Exclusive Interview: Murugesan R, Senior Director, R&M India

R&M (Reichle & De-Massari AG), a Switzerland based company, known for developing and producing cabling solutions, both copper and fiber for high-end communication networks since 1964.  Their solutions are used by network operators in all industry verticals like office buildings, data centers, airports, hospitals, educational institutions etc. With the product quality and innovative forward looking design system ensures that the networks are future-proof and investments are secure for long term.

In a conversation with DQ Channels, Murugesan R, Senior Director, Sales - Private Networks at R&M India shared the deep insights on the strategies of the company with their Channel partners/ SIs,  focus areas and future plans for 2019.

What are the recent developments done in the organization?

R&M is travelling with a fast phase in terms of developments in the organization locally and globally. Recently we have done significant acquisition in US. We have acquired a rack and cabinet manufacturing company in China. Speaking on product development, we have both UTP and STP cables and connecting hardware. The product range starts from Cat 6 cables and recently we have launched Cat 8.1 cables for global markets. In 2018, R&M has invested hugely in India and set up a large manufacturing facility in Bangalore. Around 300 employees including technical staff and management are working in R&M India.

How R&M India works with its channel partners and SIs for the current industry? What is your business model?

R&M has a simplified business model to conduct business with ease. We route our products and solutions through our partners and distributors. R&M supplies through National distributors and Regional distributors.

Currently we have got 1 National distributor and 8 Regional distributors for India market. All the regional distributors will buy the products of R&M from the National distributor who has warehouses across the country. Our regional distributors are present in various cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Trivandrum, Kolkata, Jaipur and Chandigarh.

In order to strengthen our distribution system, we are planning a National distributor and few regional distributors in major cities to streamline and amplify our product delivery and service operations.

How do you categorize your partners and SIs?

We don’t believe in categorizing the partners because every individual partner may be working on different projects. In fact we have a Quality Partner Program (QPP) to train and certify our partners. R&M has got 200+ partners & SIs across the country and we conduct formal training programs from R&M in each city.  Our partners need to undergo the training sessions and will be certified as a trusted R&M partner. Further, we work closely with our partners in the upcoming projects in various places. Recently in last quarter we have completed the certification programs for Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore cities.

What are the verticals R&M India is focusing/catering to target your customers?

Networking is the basic in every organizational infrastructure. R&M is a global company and we cater cabling products and solutions for all the verticals. R&M with the help of SIs and partners cater customized product line to transportation, healthcare, IT/ITeS, manufacturing, government, telecom, enterprise and data center industries. We have also got focused SIs for smart city projects, metros and airports.

Additionally, we have also added many technical resources and sales heads to our workforce to ensure smooth traction of our products in all the verticals.

How is your presence in Smart Cities Projects?

We are actively involved in all the smart city projects. We supply passive infrastructure to smart cities. Large contractors buy our products and use them in smart city projects. 11 smart cities in India till date has used R&M products. We look forward to work with more smart city projects in the coming years.

What kind of support do you give to your SIs and partners to implement your solutions in the market?

It is just not supplying of the material but R&M India believes in value selling. We get involved in the pre-sales activities to understand the end customer requirement. We work closely with SIs and design/customize the solution as per the customer demand. We have got dedicated project managers at R&M who helps the customers at the time of solution implementation. These managers do the quality auditing for installation and termination check, testing parameters as per standards etc. R&M provides 25 year warranty to all its networking products.

What is R&M future roadmap for next 12 -18 months?

As we see a lot of scope in India market for structured cabling, R&M is investing hugely in India to have a great market share in this market. We are working towards marking R&M as number one in Indian cabling business. We are planning to expand our current manufacturing facility located in Bangalore, by adding more assembly lines as well as increasing the headcounts both in manufacturing and sales department. In addition to the fiber and telecom product lines we are planning to produce copper cabling products as well.

In terms of our channel ecosystem, we are enhancing it by adding more distributors even in tier 3 and tier 4 cities. In the next two quarters we can see the SI partner numbers growing from 200 to 300 across all the small cities.  We are quite strong in tier 1 and tier 2 cities and by 2020, we can ensure that R&M will have presence in almost all the smaller cities as well.