"Today, Janus Corp. is one of the most recognized & respected brands in the field of GNSS within the Government Markets. I believe that the 'Fight Hard But Fight Fair' theme is what has kept Janus growing, given that, in more than two decades of the existence, we have successfully retained more than 81% of our clients on the foundation of trust and survived in otherwise what can easily be described as an extremely competitive & hostile business environment,"
emphasized Prashant Mehra, Managing Partner, Janus Corp.
The indigenous organization founded by a technocrat, M/s Janus Trading Co. offers extremely complex customized solutions in the field of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and optical tracking systems & accessories to the Indian defence, aerospace, nuclear power establishments, and various government R&D institutes.
Amongst other achievements, the company is credited for being the first to deliver a customized test set up for reference receiver design & development for NavIC (India's regional geo-positioning satellite system). The Gurugram based organization has a nodal presence across India at New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bhubaneshwar, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Thiruvananthapuram with more than 30 people dedicated to pre-sales, business development, sales & technical support and services across India, often situated within driving distance of their customers.
They are one of the leading system integrators offering end-to-end application-based solutions and have proven records for over 21+ years in the field of position, navigation and timing-based solutions such as GNSS/NavIC simulation systems, ultra-precise timing & frequency solutions, high-performance GNSS/NavIC receivers, antennas and accessories, and optical tracking systems, high-speed thermal imaging cameras, etc. for defence, aviation & aerospace, airborne, unmanned, geospatial, marine, timing, fleet management, automotive, public safety and other scientific applications.
Remarkably, they provide a comprehensive range of services by leveraging expansion in core areas with strategic alliances with leading world's technology providers in the field of navigation & optical tracking. Among other services, Janus offers project feasible reports, application services, systems integration, product engineering, maintenance, re-engineering, independent testing, validation services and executes annual maintenance contracts for various mission-critical products supplied & installed and projects executed in the past.
"My Role has undergone many changes over some time. From being in charge of everything when the company started to the Head of Sales to Head of Corporate Marketing, I restrict my role today to building relationships across business lines with clients and vendors alike and leaving other job functions to professionals.
In a market that can at best be described as oligopolistic, the faith of our vendors in our capability more often than not remains as important as the clients' faith in our ability to deliver the right solution to be able to create a win-win situation for all three parties.
In addition, I use my relationships to try to charter a strategy for the company in terms of inorganic growth mostly (72% of our business year-on-year is repeat business so I try to focus on the balance 28% of the business). It could have to do with a new product that we wish to associate ourselves with and / or a new client who we believe could be a prospective user for our existing product line/services" shared Prashant.
"I have faced and overcame three-fold entrepreneurial challenges in my journey named:
Slow Inorganic Growth Given the Size of the Market: The market is usually dominated by a limited number of customers/clients who may have a repeated requirement of similar products and services. There are times when customers reach capacity utilization and are not necessarily in a position to continue to buy additional products and services, given that their existing capacity is already a position to meet their delta increase in demand.
As a result, Janus has to continue to put in a lot of effort towards identifying new applications (with the help of our vendors) for our existing product line, to continue to increase customer base and capture a larger market share in the bargain.
Profitable & Sustainable Growth: Great care is taken to ensure that growth does not come at the expense of profit. We endeavour to ensure that no corners are cut to provide these highly classified government customers with solutions that are functional and self-sustainable. The company's objective is to increase the value of our company to our customers as against creating Valuation in the eyes of a potential investor
Ethics: In this dog eat dog world and extremely competitive Business Environment, it is not always easy to hold onto your ethics and values in your pursuit of growth. However, we try to instil within all our employees, a high sense of self-worth where any deviation from the path of ethics, is frowned upon," asserted Prashant.
After more than twenty years in business, Janus has created a domain for itself as a specialized Systems Integrator as against just a supplier of Navigation and Optical Products, with an ability to integrate multiple technologies on common platforms to customize a solution.
