A significant chunk (around 60 per cent) of Indian population is in rural area. Devices/ appliances, which suit the needs of a rural household, are different from that of an urban household. Therefore, it is time that device/appliance manufacturers start targeting the needs of rural segment. While looking at the current middle class segment, which represents 13.1 per cent of the total households (31.4 million), it is forecasted that by 2016 the households will climb to 53.3 million and is likely to double up by 2025.

The Indian automation and control systems market has seen significant changes in dynamics over the years. Initially concentrated in the areas of HVAC and security systems; the market has now evolved into newer areas like lighting systems, fire detection systems, entertainment systems and energy management systems as well. The automation not only integrates different automation systems but also enables substantial power savings. If we take the recent market study on the home automation, it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 30% over the 5 years to 2016, with applications such as security, lighting and energy management likely to play an important role in achieving this significant growth rate. Increasing data thefts, burglaries, demand for enhanced security, need for energy management / conversion are a few of the key factors that have spurred the India automation and control systems market.

Market is mainly driven by the declining cost and complexity of home automation products. Once perceived as “elite class-only,” the home automation products are gaining widespread popularity mainly because of the development of standard-based technologies that can be integrated into existing communications/utility infrastructure of modern homes, resulting in lower cost systems that eliminate the need for bulky hardware and cabling.

Current challenges—There are 200+ home automation solution dealers in eight major cities in India. Most of these dealers deal with luxury home automation systems with ticket sizes of varying between RS 2, 00,000 to 15,000,000 for 2 BHK installations. Most of the systems are wired solutions from Creston, HAI, and HDL China. With such a price point, it is difficult for Home Automation to gain mainstream popularity with the average spending power of the middle class Indian being much lower than that.

Low cost Home Automation is also seeing some traction as a plethora of startups are entering this sector. However, they haven’t been successful due to being unreliable and having unintuitive or highly technical solutions. These companies have not matched the stiff benchmarks set by western solutions.

There are only a handful of companies providing a complete automation solution. With companies like Phillips only working on smart lighting solutions, a problem of standardization is faced by the average

Our competitive edge—Our solution will use its competitive edge of economic justification to turn potential customers into qualified sales customers. While some of the other similar companies often highlight the positive environmental impact that their designs offer, we will also offer economic justifications for their designs. This is an important competitive edge as it provides evidence that the customer can save money in the long term and make a positive impact on the environment. Providing a cost benefit analysis for the green design is important because it makes the potential market larger, moving from people that want to do good for the environment to people that also want to save money. By offering an environmental

solution that saves the person or business money creates a compelling reason to adopt the suggestions. There are too few people that will act only for environmental reasons, but when you save people money, there are far more people interested.

Our competitive advantage will be gained by the benefits we sell, which include many intangibles: confidence, reliability, knowing that somebody will be there to answer questions and help at the important times. This will create a seamless experience of thoughtfully engineered quality products backed by excellent service. By having a diversified portfolio aligned to key macro trends and growth drivers, V- Guard can establish a strong financial position in the automation field.

By having a robust, established brand in the Indian electric and electronic goods sector, V-Guard will be able to cut costs on manufacturing by a significant amount. The cost of acquiring new infrastructure and deployment costs will be recovered quickly. If the ecosystem is made affordable, we can see more number of households adapting to a basic level of HA. In India, though the growth is slow, there is a huge possibility that India will be a potential market for home appliances for the next half decade and further. This is owing to the pace at which Indian consumers are getting adapted to technology-based products. Furthermore, as per a recent research, increase in the number of wireless customers will also enhance the home appliances market.