Mr. J.L. Shah a.k.a. Mr. Anchorwala

Mr. J.L. Shah a.k.a. Mr. Anchorwala established Anchor brand in late 60’s and in early 70’s they became the market leader in electrical switches. With the passage of time their brand soars to a pinnacle where in a consumer study it was said: “Anchor is available in places where even bread isn’t”. In late 80’s and early 90’s they moved into number of other products like lamps & tubes, fans, appliances and in 1997-98 they entered into wires and cables. In 2007 Anchor entered into a sale agreement with Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd. (MEW), owners of the world-famous National and Panasonic brands. With the idea of rebuilding the magic again Jadavjibhai Anchorwala put in his efforts into a new era with the launch of Great White Electricals (GWE), a novel dimension of wiring devices that are based on his legendary ideas, with a touch of modern technology. In a face to face conversation Mr. Hemang Shah, Director, GWE elaborated on the journey of rebuilding a new brand identity and briefing us about on new wire & cable facility at Valsad for housing and building wires and Haridwar, challenges faced by the industry and his future plans.

The Great White

Firstly, inspired by the Great White shark, arguably the world’s largest known extinct macro-predator. The Great White has an extra sense and is also very intelligent and strong, with a bite force up to 4000 pounds. Secondly, the Great White bear, one of the world’s largest land predator, is known to survive in the harshest of environments

GWE Manufacturing Capabilities

Out of the two manufacturing sites at Haridwar and Valsad, former churns out wiring devices and circuit breakers and latter produces house wires and will produce other variants in future. The Valsad facility is spread in 10 acres and will witness an investment of Rs. 200 crores out of which half investment will be for wire & cable business which will have a shed area of 2 lac sq.ft. The commercial production of cable plant is expected to start by October, 2011. Initially GWE targets to produce about 4 to 5 lac coils a month and then grow from there. The new plant is being set-up with an idea to serve the next 5 years and the growth is planned in phases.

On the technological front the unit will house some world class machines. The compounds will be developed in house with the capabilities such as where the desperation of the heat is good and leakage of the current is minimal. In due course the addition of IT capabilities will take place in the process in order to have proper scheduling, quality control, precision and raw material planning for better efficiencies. The IT capabilities will enable proper forecasting and understanding of the customer needs too.

GWE Future

GWE is targeting 3 main product categories – circuit breakers, wiring devices, and wire & cables. The company will start with Rs. 100 crores turnover initially and they are confident to touch Rs. 1000 crores within 5 years. GWE plans to add on new verticals by evaluating what is good for them and their associates.

“We are starting everything from the scratch so we will be building from manpower to factories to products although we are experienced but it takes a lot of efforts to get the things going. First obviously it’s going to be stabilizing the business then it will be exploring more markets for growth”, said Mr. Hemang Shah.

On Market Plans Mr. Kailash Didwania, President, Great White Electricals highlighted, “Our positioning of the brand will be value for money, international quality yet at affordable prices, hence plan to launch wiring devices first for the bottom of the pyramid and gradually will add products for other customer segments so finally will have products and choices for all segments. Similarly route to market (distribution) will be flat from company to dealers to cut down intermediate cost, although it will be difficult to manage it logistically”.

Challenge & Threats

Mr. Hemang Shah started & concluded the challenges for wire & cable industry on a positive note, “The market matrix and numbers are suggesting that there is a huge demand yet to be unleashed in the wire & cable industry in India. But along with this there are various challenges associated. First, the international people are eyeing on the Indian market so we definitely have to possess the international efficiencies as we are really lacking in the efficiency. Second is the better management of the logistics, we cannot give a committed delivery. Third is volatility of the raw material. Lastly, the skilled labour has always been a problem but the good part is that India is growing at a very fast pace so we have an opportunity to make the unskilled – skilled and that’s where industry should stress on. We should look at the upgradation of people who might not have experience in cables or manufacturing of cables and train them with requisite skills for making good cables. In short, personnel get trained from trained personnel.”

Better Efficiencies

Mr. Shah stressed on having higher level of efficiencies in the business process and suggested, “Logistics is important aspect where industry has to improve upon. In the factory there is lot of room for improvement by training the workers at regular intervals in order to minimize the consumption of raw material and producing better product. Intro-duction of IT with better systems and technologies will play an important role for improving efficiencies. If you want to go to the next level you have to fine tune yourself, your machines and your product and get a greater output eventually.”

Awareness Initiatives

GWE intends to organize meets in order to educate electrician about the product, its features and how to use it. Provide them diagram, PPT on the product configurations etc. “My father has followed a simple philosophy, always understand the need of the market and create a quality product and he is known for developing a product according to consumers requirement.”

On Philosophy & Mantras Mr. Hemang Shah said “For us, business ethics is the core for any business. Every dealer associated with us knows who is Mr. J.L. Shah? Most of our associates started from scratch by setting up a small booth of electrical goods and now has grown into a big electrical shop. Our dealers are associated with us since long because of transparency in our business policies. It’s a mutually accepted relation, we have taken them and they have taken us. Mr. J L Shah transformed all his channel partners, dealers, agents into entrepreneurs and asked them that don’t work for me but work for yourself.”