Uniline Energy Systems (Pvt) Ltd, led by a visionary technocrat, R K Bansal, Managing Director, has emerged as top-notch player in UPS manufacturing. With more than 20 branch offices and 250 channel partners all over India, Uniline has its state-of-the-art factories at Delhi and Parwanoo, Himachal Pradesh. Excerpts from an interview...

To start from the beginning, what inspired you to launch into this line of business?

I am an electronic engineer by training and arrived in Delhi looking for a job in 1980. I worked with two companies for 8 years before starting this enterprise. Basically, we were three friends working in the same company and our job was to sell and service UPS systems. As a first step, we started selling UPS systems on commission basis. Later on we started stock selling, buying products from them in bulk, selling them these to customers/end users. In the third phase, we started selling under our own brand name.

When did this third phase happen?

The third phase happened in 1993-94 and we started manufacturing from 1996 onwards. Our first factory was opened in Okhla in 1996. Now, we have production facilities at three places - one in Delhi, two in Himachal Pradesh. We mainly manufacture all types of UPS systems, small or large. We have entered the solar business around three years back. We now have a workforce of around 370 personnel.

Do you have any foreign collaboration or is it totally indigenous?

Our technology is at par with any company globally. As such we do not have any formal agreement with any foreign company. Sometimes we have agreement to buy only casts from them, rest all is made in India - from assembling to testing.

The UPS system market is not organised. How do you see yourself in this scenario and how do you see the future of the UPS market in India?

Now it is little bit organised. Presently there are two kinds of players - one is the MNCs and second the Indian companies. The third area is people buying from China, who are basically traders; so there are practically three kinds of players in the Indian market. The whole game is now in the numbers.

If you don't have quantity you cannot survive here and sell the product at the price, which you are supposed to sell it in.

What would you say are the advantages, the USP of your product?

The main advantage is our pan-India support - after sales support is our backbone and in the UPS system you will always have one or the other problem. That is because the UPS provider faces all the incoming power problems. We have dependable network and very large pan-India projects. All the air force stations throughout India have our UPS systems. Apart from data centres our systems are installed at very sensitive locations like places from where fighter planes are controlled. Our systems can also be found in the Supreme Court, High Court and at all the railway stations in north India.

How big is your after-sales service network. Can you give us any numbers?

Approximately 170 direct outlets and the rest are our franchises.

How do you see the solar energy business going forward?

Solar is the future because of several factors - first and foremost because it is renewable energy. After 2016, this will be the cheapest form of energy. Today it might be 10 or 20 per cent higher but day-by-day its cost is decreasing. In contrast, other sources of energy like thermal and nuclear are getting costlier. The gestation period for solar energy is relatively short, about one month or if it is a large project maybe one year or two years as compared to thermal, which can take a minimum of 6 years. We are already manufacturing inverters for this market, ultimately you need this product because solar panel can generate only electricity but for converting it into usable power you need a UPS system. We do not need extra expertise just a little modification. Rest all that we need is already with us. Although we are not happy with the progress (we need more volumes) we have executed perhaps the largest order by any company so far, for a solar project in Rajasthan. Over there, approximately 5500 panchayats are having our solar system. We are also in the process of getting an order from the Bihar government for their offices amounting to Rs 5 crore. They already have the infrastructure, all we need to do is integrate our solar system with their existing system. Our job is to provide them solar power during daytime.

This is your Silver Jubilee year. Can you tell us about any breakthrough product of yours, which made a difference in this journey?

There have been 2-3 products. We were able to introduce IGBT technology during the time when MOSFET was in demand. This was around 10 years ago. During that time there were many competitors selling MOSFET systems, then we came out with IGBT, which was superior. In our industry you have to keep pace with the technology so that you are not left behind. In order to succeed you have to provide latest technology with low price. Next milestone was in the year 2006, during which we received a single order of Rs 6 crore, which had to be executed in 3 months time. It was a time sensitive order and we were able to finish it 15 days ahead of schedule because of our highly dedicated and hardworking team, which worked day & night to accomplish this task. The third milestone was the e-Court project. Our products have not diversified, we only have introduced the right technology at the right time in the market. How are you planning to grow as an organisation?

Earlier we used to outsource transformers. But in our products, transformer is a sizable component. Its a Class-A raw material; so now we have started manufacturing our own transformers. We are also looking at IMT Manesar to set up a unit for backward integration as it offers more facilities than our present location at Faridabad.