"The Janus Motto is to understand the fundamental needs of our clients, propose and provide pre-tested optimized solutions thus assisting our clients to locate the shortest and surest path to success," adds Kunjan Moharana, GNSS Simulation Manager, a key professional who attributed as a key contributor towards Sales of NavIC Simulation Systems to ISRO & DRDO.
With the above mission in mind, Janus works closely with the customers understanding their Technical requirements and try to provide them with the best of the products/ solutions. Through these relationships, Janus has gained in-depth knowledge and insight into the customers' working environments and an equally deep understanding of their challenges and needs.
The COVID-19 crisis is unprecedented and has caught the entire world by a big unpleasant surprise. Most of the firm's business was a result of conducting extensive technology demonstrations coupled with personal one-on-ones with each client with more than 80% of the team in the field at all times. Today, the brand has adopted a digital strategy using online collaboration tools for employees, clients, and partners to be able to communicate remotely.
The COVID-19 lockdown and social distancing has already altered the consumer buying patterns and might further impact it in the longer run. Most of the services like contract tenders, commercial negotiations and technical interactions are now organised using the digital tools and will become one of the mandatory channels in future.
The organisation's focus should be on making the 'Information Security' a part of the overall design rather than a post facto check. There should be an equal emphasis on securing all IT assets – Servers, Laptops, Mobiles etc by deploying the right set of security tools.
They are optimistic that once this crisis gets over, the global trade dynamics will change, and the economies will bounce back stronger.
Sticking to the fundamentals of business, Janus Trading adopts core value of believing in "Customer Truly is the King" as they cover an extra mile to ensure that every customer remains happy with the services delivered and can recall their experience with the company with fondness leading to their repeat customer sales of 72%.
As the Managing Partner, Prashant endeavours to imbibe, in every team member, the value of transparency. While communicating with clients on a real-time basis is a priority, treating vendors as an extended arm of the organization and recognizing that members of the Janus team are the primary assets of the company.
"The market does seem to be changing rather rapidly over the past year or so with the introduction from NavIC. As the Government continues to take steps to monetize NavIC across India (vehicles, telecommunication, tolling, shipping, fishing, railways, etc.), we will see a lot more players, both small and big who would like to dip their fingers in the pie," says Mr Shanmukh Gollpaudi, GNSS Manager, who is instrumental in increasing the company's footprint in the field of GNSS on a pan-India basis.
Having achieved a milestone of sustainable business for past two decades and their ability to indulge in high levels of customization, especially for defence & space clientele, with help from their vendors which has proven to be game-changer in the upper-end segment of the market, Janus continues to have an edge over the rising potential competition.
"There will always be a need for Vendors within DRDO & ISRO, who will be in a position to deliver customized solutions as against COTS products," says Ansuman Mohanty, Sales Manager (OPTICS), who specializes in delivering Optical Tracking Solutions to Test Ranges.
In a bid to expand market share and increase revenue in the GNSS Market, Shanmukh would like to see Janus penetrate the commercial segment of the market with products that, while are not cutting-edge technology, but meet the demands of the commercial market with ease. "If we do manage to achieve the above objective, which I do believe we are well poised to, I would be in a position to look back at myself five years down the line and pat myself on the back," says Shanmukh.
The company today can foresee an equal proportion of growth of GNSS trend to growing competition in the current industry forcing some organizations to incline merely to the global market players rather than indigenous manufacturers.
However, with enhanced investments in R&D, technical resources, and infrastructure for the development of Indigenous technology to compete with global standards, the need of the hour remains on increasing emphasis on the customer focus towards application-centric solutions rather than product-centric solutions. In sync with the trend, Janus is investing in end-to-end GNSS solutions that will suffice the customer application requirements.
"In the upcoming years, India is poised to be one of the more exciting markets to work in the field of GNSS with the Government of India coming out with an aggressive policy to launch IRNSS Services. For an early entrant in this field, the ability to customize solutions for customers will give an edge, when this does end up becoming a volume game, an inevitable situation," Prashant added.
You may Like:
Get The CEO Magazine to your Door Steps; Subscribe Now
