Brand Surya, known for its steel pipes since early 70s, entered into lighting arena in 1984 with a dream of ‘lighting every city every home’. Over three decades down the line, it is appraised as one of the leading brands in the country’s lighting industry. To this, the LED technology has opened up a new frontier and is potentially acknowledged as the future of lighting. Today, Surya’s LED product basket, comprising products being manufactured in-house, adds credibility to the brand’s stature as being synonymous to lighting.
Today, Surya Group has emerged into a colossal of Rs. 4,200-Crore (US$ 600 million) Indian manufacturing company, exporting products to over 50 countries across the globe. It has manifested, not just a strong brand image, but also an irreplaceable mark onto the minds and consideration of customers. Since inception the conglomerate has believed in the power of transformation, turning energy into happiness and living up to its promise of achieving brilliance at everything it offers to society. This underlying ethos has not only transformed the Surya of today into one of the leading brands in the country’s lighting and steel pipes arena, but has also helped it to venture in the fans and home appliances’ segment.
With ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004 & OHSAS 18001:2007 certifications under its belt, and products that are accredited with an international performance of safety standards, Surya stands tall on its commitment to deliver eco-friendly and quality products. Surya is also known for being one of the most preferred brands with various Govt. departments, institutions and international buyers. No wonder, Surya has attained a CAGR of 15% for total lighting, fans and appliances in the last 5 years.
With inquisitiveness, as usual, LED World tries exploring further on what beholds Surya’s progression in the near future. We prepared a list of queries, with which we contacted B. Raju, the Company’s Managing Director. Here are the edited excerpts of the responses…
Surya Roshni has been in the Indian lighting industry for many decades. How do you see lighting in its current perspective?
Lighting in the current perspective has evolved from conventional lighting to LED lights where LED lamps are taking over the market while the conventional light sources are roving through the diminishing growth. LED is a highly energy-efficient lighting technology and has the potential to transform the future of lighting.
Their light-efficiency makes them superior to the conventional lighting sources. Also, they are much more environment-friendly owing to their being mercury free.
We, at Surya Roshni, manufacture all the LED products in-house, backed by strategic marketing initiatives and strong trade channel that help us in marking our presence across the country and abroad. The LEDs manufactured by us are energy-efficient with extremely lower maintenance cost, high brightness, soothing light effect, high-power factor, wide operating voltage range, operate in extreme temperatures and comes with the facilitation of a remarkable life span.
What new can the industry expect on the floor when it comes to innovations both in terms of design and technology from Surya’s Kitty?
We believe in lighting innovations and are developing products with features like motion sensing, more advance controlling systems, colour changing and dimming.
Switching over to LEDs has prompted many manufacturers across the lighting industry to modify their setup. What changes did Surya Roshni do to accommodate the transition?
As you know, LED is a technology that has transformed the concept of lighting from simply being a product to service that goes with architecture. Also, the advent of LEDs has made lighting more of application-based than retrofits which keeps the designing of the LED products changing. In the meantime, the product is also getting changed with the drop in price. To accommodate the transition from conventional to LEDs, we have been dedicatedly developing our infrastructure, thereby enabling us to design new products based on customer insights & preferences to meet their respective but specific needs. Besides, we have planned the expansion of our electronic capacities, followed by an efficient supply chain so as to get the products available to end customers without any delay.
We have observed that with time, Surya’s products are getting sleeker. Where do you get the concepts from? And what efforts do you put to convert a concept into design?
The products have become much sleeker because of the continuous development in the LED chips which are getting more efficient and generating less heat. The small size and the scalability of arrays allow LEDs to offer innovative and compact lighting products. We get our concepts developed and captivated at our R&D – Surya Technology & Innovation Centre (STIC) run by a team of extremely dedicated and qualified engineers & designers.
STIC houses the Mirror Goniophotometer from LMT, Germany – the equipment for precise and accurate measurement of the distribution of light in the lamps, luminaires and LED chips. It also caters to photometric, electrical, mechanical, environmental, and endurance test requirements for development of the most latest and future energy-saving luminaires.
Additionally, the STIC is also being used to carry out Photometric Optical Testing of the luminaire for quality control. STIC has approvals from DSIR and Govt. of India, besides having accreditation from NABL.
How does Surya Roshni guarantee quality for its products to its valued customers?
Surya Roshni guarantees quality of its products to all the valued customers by selecting the best suppliers which meet the global quality norms. Our supplier selection process is stringent. Components are verified and the prior inspections are done before the manufacturing process starts. The controlling takes place during manufacturing, which continuously monitors the quality of each and every product. We keep on getting customer feedback constantly and accordingly further improvements are made.
How do you see the business opportunities in government’s ambitious Smart Cities plan? How is the company preparing to take on the same?
Smart cities are the opportunities for all the incumbents considering the fact that at the time of its announcement, India was not even ready with the much-talked about LED lighting products & solutions. Now that the government has shown its determination by implementing the countrywide LED lighting projects – SLNP and DELP, it has made its intention pretty clear that Smart Cities won’t be limited only to the papers but soon going to be a dream comes true for India and the Indians. We hope all these things are planned and executed in a systematic manner.
It won’t be wrong to mention that smart city project in India is a perfect platform to showcase India’s capabilities in the global arena. We have the brilliance and the skills in the form of renowned architects, engineers, landscape consultants, designers, software developers, lighting solution providers, etc. – needed to fulfill our dream project.
We, at Surya Roshni, are seriously looking forward to these opportunities and are in the process of developing lighting solutions for smart cities. For that, we are readily strengthening our infrastructure, working towards providing smart solutions matching typical Indian requirements. All the products would be developed and designed keeping in view the local environmental and cultural issues in the country’s varied geographies.
Meanwhile, we are also trying to get associated with renowned lighting designers and consultants for our new-age smart products so that we can develop failsafe solutions to serve the need of smart cities. Although, we have a whole lot of products which are going to be smart for almost all the major application areas including street, residential, and commercial ones.
Which new segment(s) is Surya Roshni eyeing for its expansion in the near future?
Surya Roshni has also ventured in other segments such as fans and home appliances. From ceiling fans and table fans to wall fans and heavy duty exhaust fans, the range comes with great value of high performance you expect from the brand. We have developed super-efficient BLDC fan, which consumes only 32W and saves around 60% energy as compared to conventional fans.
The company has just begun its supplies to EESL. The Indian-specific home appliances range includes Water Heater, Dry Iron, Steam Iron, Mixer Grinder, Juicer Mixer Grinder, Sandwich Maker, Toaster, among others. We are expanding both the segments as of now with plans to add other new segments where the company will soon diversify.
