Telecom Lead India: Delhi-based Envent is a proprietary brand that offers a wide range of IT peripherals and mobile accessories. Founded in 2011, Envent offers accessories for Apple, Samsung and Blackberry users as well as consumer friendly peripherals for IT products. Sukhesh Madaan, Founder and CEO of Envent, shares the company’s investment and expansion plans, along with market strategy and challenges in the market:

 

What is Envent’s go-to market strategy?

Our go-to-market strategy has two broad pillars that are
retail marketing and digital marketing. We are a new brand and it will be very
tough for us to drive consumer traffic to the retail at a reasonable cost. The
focus is on in-store conversion and hence retail is the key element for us. All
the retail-centric elements -Branding, POSM, Training and ISDs – are our key
focus areas.

Our consumer is tech-savvy and with the increasing
penetration of broadband we trust digital marketing is the way to go. Our
consumer spends considerable time online to choose and compare products before
making his final purchase decision. While the Facebook page is more for brand
and connecting with the consumer directly, we are also aiming to launch online
loyalty programs to drive brand constancy. We have started a new initiative
where we are putting a small letter in the packaging requesting our consumers
to connect directly with us and share their product experience.

 

What are your investment and expansion plans?

For the financial year 2012-13 our focus is on channel
expansion and to cover each corner of the country. India is always a
distribution nightmare and we are fully focused on realizing the complete
potential. In parallel, we intent to start our own retail chain of stores early
next year.

The company also aims to expand to market outside India
like Sri Lanka & Dubai. On the investment side we are investing in
automation implementing our own ERP solution across offices and then to our
channel partners.

 

Any plans to introduce the company’s own mobile products
(cell phone/tablets)?

No. we are clearly focusing only on the developing the
accessories and peripherals around the smart phones and tablets.

 

What are the upcoming products/offerings of Envent?

The company has just launched the complete range of New
Ipad accessories. Next in line are few products in the IT segment followed by
iPhone 5 accessories which is expected to hit the market in the coming months.

iPhone 5 accessories not only include covers and cases
but also the power boost cases as well as sliding keyboards. 

 

What are the current trends in the Indian cell phone
accessory market?

The trends are really positive. World over the accessory
market is driven by smart phones and Tablets and we are expecting huge growth
in both these categories in the years to come. Smart phone currently contribute
around 10% share of the total mobile phone sale and expected to double up
practically every year for few years to come. Similarly Tablet market is
growing leaps and bounds and we intent to ride on that. Similarly with people
always on the move, there is a strong demand of power banks, battery boost
cases, car chargers etc.

 

What is the present state of the IT peripheral industry
in India?

IT market is growing steadily with higher growth coming
from Notebook categories v/s Desktop. With this the demand of peripherals are
also seeing a change with demand of accessories around Notebook going up. Also,
with growing buying power urban consumer is getting very specific about his
colour choices etc. we also see a gap and hence an opportunity for developing
kids specific accessories like keyboards & mice etc.

 

What are the emerging challenges in the market?

In telecom market the toughest part is to stay in-line
with new products and quickly launch accessories around them. As an accessory brand
we need to keep track of not only 1 brand but all leading smart phone/tablet
manufacture across Apple, Samsung, Blackberry, HTC, Sony etc.

With such a big range and considering various materials,
color options exist for each product, the second biggest challenge is of the
inventory management.

One challenge which was always there and still exists is
of distribution.

Another challenge is to find out the way to ensure that
the USPs of your product reach consumer and doesn’t lose out in the entire
chain of distribution.

 

Danish Khan
[email protected]