’ Satisfaction Survey on
various parameters. This year in addition to online voting Softdisk sent
over 12000 direct mailers. The result of the survey are based on 7926
responses received to our elaborate questionnaire. The questionnaire in
poll format was made available at www.sdawards.in
Not ending here, our executives visited over 250
installations across various locations through out India, and also over
500 installations were touched thru tele-calling.
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