- Ganesh Jivani, Managing Director, Matrix Comsec

Matrix Comsec is a leading technology company focusing on designing, manufacturing and marketing world-class telecom and security solutions for organisations, businesses and enterprises. Ganesh Jivani, Managing Director, Matrix Comsec, talks about the company, its products and future plans. Excerpts from the e-interview.

What is the rationale for advanced security products?

Security has been an age-old concern and priority for communities, organisations and individuals. With penetration of advanced technologies in all spheres of life, the security domain cannot remain isolated from all the marvellous technologies surrounding us. On the contrary, many modern technologies were developed with security as the prime motivation.

From Matrix perspective, we have been catering to telecommunication needs of organisations. When security solutions started appearing on the horizon, these organisations started adapting to these new technologies. We decided to diversify into security domain to serve the same core customer segment - organisations of all types and sizes.

What are the various security related products that you offer?

Matrix security solutions include time-attendance, access control systems and IP video surveillance solutions. Matrix COSEC is an enterprise-grade people mobility management solution for organisations covering time-attendance, access control, visitor management, employee self service portal, roster management and cafeteria management. Matrix COSEC is an all-integrated solution including hardware devices and a suite of software application modules. It delivers full-proof security and improves productivity of organisations.

Matrix SATATYA belongs to the video surveillance family and includes products like network video recorder, hybrid video recorders, digital video recorders, analog and IP cameras, which are sold as an enterprise solution along with the centralised management software (CMS) and mobile applications. These products are most suitable for enterprises, which demand much more than just monitoring specific areas.

What are the applications?

Matrix COSEC serves applications like access control, time-attendance, roster management, contract workforce management, cafeteria management and visitor management. Matrix SATATYA supports applications like video capture, video storage/retrieval, video streaming, local monitoring, remote monitoring and mobile monitoring.

What are the USP of Matrix products in a crowded market?

Matrix focuses on 'substance' as its core brand value. We try to add substance in everything we do - product design, manufacturing, marketing, sales and support. For example, Matrix products are generally packed with more functions, more features and more flexibility than other products in the market. This substance reflects in our pre-sales and after-sales support to the system integrators and end-customers.

How strong/effective is the nationwide sales & service?

Matrix is essentially a products and solutions company. We are not a typical sales organisation. Therefore, we are a completely channel-oriented company. We don't sell directly to end-customers anywhere - not even to our friends and relatives in our hometown. This single-minded channel orientation has helped us to develop strong and long-term relationship with channel partners across the globe. Most of Matrix channel partners are with Matrix for more than 10-15 years. We have a well-defined channel program to work with channel partners at all levels beginning from consultants, resellers, system integrators and distributors/stockists.

We work very closely with our channel partners in all the areas including marketing, sales, supply and support. They benefit from cutting-edge technology, field-proven solutions, marketing-sales-technical trainings, solution design assistance, presentations and sales calls help, immediate supply, technical support during installation, technical help during customer complaints and efficient and cost-effective RMA services.

How does the cost compare with competition?

We are in the business of infras-tructure solutions. Customers expect security, safety, productivity, and efficiency gains from these solutions. Total-cost-of-ownership and return on investment are very important for such solutions. We focus that Matrix delivers highest on these counts. Having said this, Matrix products are value-for-money. We don't expect customers to pay high just for a fancy name on the product. On the other hand, we believe customers never select these products only based on cost. Customers purchase lower-cost products only when higher-cost products cannot justify the price difference.

What is the company's history?

Matrix started in 1992 as a product design company with focus on telecom solutions. For the initial few years, we focused on PBXs. Over the years, we added new products in telephony and messaging domains. Today, Matrix is a leading technology company focusing on designing, manufacturing and marketing world-class telecom and security solutions for organisations, businesses and enterprises. We are now a 500-strong company with about 40% of manpower in R&D. We are among the few companies that indigenously design, manufacture and market telecom and security products.

Any breakthrough product launch that made a difference?

Yes, Matrix COMSEC is a real break-through time-attendance and access control solution for large enterprises. It supports 1,000 locations, 10,000 entry points and 1 milllion users. We have many reputed companies like Adani, Sterling & Wilson, Religare, Transportation Corporation of India (TCI), Gold's Gym India, MRF, Gruh Finance Ltd., SBI, MAN Trucks, Gujarat Ambuja Exports Ltd., India Nivesh Pvt Ltd, Real Image Media Technologies Pvt Ltd, Shriram Finance, Presidency group of colleges and many others as our customers.

How is present business environment?

Overall business sentiment is positive and we will see significant growth in all industrial sectors. In particular, security market will grow rapidly with increase in awareness and desire to invest in public and private security.

What are the future plans?

During 2014, we plan to focus and consolidate all the four domains of our business - Telecom, Time-Attendance, Access Control and IP Video Surveillance. We have ambitious plans on all the business areas - products, SI channels and end-customers. We see 2014 as an important year for our business. Our main thrust is on growing our international business.