Balaji Solutions diversifying its business into new areas of growth

In talk with Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher – VARINDIA, Rajendra Saksaria, MD – Balaji Solutions speaks about his brand FOXIN and the volume of business the company aims to do through both its distribution and FOXIN product line - 

What is the distribution scenario for Balaji Solutions today?
Currently, Balaji Solutions is associated with seven brands apart from our own proprietary brand Foxin and this totally has contributed to our Sales of Rs. 665 Crore in FY 17-18. Our top of line business is Toshiba, whom we represent for India operations for its external and internal Hard Drives. We are doing approximately 55,000 hard drive units every month which contributes to our revenue of Rs.15-16 Crore every month. For Samsung, we are a National Distributor for its Flash Cards and SSD Hard Drives contributing to Rs. 8-9 crore to our monthly revenue. We are also the regional distributors for Dell in Rajasthan and the in North-Eastern states for its Inspiron category. We represent Lenovo accessories nationally and are regional distributors in West Bengal for its Laptop and Desktop products. We distribute HP Pen Drives and ADATA for its entire DRAM & Power Bank business nationally. We also do the online business for all the brands that we represent today.

In the last seven months, we have also started with mobile distribution and are associated with Brand Oppo. We are doing exclusive distribution for Oppo in Faridabad, West Delhi, Bikaner and Bhatinda. This contributes to another Rs. 11 Crore in our business.

Could you also brief us about your brand, Foxin?
Speaking of our own brand Foxin, this year we will be growing by 50%. Last year too we had seen 80% growth with the brand. We are continuously adding new items to our portfolio. In the last three months we added mobile accessories also to our product line. We have just started and have launched thirty models of our own power banks. Foxin has heavily invested on power banks, because we believe that there is a huge market for it and we should have at least 5% market share. We have also launched thirty models of earphones. The mobility accessory industry in India is currently $3 billion yearly. It might also be more since there are many unorganized players across the country, but this industry is going through a lot of transformation. This month end, we will be launching our USB adapters and cables too. Post this, we are planning to introduce some more items. The entire mobile accessory business will be our major focus in future. I hope to see at least Rs. 100 Crore business next year only with mobility accessories.

Besides this, in the IT peripheral portfolio, we keep on adding to our existing product line with new models of Cabinet, Mouse, Speaker etc. We have a very strong presence in many of the geographies, but we are weak in some pockets. Particularly, in West and North India, we are in the process of expansion to have a stronger footprint in the coming quarters.

Which geographies are you present in currently?                                 
Geographically in India, we have offices in 38 locations spread across 24 States & Union Territories of India. UP, being the highest populated state, we have three offices there (Ghaziabad, Lucknow and Varanasi) and I believe that is our largest consumer market too. Maharashtra is another major market for us and we have offices in Pune, Nagpur and Bhiwandi; we are addressing the Tamil Nadu market through Chennai, Madurai and Coimbatore. In West Bengal, we have offices in Kolkata and Siliguri. So there are a couple of states where we have multiple offices. We have our master warehouses in Chennai, Kolkata and Bhiwandi. We are also moving in to our new office, a 1, 25,000 sq. ft space.

What are your plans for manufacturing?
We have created a 70,000 sq. ft infrastructure for manufacturing. With government backing and their pro-activeness shown in bringing manufacturing to India, there is ample scope in this space for manufacturing Power Banks and other IT consumables. India has become very viable in terms of manufacturing.

What are your thoughts on GST?
I am very happy with the reforms that GST has brought about. There was a lack of knowledge initially but I would still say it to be a revolution, since it is not easy to implement it in a country of 1.3 billion people. The government has the guts and dared to implement it and that is the most appreciable thing. The only concern however is the profitability part.