8 Priya Ltd: No Hocus-Pokus, Just Focus

MD: Arun Bhuwania Start-up year: 1984 No of partners: 1,000  Branches: 16 PRODUCTS & SERVICES: Hardware and networking products AGENCY OPERATIONS: LG, Seagate, Microstar, Traxdata and Edimax Address: Podar Chambers, 4th Floor, 109, S A Brelvi Road, Fort, Mumbai - 400 001 Tel: 2663611/3676/3900 Fax: 2663783 Web site: www.priyagroup.com   POINTERS TO PERFORMANCE Opened branches in Lucknow, Chandigarh, Jaipur and Zirakhpur Tied up with Edimax and Microstar POINTERS TO FUTURE To increase focus on CD-ROMs, motherboards and CPUs  Moving away from low-end to mid and high-range products

Focus. That was the mantra used by Priya Ltd while going about doing its business in 2000-01, which saw it go one notch up from its ninth rank in the Silver Club last year to eighth this time. 

To begin with, the company increased its focus on optical storage products like CD-ROMs as well as motherboards and CPUs. It was towards this end that it renewed its relationship with Cyrix for distributing their processors in India. 

Various factors contributed to the growth of Priya. But chief amongst them was the opening of four branches in Lucknow, Chandigarh, Jaipur and Zirakhpur. During the initial months these outlets made an average monthly sale of Rs 1 lakh, which has now increased to Rs one crore annually. 

Says Aditya Bhuwania, Director, "In another bid to bring micro-level focus in product segments, we have certain people concentrating only on a particular product segment at each of our branches. This way there is no dilution of focus."

And this focus has helped the company fortify its bottomline as well as topline. Priya grew from Rs 117 crore in 1999-00 to Rs 226 crore, at an impressive rate of 93 percent.

The company also tied up with Edimax for networking products and Microstar motherboards when market conditions were not very favorable. But despite this, it managed to push sales aggressively. The company entered into a co-branding exercise with Edimax, which affected sales positively. In addition to this, cabinets were also added to the product portfolio.

Priya was also selling products under its own brand name, but late last year, it decided to give it an individual identity by branding it as 'Krypton'. The brand today contributes almost 35 percent to the company's overall revenues.

While distributors everywhere are lamenting about extending credit and then writing off large amounts as bad debts every year, Priya has tried to devise a modus operandi to work around this problem. It has set up an in-house credit rating system. 

Besides, the company speaks to other distributors to find out if a particular channel partner has defaulted on payments elsewhere. Says Aditya, "If we find a dealer has not been honoring his financial commitments, we immediately appoint another channel partner in that region."

In addition to its 16 branches nationwide, Priya intends to add another four outlets in Ranchi, Dehradun, Vizag and Coimbatore by the end of this year. This move should help the company touch its targeted turnover of Rs 300 crore for the current fiscal.

Though this projection pales in comparison with its 93 percent growth in 2000-01, Aditya feels that it is best to focus on an achievable figure, rather than thinking on mammoth proportions, especially in the ongoing economic slowdown. 

Priya is also moving away from low-end products to concentrate more on mid and high-range products. In addition to this, it is sprucing up its service offerings by providing on-site warranty for monitors as well as over-the-counter replacement for most products in their portfolio. In order to enable this, it has equipped all its branch offices with a service center as well.