Rias Qureshi of Kolkata is on a mission. A mission to equip every household with a smart TV – a all-in-one communication centre that is wi-fi enables, doubles up as the internet monitor and plays stand-alone music, smart enough to understand and communicate with the owner. All this, at affordable price points so that the communication and entertainment needs of the common man’s family can be met.
The television sets that he markets under the brand name SKY LED have already created a huge demand pull in the market, even without being advertised. “Advertising costs money, insane amounts of money. Money that I would rather pass on to my consumers whose happiness, I believe, is directly proportional to the sales. As a matter of fact, it is word-of-mouth publicity that has brought us here and the average consumer, who does his research before arriving at the purchase decision, knows that SKY LED TV’s are the best value for his hard-earned money” says Qureshi, the Managing Director and the spirit behind the SKY LED brand.
But how is Qureshi doing it? Providing television sets that are comparable to the best in class at virtually throw-away prices? Smiles Qureshi “for one, we source components from around the farthest corners of the Asian markers, which provides us with a cost advantage. These components are ordered on a Just-in-Time principle, which means we have no carrying cost. Secondly, our manufacturing base is in China, which too is leased, leading to us having a huge technological cum cost edge over traditional manufacturers. And finally, we spend very little in either establishing or maintaining our brand leading to almost zero expenditure”. If this is not lean manufacturing, what is?
“Instead of spending money to tell the consumer how good our products are, we are passing on the savings with them. Happy consumers are our advertisers as they spread the word about the features, the quality and the fantastic prices at which the SKY LED TV’s are available”.
And available they are in abundance. The company is scaling up its operations at a frenetic pace, adding dealers, stockists and super stockists around the country – building up its network and ensuring the steady flow of products, for which the demand seems to be insatiable. “We have models in all the price points and all the screen sizes. In terms of technology, we are not only comparable but in cases even superior. As for the latest – Curved TV’s and Video Walls, we are very much in the running for grabbing the eyeballs of the consumers”.
A homegrown entrepreneur – Qureshi did his BCom from the city’s Bhawanipur Education Society College (BESC) – he seems to have a winner in his hand, winner that offers top of the line technology at bargain basement pricing. As a matter of fact, such has been the success of SKYLED TVs that Qureshi is now literally flooded with offers from neighbouring countries to expand his presence as are the requests from his existing dealer base to move more aggressively into the white goods segment to provide them with a bigger basket to woo the customers.
But Qureshi, the ever-cautious businessman does not want to rush into too many related areas. “My biggest achievement in life so far has been in reaching a position where potential buyers walk into electronic showrooms and ask for SKYLED TVs by name. God knows how hard I have worked to reach this position and I do not want to squander away the trust of our byers that we have achieved. It is they who impress upon their friends and relatives to go out and buy our products and till such time that we are in a position to address their demands completely, I will not budge from the position”. Makes sense.
But the bottom line is that Qureshi is not denying the offers from the neighbouring countries. Nor is he denying the possibility of SKY LED moving aggressively into the white goods segment.
Watch this space.
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