APW President formerly known as Vero President Systems Pvt.Ltd & upon inception as Elrack Modular Systems & President Systems has indeed come a long way in the last 15-20 years as basically a manufacturer of made to order customized & ready for fit outs 19" Modular Racks, Patch Panels, Accessories, Jigs & Fixtures for the needs of the Networking, Electronics, Automation & Back end Telecom industry. The 19" concept is a DIN Standard(Dutch Standard) for equipment which correspond to these dimensions & are rack mountable plus able to be housed securely for protection from fire, dust, accidents, floods & other acts of force majeure.
Elrack Modular Systems was the brainchild of 3 partners namely Elijah Elias, Sudhir Seth & Vijay Kunte who held their positions as Joint Directors. Thereafter, post 5-10 years, the company assumed much prominence with the company renamed’President Systems Pvt.Ltd". This was all in 1989 when by the sheer prowess of the engineering acumen of Elijah Elias, the company rode its luck in the upcoming IT, Electronics, Engineering & Process Technology core sectors making customized 19" racks, patch panels, General Electronic cabinets & Process Automation Panels or Enclosures. President Modular Systems set up its factories at Bhosari(Pune) for Enclosures of IT, Networking, Telecom & General Electronics & later at Attibele, on the outskirts of Bangalore for Automation Racks & Process Control Panels. Much appreciation & goodwill followed the company in its nascent years due to a high emphasis on quality, specifications & technical finesse. It was said the engineering was so good that not an angle was improperly nor was a screw out of place. Such levels of quality wasn’t heard of in those days so those patrons of President Systems always had a kind word to add about the company. However such premium also reflected in the pricing of their products which was much above the competition & generics. This eventually had an impact in the growth strategy of the company post 2000.
President Systems tied up with Vero Group of the UK in 1995 with the technical Joint Venture in place was able to attract a lot of business from the BFSI sector in mid & late 1990’s namely from the likes of Reliance, ICICI, UTI, Rabo Bank, American Express, Bombay Stock Exchange, SIDBI etc. Similarly major Defense PSU’s like HAL, BHEL, DRDO, Bharat Electronics have relied heavily on Card Frames & Enclosures supplied by this OEM. Major customers were limited to light, medium & heavy engineering sectors hence the brand Vero President had a strong presence in the South, West & to a lesser degree in the North & East sectors. They had also bagged major orders from Numaligarh Refinery for Console Stations & for Networking Panels for Reliance Jamnagar Refinery as also Essar & L&T Hazira.
There’s much to write & admire about the achievements & platitudes of the company however in 2000, the Vero Group PLC was acquired by APW USA hence the name APW President which being the latest joint venture foray for the company. Why you may ask is the company holding onto the nondescript President tag in place of a more modern name, is a bit of an enigma considering techno commercial products manufacturers have a sure shot inclination for a dynamic names symbolic of the changing world order. However in India, value systems, reputation & lasting impressions can change like the whiff of perfume, so things are best left at that for the moment.
As a foreword, the early 1990’s had the prevalence of many Small Scale Industries & Fabrication Units mushrooming nationally to take advantage of the rise in slotted angle racks, L angle racks & basic enclosure units without the finesse of a Rittal or a Knuerr(German Enclosure Brand/s) which by far were globally the best available. These clandestine operators & their custom made produce got some encouraging response from small & medium scale sector industries mainly in the GIDC, MIDC, Bhiwadi(Rajasthan), TNIDC, MPIDC etc resulting in strong competitors making waves with names like Valrack(Networking Cabinets), Dinrack(Electronic Cabinets) & many spurious manufactures. On the quality front, they were a far cry but fought hard & severely much to damaging effect on the business of Vero President Racks & Enclosures. Vero fought tooth & nail on all fronts but to no avail.
The High Price~Quality Premium platform was no longer an attraction by the early & end 2000 years! Many tenders were lost, given up for quality & prestige factors & usually the L1 bidder ended up often being either L4 or L5. Meanwhile Valrack & Dinrack were riding high on their new found success in this field & due recognition of living in the shadows for over a decade and a half. Also businesses were getting smarter with companies like AMP, Krone & Panduit offering their own racks & patch panels with their components like Switches, Routers, CAT 5 Cabling Systems. This resulted in APWPSL losing market share & taking strong decisions in sourcing imported make enclosures to take on the generics besides competition from the likes of Rittal, Himmel & Kneurr. The company is now publicly listed & has the confidence of its management & shareholders to ride out the storm!
The company always had a strong work ethic, commitment & resourceful nature being in the support sales & service sector. Manpower & Pay was always an issue as the company couldn’t call itself a true market leader in the real sense. Rittal was & still is a major force to reckon with more so in the Process Automation & SCADA Panel segment where APWPSL isa fairly weak incumbent! An issue of note was the issue of basic pricing plus taxes padded up costs by as much as 30-40% in the early 2000’s in almost all category of enclosures with the result that quotations ceased to have any meaning! The corollary was that discount rates had to be realigned to accommodate the inflated prices. Bagging tenders was never going to be easy.
Many personnel also left the company in the late 1990’s some loyal souls would return but other insidious elements would park themselves at a competitor’s premises & shoot painful darts at APWSPL just for the heck of it! Also the company was always at the crossroads whenever they were fighting with Rittal, on the technology front or Valrack & Dinrack on the price fronts. Whether it came out the winner or loser is another matter & that chapter is lost in the annals of history.
A man is known by the company he keeps but a company by the people it retains around it. Too many times people had deserted its President. Had steps been taken then to arrest the decline much face saving measures would have resulted but that is another story. The company had a very hands on approach, there were staff overtaxed & overburdened with work namely engineers! Sales staff were on call almost like On site/Off site installation engineers. Customer Service was almost always deliberated by management and almost always conspicuous by its never ending absence. Several brilliant minds had worked here, had a flash, & then the lights would go out for lack of a response, appreciation and redressal mechanism.