Zicom invests in a technology driven future

Zicom has come a long way ever since it pioneered Zicom 1.0 back in 1994. From electronic security to introducing SaaS and innovating its services business, Zicom has had taken the surveillance market by storm. Pramoud Rao, Managing Director – Zicom Electronic Security Systems in a chat with VARINDIA shares the brand’s growth strategies and its roadmap for the India market - 

How would you like to describe Zicom 3.0?
In 1994 Zicom 1.0 pioneered the concept of electronic security in India. In 2013 Zicom 2.0 pioneered the concept of SaaS business leveraging IOT. In 2017 Zicom 3.0 is all set to change the dynamics and landscape of the product and services business. The current market offers us huge potential to bring the best of innovations both in products, services and customer delivery.

How is Zicom better than its competition?
When Zicom introduced SaaS, it changed the way the industry was dealing with hardware. SaaS made the hardware to offer more value convenience and comfort with business intelligence. For instance, CCTV systems historically recorded crime. Under SaaS, CCTVs were used to prevent crime. Further CCTVs were used for using business intelligence like customer footfall, heat mapping etc.

Zicom is focusing on creating products & services on the IOT platform under the SaaS model. BFSI, Educational institutes, housing complexes, smart cities will be our focused area. With technology evolving every day we are updating and upgrading our go to market strategy to remain relevant and continue with our leadership. With India having more than 4 million app developers, we are getting ready for the opportunities that are immense and potential for pivotal role in the development of the global IOT business ecosystems, both of a market and innovation thought.

What is your strategy to regain market share and to become a dominant player in the product business?
With 23 years of experience behind us spanning across products, services, central monitoring stations, SaaS etc we understand nuances of this business across product and service portfolio including customers mind from a usability purpose. We will engineer all our strategies to help our channel partners to make more profit and create a long enduring relationship.

What is your channel strategy to encourage channel partner and SIs to sell Zicom products?
Our strategy will be multidimensional, right from offering the right product at the right price bundled with our services, both localized at our central monitoring station and on ground service spanning across 1100+ cities to support our channel partners. We improve our all round operational efficiency to create a nourishing experience with the channel partners.

As security keeps getting commoditized more and more, channel partners with an ever increasing operation cost will need to find ways and means to generate profits to keep their businesses alive. Going after the cheapest products or trying to win orders on price is a strategy that will fail. Our focus is to enable integration of solutions through products and services. Hence our plans for the near future are Skilling up the Partners, Ensuring Partner profitability through a solution engagement model and differentiated products and to help the channel partners build a healthy business model for growing their enterprises.

What are the top 3 priorities of Zicom product business going forward?
Our top 3 priorities are -
•    Accessibility  - To make our products accessible across the country
•    Acceptability - Work hard towards making Zicom the most accepted brand in the product business
•    Affordability  - To manufacture most of our product in India and make our products affordable

What is your vision for 2017?
The way we see the channel ecosystem evolving, we see an imminent need for the partners to understand that future is technology driven and not price driven. Zicom will do its bit on educating the channel and also giving them opportunity to build a services business on top of the hardware business for them to be able to differentiate themselves. We will help the channel partners build a healthy business model for growing their enterprises. This will involve various ways of educating and engaging with the partners and we will be rolling out these in the early part of 2017.