Safe Surroundings: The Next Future

A brand that’s synonymous to reliable electronic surveillance in the country, has been here for more than 15 years now. A leading brand that introduced the word CCTV to the country back in the early 21st century when the West was still busy outsourcing the surveillance gadgets to the far east countries like, Japan or Korea.?

The Journey of CCTV, Then & Now
Not many people know that CCTV was called as closed-circuit television, and this terminology has evolved over the years but in back then, it was a switcher concept so even the DVR or the recording concept was not introduced in the country, until CP Plus India forayed into this market as an electronic surveillance brand. The whole software element, the connecting of your mobile to the device, remote viewing, all these things have been introduced in the last fifteen years in India. The market for quite unorganized and globally as well, the surveillance industry was just picking up, recording worldwide came when CP Plus was already there in the game. Security is a vast field and there are many different subcategories it this sector. But this pioneer brand decided to pick the largest pie of this building, which is Electronic Surveillance and decided to be the masters of that rather than being the Jack of all.

The game changer products & the many firsts
Being called a pioneer in the field of security and electronic surveillance, the brand must have done something right. They have been known to be a game-changer of this sector, when others were just waking up to this concept of security via cameras. There have been many firsts for this brand, they were the first to introduce the recorder concept in CCTV and that was one of the game changing products. One device capturing voice in 32 cameras first introduced by them back then. Lately, they introduced this full colour at night solution. Actually, two years ago and which is now a de facto standard in the market. The brand offers this full colour guard plus series, where in complete darkness the camera will record in full colour. So, you get a full colour view in complete darkness, pin drop complete darkness. They are the first to launch this and it is now considered to be one of their flagship products.?

Industry trends and challenges
If we talk about the beginning of the 21st century, in those days people or companies never felt the need of having surveillance in offices, hotels, malls or even warehouses. It was primarily because of the lack of awareness, and secondly because the aspirational lifestyle had just started picking up. ?Also, when brands like CP Plus India launched, the products were a little expensive. The brand had to work towards making their range affordable for the Indian price-sensitive market. The price performance ratio in India matters a lot. If you get good technology but if it is not affordable, then you get a very little market to cater to. It is the market of masses. Today, by all appearances, this industry is flourishing globally. It is moving from mere security and safety protection, and towards encompassing a wider scope of things that will expand safety along with bringing new levels of intelligence and sustainability to commercial spaces, personal spaces, and societies overall. ?Today security and surveillance is not just about installing a CCTV, but it is beyond the traditional “physical security” and has more frontiers like AI, cloud computing, IoT, just to name a few. And, with this new acceleration, CP Plus has forayed into some exciting range of products both in business and consumer segments. ?

Security & surveillance for your luxury abode?
The consumption of electronic surveillance is widely seen in workplaces and or in commercial spaces, but security has turned out to be the foremost concern in the residential spaces off late. The home security is a kind of surveillance which is installed outside or inside a building or house for monitoring activities happening in both the inner and outer premises. ?While CP Plus products’ market is into four segment – government, enterprise, SMV and consumer. It is the consumer and the home segment where the penetration is very less. World over, it’s not even 10%, and in India, it is hardly 2-3 percent. Which basically means, we are talking of some 30 crore households buying something for their safe and smart homes, over the next 10 years, at least. The brand felt that someone must cater to their demand too and this will be as big, if not as big as other three verticals put together in the next decade. Today, the brand’s investments are going big time to keep growing in the consumer space. With this all-jazzy concept called ADA – Access, Deterrence and Alert, the brand is sure to woo the consumers in just no time. When you enter the house, you ring a bell, that needs to be connected to your phone and that’ s how you open, whether you have a video door, the brand is offering all kinds of flavours of that, digital door locks, biometric, all kinds of devices and access is what they are going to offer. All kinds of cameras, 4G based, Wi-Fi camera, no wiring, so 20 different variants in deterrents, and then you have alerts and senses. Every house has a kitchen but most of them don’t have sensors for gas leak, smoke, glass break, so here too, the brand is offering all sorts of sensors as Alert. With demand, they will keep expanding, and one can choose from the bouquet and make their luxury abodes ADA enabled.?

The sustainable goals, a futuristic approach
With electronic surveillance being one industry that certainly needs to have it’s self-sustainable goals well in place, especially at a time when go green, care for nature are big shout out slogans by most companies. CP Plus India is showing sincere efforts in this direction, and to begin with, power consumption is the area that they are taking care of, making sure to use the minimum power in all manufacturing units. While the brand feels it is just the baby steps to the bigger goal of sustainability, and there is a long way to go but they are happy to see the impact of such initiatives. ?The brand strongly feels that we all now need to think on these lines with a fresh thought process. And, going forward, they would like to educate consumers in terms of waste management, considering how they are expanding in the consumer segment in near future.?

