9 Jun 2011

ASSA ABLOY in the fast-growing Indian market

With its one billion plus population, the Indian market is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, holding immense opportunities for ASSA ABLOY.

The Indian market has a GDP growth of about 7 percent, and this rate is expected to continue at about 8 to 10 percent over the next few years, presenting tremendous opportunities for the ASSA ABLOY Group. And although Group companies all face different challenges in this exciting market, the growth potential is great.

Randeep Singh recently joined the Group as the General Manager for India. “There is a huge growth opportunity for ASSA ABLOY India,” he says. “End-users’ outlook towards security is changing, investment across all key infrastructure segments is growing, and projects are looking at international standards. The focus now will be to consolidate and build a strong foundation for continuous growth.”

But along with every opportunity, there comes a challenge.

“India is a largely unorganized and fragmented market, with many small players,” Randeep Singh says. “There is a lack of knowledge when it comes to standards for door hardware. But this is changing as security awareness among consumers grows and interest in hardware standards among architects increases.”

Along with these challenges, poor infrastructure, a large geographical market and pricing competition mean that many Group companies still hold a very small market share compared with the potential.

ASSA ABLOY’s business unit HID Global is not one of them. HID Global currently holds a dominant share of the enterprise market and Ranjit Nambiar, Director of Sales for HID in India and the SAARC countries, is confident that the company will continue to grow.

“Our initial growth came from our strong installer base in Europe and the US and the early adopters setting up in India, such as IT companies and multinational banks,” Ranjit Nambiar says. “Today, many of our growth opportunities come from emerging verticals such as the government, defense, infrastructure and transportation sectors. These verticals are late adopters – they are just starting to invest in security systems, giving us a great opportunity to grow at a much faster rate.”

“We are in a good position because HID is a respected and reputed brand,” Ranjit says. “Most of our multinational partners operate out of India and we have a very good relationship with them, helping us leverage our global strength.”

For HID, building the brand has been easier than for other companies, such as ASSA ABLOY. “If you have a good brand presence in India, it’s easy to attract talent,” says Manu Ahuja, President ASSA ABLOY South Asia. “If you have a brand that is still yet to be known in India, like we do, it’s a challenge to attract the right people. And now that we are setting our sights on expansion, it is really important that we have the right people in place.”

The ASSA ABLOY team, although small, has been successful in winning large projects, such as the New Delhi Airport, Cisco and a deal with the Lodha Group builders – all landmark deals for ASSA ABLOY.

Are you interested in ASSA ABLOY products and solutions?

Please visit the ASSA ABLOY product pages for information about our locks, access control, mobile keys with NFC, door automatics and more. You can also experience our lock and security solutions for any door opening in the ASSA ABLOY solution pages.

ASSA ABLOY in India - video interview with Jim Heng Lee, VP ASSA ABLOY Asia Pacific