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Striking New Chords Of Success

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DQC Bureau
New Update

It was with the idea of bulk selling that two friends, Harish Kumar and Jagdish Varma decided to start Connoisseur Electronics Pvt. Ltd in Bangalore. Today the company is much talked about in the market for their unique sales strategy to concentrate on after-sales support rather than extensive marketing campaigns.





Harish Kumar and Jagdish S Varma go back a long way. Sharing the same college, RBANMS, Bangalore, they decided to take their mutual interests a bit further and started Connoisseur Computer Consumables Pvt. Ltd in 1992. At that time, their main objective was to market and distribute computer hardware and peripherals in large volumes to reputed OEM's. Within a couple of years they established themselves as leading stockist and suppliers of computer hardware and peripherals.



"With the necessary technical know-how and manpower, we decided to enter the highly competitive system integrator arena," says Harish. "Instead of going to the market with a PC or server of a specific brand name, we decided to tap the potential of the unexplored contract manufacturing segments for the small and medium businesses", he added.



But not all was hunky-dory when the friends joined forces to start the company. The market was highly competitive and neither of them had any business background. Though this was a marked disadvantage for the newcomers, they decided that dwelling on it was of no use. On the contrary, they decided to tackle this problem by enrolling themselves for a short-term computer course at LAN ESEDA. This gave the determined duo to understand and solve computer-related issues.





































Company



Connoiseur Electronics Pvt. Ltd.,



Address



Corporate Office:

165, 1 ‘C’ Cross, 18th, ‘A’ Main, HAL II Stage,

Indiranagar, 560 008.


Tel:



080-530 0533 / 9358 / 9816 / 551 3461



Start-up year:



1992



Products and Services:



Computer consumables and PC services



 





Contracting the contract virus



Once they were technologically aware, Harish and Jagdish took stock of the market and learnt that there was good scope for success in the contract manufacturing business. Armed with their newfound knowledge and financial capabilities, they launched a new division under the name ‘Connoiseur Electronics Private Limited’.



"The idea was widely accepted by the small and medium businesses both who benefited immensely by adapting to the new method of working", says a proud Harish. "The concept was clear as the small and medium businesses did not have to invest in inventory, manufacturing facility and constant technical training for their staff. This was hitherto a must in the IT industry due to the constant developments and changes in the IT technology."



All the business houses were required to do was to market their PC's or servers of their own brand and bag the orders based on the most competitive prices given to them including the benefit of PC branding explains

Harish.









Unfaltering determination



One of Connoisseur claim to fame was its ability to successfully deliver quality PC's or servers to clients for shipping within very short time frames. This also included the task of maintaining sufficient inventory of products that might be outdated in the market. However these products were imperative for the clients in the eventuality of providing support nine months after the sale of the PC.



However Harish shrugs off the success that he has achieved in his field saying, "Our mission is to consistently provide affordable, high quality personal computers, servers, communication devices and services which will enhance the quality of computing, lessen maintenance hassles for customers in our region."



Understanding the importance of technology through their own personal experience, Connoisseur started conducting frequent training sessions for its field support engineers of their clients to keep them technically aware of the latest trends in the IT arena. Harish also takes care to constantly organizes in-house technical training programs to train his integration and support teams. "With our aggressive marketing force, dedicated customer care and constant briefings to our clients, we have built a list of ever-growing clientele who are just as quality conscious as we are", says

Harish.



This fastidiousness for training has helped Connoisseur to bag many impressive clients to their side. These include Sun Microsystems, Silicon Automation, Logica, Microland, Planetasia.com and Indya.com to name few. Within a span of eight years the company has fostered a strong association with around 100 top companies in India who until date have maintained their loyalty towards Connoiseur. Connoiseur is also proud to have designed the ‘baggage clearance package for the Airport Authority.







Eyeing the global market



Connoisseur today have three companies under its banner. The two recent additions are Connoisseur Communication & Technologies and Connoisseur P.C. Services. The Group aims at being one of the top IT companies in India and abroad and has branched out to Chennai, Hyderabad and Mauritius. "We have set ourselves a target turnover of Rs. 20 crore for the current fiscal year," says

Harish.



This millennium had the sun of success shining on Connoisseur, when the Mauritius delegates visited India to invite IT professionals to set up shop in their country. Harish went as part of the Indian delegation and soon set up his footage in the beautiful island. Branching out to Mauritius was a turning point for Harish. He plans to operate full swing at Mauritius by end of December.



Today Harish also runs a full-fledged software center located in Indiranagar, Bangalore. This center has 12 software professionals currently working on a web site designed for the Exercise Department. Harish plans to cater the needs of the US market shortly. He also plans to approach banks or venture capitalists to further strengthen his software base in India as well as US.



Harish has proved his best also in the OEM segment. Commenting on his outstanding performance as a system building partner of Microsoft OEM packs, Girish, Microsoft's ORM Relationship Manager says "Among the 60 to 70 system builder partners that we are associated with, Connoiseur Electronics shines out to be one among the top performers in the Microsoft OEM business."



To summarize the success story of Harish and Connoiseur Electronics Pvt. Ltd. it would be right to say that the company targets at providing an atmosphere, which strives constantly to achieve excellence and a sense of fairness and equality in all situations.



Sunila Paul



in Bangalore

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