A visionary entrepreneur
Aditya Khemka, Managing Director, CP Plus India, has been a visionary in true sense. A far-sighted entrepreneur, Kemka could sense the growing demand of electronic surveillance back in the early days when the core company, Aditya Infotech was already into technology business with more than two decades of experience. The company had always been pioneers in introducing futuristic technologies much earlier to India. And, since they already had an edge, it was somewhere in the year 2007 post some market research and need assessment, this visionary felt that it was time to venture into the security and surveillance space. “I was studying this industry since 2004-05 and realized that there is a huge potential and market for these kinds of products and it will eventually become the necessity of the masses of any country, including India. Because as you move forward from your basic needs towards some luxuries and all, you need a safe and secure environment to eventually prosper. I think, keeping that in mind, 2007 we launched CP Plus India,” tells Khemka.?

CP Plus make in India initiative
The brand started it’s own manufacturing some 6 years ago when the Make in India initiative was introduced in the country by the government. They were the first one to set up and electronic manufacturing in Tirupati along with the support of the local government. Today. Tirupati is called as a major electronic manufacturing hub of India. The plant has already surpassed the capacity, which was 10 lac capacity per month, they are already crossing that. They have now found this new place in Kadapa district, where they acquired about 20 plus acres of land along with the government. And once again, CP Plus India is the first ones to set up an electronic manufacturing in that district, and the government wants it to be a completely make in India manufacturing. This plant will have a 30 lac capacity so 3X of the current one, which can expand to 60 lacs over time, that much expandability is there. It may be the world’s largest plant outside China, and probably second or third largest in the world. All thanks to the Atmanirbhar campaign of the PM, the brand has also spruced up its R&D investments in the last two years to have more and more indigenized designs and software controls and other things in their products. There is a big shift, the global preference is now for Indian, or European brands compared to the far east brands.?

A visionary cameraman of India
Aditya Khemka, Managing Director, CP Plus India, a futuristic entrepreneur, who could see the need of safe and secured surroundings as the next big thing is a man of few words. A firm believer in hard work and good work-relations has brought India on the world map when it comes to electronic surveillance. Aditya Khemka, candidly called as ‘the cameraman of the country’, spoke to Outlook Business. Excerpts:

What was the initial idea of getting into this niche yet a bit unorganized segment??
I have always been introducing new technologies, so if you see our journey from 2007, before a decade or more, in the 90s we introduced a very basic product, like a colour monitor, we launched the LG colour monitor in India. Back then, we used to have black and white monitors, and the market was not ready for colour, but we still went ahead and introduced it. We continued introducing new technologies, video editing, digital audio, 3D animation, gaming, etc. these have been technologies where we have been early entrant into the market. There were hardly any major players and in a way were fortunate.

During this journey, did you ever feel there was a huge risk involved? Or, did you see the potential of this industry back then?
The passion and the hard work were so strong that we never felt that there would be risk involved. There was so much to do, such thoughts might have crossed my mind but there was so much happening, trainings, get people in this eco system, form a manpower, from installers, to engineers, from freshers to where this industry is today, I would say that probably we would comfortably call ourselves the father of this industry in India.

What has been the level of awareness around electronic surveillance is, and what efforts did you have to put to create it??
There was hardly any awareness back then. If I look at as an independent company owner and not as an industry, I never felt the need of having ES in my office or warehouses, in those days. I think we tried creating a lot of awareness in the last 15 years, and last 10 years at the consumer level. And that is why we focused on pricing. A lot of awareness was done, even today, we have a dedicated team which does online and offline training, education. It’s a mammoth task, people till date have just learnt the basic, and there is so much in the technology that we are offering. Slowly, we are creeping intelligence into the eco system.?

How is the penetration of security and surveillance happening in India?
Well, now its going to the villages, you walk into any village of India, you will find a CP plus electronic surveillance. We made the technology very affordable, and I feel India is going to be the second largest in the world after China. The GDP is growing, and we are prosperous and to balance these two, you need a safe and secure environment. It’s a fundamental thing, where there is luxury and prosperity, you need security at the same. Our penetration right now is just 40 cameras per thousand, I feel it will grow 3 times in the next five years.?

How has this India-based manufacturing helped boost the Indian infrastructure??
Once you start manufacturing in India, you are creating a lot more job opportunities. Our plant is 80 % plus female manpower. We focus on this aspect, most of the assembly lines are all females., very skilled now and with this new plant, manpower will double, creating further job opportunities. Eventually, you are contributing not just by selling products for the growth of GDP but also by creating more job opportunities at the backend. And then further backward integration will create further job opportunities where you cut down further imports of parts and peripherals, whatever can be done in India.?

What message would you like to give to the young entrepreneurs of India??
For me the definition of success is always focus, relationship and hardwork. With these three motivations, I feel, anything is possible. Honestly, 15 years ago I did not think that we will probably be 35-40 percent of the Indian market. So, today, one out of every two devices are sold through our company in the country. ?The traditional CCTV is growing at the market growth rate, we are enhancing our market share in this space. Just keep focusing, never spoil relationship, hard work has no substitute. Its just reaching to another level of growth in the growth curve, I think we have reached here, and now its another kind of new beginning for us.?