TE Connectivity Strengthens Portfolio with New Acquisitions

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Today, 80 percent of the IT problems occur due to connectivity failure, at the infrastructural level. This is where TE Connectivity, earlier known as Tyco Electronics, has established its strength. Now, with new acquisitions, the company has invariably strengthened its structured cabling portfolio and also is venturing into new frontiers like wireless to establish its footprints in the new townships across the country.

Q. What is the current focus for TE Connectivity?

The primary focus is across the vertical segments – like, banking and finance, IT/ITeS, datacenter market and infrastructure segment. And our key target is the end customer to deliver end-to-end solutions. This is where we need the support of channel partners, to reach out to the end customers and also help them integrate our solutions with necessary tools.

Today, if you see the market are two sides where the network solutions can be implemented - enterprise and outside. When I say enterprise, I mean the infrastructure requirement within the high end buildings. And outside is all about connections within campus from building to building. And right now with the recent acquisition of ADC, we would also have the wireless capability.

Q. Tell us more on the capability additions you have made by acquiring ADC.

Consumers and enterprises want access to high-speed video and data wherever they are, on whatever devices they are using -- from smart phones to HD and 3-D televisions to computers with advanced video-conferencing capabilities. The combination of ADC and TE Connectivity creates an industry leader, with the scope and geographic scale to help customers deliver needed capacity, from the core of the network all the way to the end user. The Distributed Antenna System (DAS) of ADC, expands our wireless connectivity portfolio to provide greater mobile coverage and capacity solutions to carrier and enterprise customers as demand for mobile data continues to expand. Right now we are already tied up with the equipment manufacturers like Nokia Siemens, Sony Ericsson and other oem suppliers. I will boost our telecom capabilities, for instance, if you see in a building after the 20th floor, the signal goes missing or faintly available. this is where we are going to work on. We are talking to various building communities, real estate builders to integrate our solutions.


Q. Looks like too many things are churning out in the passive networking arena. Could you tell us some of the key trends in this arena?

Technology wise, if you see initially, there was the use of Cat 3, Cat 5, but now, the market is dominated by the Cat 6, with 80 percent of the networks working on it, and the backbone is the datacenter in a 10GB environment.

The next trend is the Fibre-to-home phenomena. Today, most of the home systems are being automated. With the help of the IT system, voice recognition and the wireless connectivity each of the home equipments can be automated for instance, Lavasa or Hira Nandani in Chennai, we have implemented Fibre to the home.

Today, with these changes, everyone is increasing their bandwidth usage. And hence, at this point we know that Fibre is the ultimate solution and not copper. There will be deficiencies in a copper built network infrastructure.

Q. So, for players like you, what would be the growth drivers?

The vertical growth would be driven more by the telecom, banking and finance and IT/ITeS sector.

Considering, the huge rate of transactions in banking and finance.`It’s a huge market out there. Currently, out of our one billion population only around 200 million people have bank accounts and the transactions are limited to this number. Hence, there is a huge potential to grow around five times more, considering everyone in this country has an account. This in turn will need specific disaster recovery system and also this will enhance the datacenter requirements.

With the economic recovery, the spending power of the firms has increased and the IT requirements too have seen a hike. If you would see, companies are busy hiring in hordes and they would need proper infrastructure to accommodate the increasing workforce.

Q. Recently, you have undergone the brand name change from Tyco Electronics to TE Connectivity. Could you tell us how would it add on to your milestones and the significance of the change?

Anywhere whether it’s the Boeing 777, spacecrafts or BMW, wherever there are connectivity requirements we consider it to be our forte. But if you see, the word Tyco Electronics became ambiguous, as due to the name sometimes people got the wrong notion of we being a provider of electronics like TVs and music systems. Hence, the brand name change was done to ensure all such ambiguity is left behind. T E Connectivity shows without any confusion what we actually do. Our product portfolio Amp Net and ADC’s True Net portfolio is better visualized through the current name.

Also, the change of name was needed considering the dichotomy between Tyco International and Tyco Electronics, whereby we have become an independent firm, the name change was necessary to avoid any confusion of we being related to the former.

Q. What is the current challenge that you see to exist in the market?

The first challenge is the geographical vastness of India, which becomes very difficult to cover on an entirety.

Second, we have some good System Integrators, but currently, a lot of convergence is going on the telecom and wireless side. Herein is the challenge, as there are not enough of skills to be available to understand the convergence and help in to give out the apt solutions.  

It’s a continuous process as people with skills sets keep jumping across the industries, so, if some of them moves from telecom to IT, then there is a dearth in telecom and vice versa. The skill unavailability cannot be solved in a few days, it takes time. We too have made our contribution to train more than 2000 workforce. Current, we have training centers in Delhi, Mumbai and now we are coming up with one in Hyderabad too.

We also conduct technology seminars to spread awareness about the various trends in technology and how the commercial preference of products are changing from time to time.

Q. Tell us about your various initiatives for partners?

A partner normally wants, a world class product, logistic support, trainee post, pre-sales support and post sales support. These are the things that our brand offers the best to them. Along with that we ensure that our partners grow along with us.  TE Connectivity trains each of the partners and also motivate the A and B class partners via recognizing their efforts internationally. Currently, we have three major distributors – Ingram Micro, Redington and Compuwave and we have 140 authorized SIs.


Q. You do not believe in pushing products to the consumers, so, what is your market approach?

We have more of an approach like a doctor. A doctor cannot give out tablets just because he likes the color or the efficiency of it, rather he has to understand the patient. Similarly, we don’t suggest solutions because of its high performance to our customers without knowing their problem. There are three levels of customers – high, middle and lower.

For those at the high end level we give them enough options to choose from to solve their problem. They are more guided by performance than budget, hence, monetary issues do not arise and so, options are easy to be given. The second level customers are the negotiating kinds, who wants the best at the lowest cost possible. So, there are two ways to deal with them. Firstly, we may either cut short on some benefits of a solution and provide them within their budget, or if they are performance oriented than we need to convince them to increase their budget as per the solution. The third level has a strict budget constraint and is okay with a little compromise on performance and hence, we suggest them solutions that better suits their environment.

Q. On an ending note, could you elaborate on your plans in the near future?

Right now, our core focus is to expand our reach across the datacenter market and new townships. We are also in talks with various SEZs and IT parks to establish their connection.