The Cable King

With the unpredictable market and rupee depreciating to 60 against dollar, the expected verticals showed slow growth in structured cabling business in India. Verticals like BFSI, telecom showed dip in the demands, although the expectations are of the new government impacting in improved cash flow in the market.

TE connectivity proved to dominate this space and ranked #1, same as the last year. Being a technology leader in this product segment gave the company an edge along with the product reliability as well as innovativeness of market development programs.

The increasing bandwidth requirements are expected to fuel in growth in this segment especially in the hospitality and education segment. These are expected to open up new avenues for the multiple vendors. Few of the major challenges include implementation of new technologies and “acquiring trained and skilled manpower in the FTTx and GPON technologies.”

The second place is acquired by Schneider/Digilink. The competition seemed very tight. Diversity of the product range along with flexibility in product promotion has gained grounds for the company. However, lack of richness in online resources and lack in having an interactive site for resolving queries proved to be Achilles Hill for the company. Back-end incentives and settlement also needs to improve.

Its closest competitor Molex also has strengths in good online resources plus is flexible in conducting localized promotions. The bigger problem is over all product reliability.

On overall market sentiment for the channels it seems that the key contributors to partners’ growth in the structured cabling market in recent years were commercial real-estate, airports, hospitals, hotels, malls and educational institutes. The market is opening up in the converged infrastructure requirements.

According to an expert, there is a shift towards converged networks as well as fiber which plays a significant role in converged technologies. This trend is catching up in new township networks where enterprise as well as telecom networks are getting consolidated to offer the best converged networks. Partners have a great opportunity to address these kinds of requirements.

SWOT Analysis of Winner Trio

TE Connectivity

Strengths

 Technological leadership of the product

 Overall Product Reliability

 Innovativeness of market development programs

Weaknesses

 Lack of online Turnaround time/ Promptness

 Lack of effectiveness with which Vendor manages disruption due to its change in personnel

Schneider/Digilink

Strengths

 Less diversity of the product range

 Less Flexibility in conducting localized promotions

 Lack of point of sales material

Weaknesses

 Lack of richness of online resources offered

 No interactive site for resolving queries

 Delayed back-end incentives and its settlement

Molex

Strengths

 Richness of online resources offered

 Flexibility in conducting localized promotions

 Point of sales material

Weaknesses

 Inability to provide satisfactory repair & replacement services

 Lack of proactive Service Approach

 Less overall Product Reliability