Tuesday, October 08, 2013: FortuneArt, one of India’s first end-to-end manufacturers of LED lighting fixtures, was established in 2010. It provides economical and cost-effective lighting solutions as per customer requirements. In a conversation with Electronics Bazaar, Arvind Srimal, managing director, FortuneArt LED Lighting Pvt Ltd, who established the company, talks about the company’s marketing strategies and how the weak rupee has impacted the business.
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EB: How has your company grown over the years? What are your plans for this year?
FortuneArt started as an importer of high-quality products. Through experience, we found that the Indian electrical market is very different from other nations. The products that may work wonders in other countries would fail miserably in India. This is when we decided that our products had to be custom-built to suit Indian conditions and, hence, we started to import only empty fixtures and do the entire assembly in India.
Our next step was very critical—creating a differentiating factor between us and the rest of the Indian LED market. We set up our factory as an end-to-end manufacturing plant, one of the first in the country wherein the process would start from the raw aluminium and end as a fully packaged product, ready for sale.
EB: Did you launch any new products in the last six months? Which ones were in more demand?
The last six months have really been good for us, and we have launched various new models under our downlights and streetlights range. The new products come with new designs, increased light output and very good thermal management. There has been increased demand for LED downlights and tubelights, especially from the corporate and residential sectors.
EB: With the dollar becoming stronger, how has it impacted the LED lighting market in India?
Most of the raw materials that are required to make any LED fixture are imported and get affected by the increasing dollar price. This, in turn, leads to hike in price of the finished product and loss of business as well. We at FortuneArt are trying to lower the impact of dollar prices by manufacturing most of the raw materials in India itself, whereby we are able to keep prices in check, which is viable for us as well as the customer. So despite a weak rupee, we have not burdened our customers with price hike.
EB: What marketing strategies do you adopt to survive the competition?
We have a marketing team, which has the right mix of young and experienced people. We conduct close to 50 seminars a month across all sectors. Our emphasis through these seminars is not to sell our products but only our technology—which once sold, creates immense customer satisfaction and very good brand recognition.
EB: What are the challenges you face being an LED lighting manufacturer in India? How can these be resolved?
Considering the Indian electrical conditions, there are no specific standards for lighting products in India. The standards that are prevalent are just a copy of the European or American standards, which quite understandably are environments that are devoid of problems like surges, voltage fluctuations, sudden power cuts, etc. The need of the hour is to have standards that are specific to India and its conditions.
EB: Do you think that the government incentives and policies can help the manufacturers?
The government is doing a good job through various schemes and policies for the manufacturing industry. However, things could get much better. It would be great if incentives like “no VAT and excise” are applicable in the LED lighting industry.
