Worldwide availability, proximity to customers, reliability, prompt reactions and consistent marketing are some of the secret ingredients behind Rittal's unprecedented rise to a market leader in the field of enclosure systems

What innovative solutions and services do you provide to your clients?
Rittal in India is a subsidiary of Rittal Gmbh, which is based in Germany. It is a multinational company operating in69 countries in the world. We have been adopting a very aggressive growth path and the development has been very consistent in the past. We are a part of the Friedhelm Loh Group of which Rittal is the flagship company. Rittal in this financial year (2008-09) should be crossing $3.5 billion in sales worldwide and the group turnover should be close to $4 billion. Rittal is a company in the field of enclosures systems. We have expanded our offerings and moving on to complete solutions.

Elaborate on RematriX5 and its benefits?
We have launched a new IT infrastructure solution-RematriX5 for our customers. It offers versatile rack systems for individual assembly and configuration for IT infrastructure. Rematrix5 is a reliable system, high availability and sustainable cost reduction. It is user friendly, takes less time to repair and safe.

What is the unique feature of your UPS?
The unique feature is that it has bypass mode. It has a small display in which we can see the mode at anytime and it can be operated remotely. We have a module called the CMC-TC, which offers monitoring. One can have access to keyboard, biometrics sensor, smartcard access and one can do even video monitoring as well. It can also monitor smoke, temperature and vibration. There are a whole range of sensor were monitoring can be done. We do it on a rack-based level atleast for the high-density server act. We have also power distribution system where we can switch off the servers remotely as well. This is something that is unique.

What is the channel strategy you plan to put in place?
As far as channels are concerned we are still in the process. We need to talk and establish a viable solution with our partners, which would be win-win situation for both of us. We are still in a dialogue stage but we hope that within few months we will be able to come to a common conclusion.

AK Nathan MD,Rittal India

There is a lack of technical specialists. Do you think that partners currently are in a position to offer these kind of services?
No, definitely not because it is highly technical. These are the concepts, which have to be done and we feel that a need for in-house experts because there is a lot of consultancy involved. We will use channel partners for our products reach and for its handholding. But for providing services we have in-house technicians. We can do everything through our in-house personnel.

Initially how many partners are you trying to bring on board?
We are talking to the national level partners and making them understand about our products and solutions that would make thing easier. By the end of this year we are planning to have at least 20 partners from different location across India.

How much are you going to invest in the channel and what are the benefits they will get?
We would tell them about the product and share with them our engineering solutions. The company keeps on propagating the technology, uses different methods for promotion and creates awareness about the latest products and solutions. Partners will want to take up this solution because the enclosures will be scalable and modular so partners can get their customers to add more components to it over time. Through this, the customers will feel comfortable and can come closer to the partner, which would be a profitable scheme for the partners as well.

what is your total revenue?
We are close to Rs 300 crore and have seen 35 percent growth over the pervious year. We are consistently growing and there are lots of opportunities that are available despite the fear of slowdown because we have a wide range of products. We cater to wide industrial segments.

Lipsha Das
lipshad@cybermedia.co.in

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