Spotlight on Innovation | ChannelDrive.in
Riversong is driving a lot of innovation in the Indian market with the help of its portfolio of smart devices, designed for fitness trainer, young adventurers and music lovers. With more than 10 year’s electronic product development experience, Riversong is set to further expand its reach and availability across the Indian region.
Manvendra k Chandola, CEO, Riversong India speaks with Zia Askari from ChannelDrive.in about the company’s current focus and its future plans for India.
Please introduce yourself to us?
I started my career with Pepsi, and Parle Agro FMCG companies, and once you work in the FMCG industry, it teaches you about distribution. So, my distribution learning has been from these two brands, mostly it has been from Pepsi because I have spent my most of the time in Pepsi.
In Reliance Retail, I had the experience of handling the end customers, direct customers, so it is the kind of experience where you learn how to connect with the customer, and also understand how to run a profitable business, because being the concern person you have to ensure that your firm comes into profit and makes money.
In, Micromax I built strong relationships in the industry and got an in-depth knowledge of the industry this as a whole is my collective learning of the last 22 years.
As I said earlier, it is because of the distribution experience, I learned from Pepsi and Parle, we have built a strong distribution network for Riversong, we also operate on the end customer, which I learned being part of the Reliance Retail and we started adding layers.
Once you had experience you need to understand how to become profitable for the business and then your relationship with the partners, your personal image, everything is used here, the experience of distribution and customers and relationship that I have with the market.
I can say that whatever I have learned, I am using that experience here. Always a bright moment for the sales people when we learn it and then we run an organisation where we can utilize the whole experience.
What have been the big focus areas for Riversong in India?
We majorly deal in the smart accessories category which involves smart wearables. If we talk about smart wearables, it has health bands and smart watches. In the audio category, we have Bluetooth headsets Like Rhythm L / Rhythm S / Rhythm M, Bluetooth neckbands Stream N+, earphones Air X5+ and other categories. We are also started our new IT segment initially we had introduce Mouse in the coming month more and more products will be added in the portfolio.
This is tightly competitive market. How do you differentiate your brand in the market segment?
Honestly, if you talk about the competitor, 75% is unorganized market, 25% is filled by the organized players. We are the first brand to be a part of the general market, talking about MBOs and retailers. We started the business online and later we decided to move one step forward and started selling through retailer stores.
Typically, these stores are known for selling mobile phones, however, gradually we got 10-12 brands selling these common products like wearables, the audios, and power banks. Many players will come and there is an opportunity for everyone. It will be a game of quality, after sales services and effort of manufacturing greater features.
According to you what are greatest USP’s you are bringing on the table for the customer through your brand?
The most basic requirement of India is advanced technology at affordable pricing. When we talk about it, we talk about the masses. We are considering more and more retailers, going across. This is the area which we will be focusing on by expanding the product reach and visibility so that it can be accessible for all.
What are your plans to increase the business opportunity in India whether it is in terms of expanding your channel/ network, after sales services?
We are growing at a rapid pace and we will continue to expand our presence ultimately covering PAN India soon. We wanted to expand one state at a time so, we can monitor the growth closely with each state. We are yet to mark our presence in some of the Tier III cities in India.
What kind of coverage you have in India. The cities you are present, the level of distribution?
We are present across 19 states. If you talk about the towns, we have touched around 97 towns. We have 3 tier distribution channel. First is Super distributor and then we have micro and macro distributors depending on the size of the towns and the value of business (revenue) comes.
Can you just share us some details about the most successful product range adopted in India?
Our smartwatch segment did phenomenally well, Motive smartwatch is the product in this category, which we launched offline. It was a successful launch, we sold the entire unit of that Smartwatch. The demand has always been higher than supply. However, due to the unexpected response and the current situation in China, we are lacking in the supply otherwise it has been a huge success for us.
How is the current situation in China. How it has affected your business?
It has affected the market majorly and its impact on the business is quite visible for all those companies who are sourcing anything from China.
How do you cope with this? Is there any strategy where you maintain the continuity of the brand?
Since we are manufacturing from China, it is very difficult to cope with the current situation. What, I believe can be done is to show a little more patience and wait for things to settle down. Since, it happened immediately after the two weeks of spring holidays in China. It started in mid of January and then coronavirus came into news. Gradually things are coming back on track (to some extend). We are expecting our products to get delivered in the mid of March so that we can come back with the same potential.
What are your plans for bringing more innovative products, more categories to India?
If we talk about our two smart watches, in Motive, earlier we have single touch, but now we have multi touch in the new Motive+. We have already upgraded it. We are also planning to launch upper version in the next quarter which will have more sports functions. Other than this, we are introducing IT peripherals and we working on basic products like mouse, keyboards, etc.
