In a conversation with Rahul Chopra of Electronics Bazaar, George Yin talks about the company’s strategies for India and other international markets.
EB: How important is the Indian market for China?
Though USA is our major market, India is equally important to us. India is, in many ways, similar to China— both are developing countries and have similar industries, and it throws up a lot of opportunities for us. To tap these opportunities, we have three distributors and two resellers in India catering to the various requirements of our customers. We have a long term plan for India market, and we want to grow together with the local enterprise.
EB: What is your strategy for India?
India has huge potential and, at the moment, we are trying to understand the Indian market and sharing our success with the customers. Also, with the Indian government coming up with a new manufacturing policy, we feel it will further boost the manufacturing sector in the country. We have technical centres across China which help design engineers to understand our products, processes and systems clearly. We have similar plans for India as well. Last year, our field application engineers went to India twice and visited over 20 customers. In 2013, we plan to hold technical conferences in two cities in India.
EB: What stops India from being a large market?
I have been to India twice and visited places like Bengaluru and Hyderabad as most of the electronics companies are located down south, just like in China. They are quite similar to Guangzhou city. At the moment, there is a lot of scope and untapped potential in India. It has immense potential like China or even more than China. I feel by 2030, India will have the highest GDP in the world.
EB: How important was the role of the Chinese government in helping the electronics industry to grow to this level or did the entrepreneurs achieve this?
Like elsewhere, for private companies there are many limitations. Chinese government definitely want to see the industry to grow and develop. But if you are dependent on the government alone, we feel the enterprise will lose its niches and direction, and unable to response to the market. There are no subsidies offered by the government. But as we are classified as a high end technical enterprise, having high degree of R&D and technical innovation, we do get some tax reductions.
EB: What differentiates Mornsun from its competitors?
We aspire to be the leader in our industry. In terms of price and quality, we offer the best to our customers. This is what differentiates us from our competitors—we offer the best quality at the best price. It is said that the customer is king or God, but for us, we want to share our success with our customers. We just do not want to maximise our profits but create a win-win situation for both our customers (domestic as well as international) and ourselves.
We believe branding is important for market survival, but if your product is a quality product, it speaks for itself. Hence, our main focus is in adding value to our customers by offering quality products.
In comparison to other companies, Mornsun management come from multinational company with EMBA qualification. We are also a vertical manufacturer using lean manufacturing, which enable us to offer quality products within 2-4 weeks. In case of a complaint reported to the company, we respond to the complaint in a day’s time, whether it is related to application or quality. Here, other companies take time. Besides quality, we also focus on product reliability.
Our experience in China market is also an added advantage, we can share our success in industries like automation, telecommunication, power distribution and transportation with the local manufacturer and grow with them.
EB: How do you ensure your product is of top quality?
Most of the people want to make quality products but do not know how to do this. We follow a system approach to ensure our products are the best in quality. This process in based on seven parameters. First, for the raw material, we have a system/platform to measure that the product is of good quality. Our manufacturing process is also very stringent. For quality check, we have a separate team to check and analyse the products and also to look into the complains of our customers. Our R&D comprises 200 people. With eight field application engineers, we visit our clients every year. Our quality assurance team consists of 20 people.
Also, for our manufacturing process, we have a system to ensure that the product is delivered on time. We also have a self-service system and technical support system. Also, we have a system wherein our products are showcased and customers can choose through this system. We have over a 1000 people working with us and we ensure that all the steps are followed properly so that quality is maintained.
EB: Currently, how much revenue comes from China and from exports?
We make 60 per cent from domestic sales and 40 per cent from international sales.
EB: What is the global vision for Mornsun in future?
We are already champions in our country, and a leading company. Hence, our main focus is to make better products. We are now moving ahead and making second generation products. We are also upgrading our existing range of products. We plan to move ahead by offering next-generation and quality products to our customers. It is very important that our products add value and, hence, our focus is mainly on the quality of the product offered, in best price.
EB: There is so much of turmoil in the western market, with trade imbalances in Europe and US markets. So, what is your global strategy? Do you want to be bigger in exports or bigger within the country?
There are a lot of contradictions in the international markets. The European and US markets emphasise more on quality and are not so price conscious, whereas, it is the opposite in China. Though now the trend is slowly changing, wherein the Chinese are also opting and looking for quality products. For our company, both price and quality have been important factors. We ensure that our products pass all levels of quality tests and if we are unable to achieve quality at the right price, we better prefer not making that product.
EB: The trend so far depicts that there is a rise in the prices of electronics components, hence how do you see the future as far as the prices of components are concerned?
As far as power converter or power electronics is concerned, the prices are going down. But the prices of raw materials are increasing. We have been able to manage this well through our system approach and we have been able to simplify the cost through a better management of products. Since the inception till date, our efficiency has gone up and since our efficiency is high, we have been able to maintain our profits.
