SUPERBRANDS 2012

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myluminous.com

LUMINOUS
and VRLA (valve regulated lead acid) SMF (sealed maintenance free) batteries were delivered to a market waiting for a novel experience. A separate agreement for power products was signed in 2006 with Hyundai to provide the end-user with another option for power back-up solutions based on advanced Korean technology. By 2007 a leading private equity fund CLSA Capital Partners, a member of France's Credit Agricole Group, found Luminous to be an attractive investment and soon associated with it. In the same year, Luminous set up its first overseas manufacturing plant in China. Today, Luminous is part of the Schneider Electric family. The company hopes to leverage the strength of its parent and exploit their home electricals and energy efficient products, to deliver a complete portfolio of high-value merchandise. to make a telling difference and introduce products that would be truly top-of-the-line. A separate exercise has seen Luminous develop an impressive range of solar applications aimed especially at rural markets, where availability of power is a continuing issue. A series of battery applications are also on offer and include batteries for traction, solar, automotive and motorcycle use.

In 1988 three partners floated a company that would bring light to the India that was suffering from perennial power shortages. They called it Luminous, hoping that somehow the name would ring a bell. Luminous did more than that. It developed India's first Home UPS, pioneered several innovations in its technology, launched a range of batteries, tied up with one of the world's leaders in this line of business and now finds itself as part of the Schneider Electric family with plans to enter homes with energy-efficient products.
power is not being pumped into the grid, it's just that rising population, increasing automation in homes, new localities coming up in cities and industry rushing to meet consumer demand are negating the increase in power generation.

Market
The joys of modern development have a blind side to them: development necessarily involves uninterrupted power and in India electric power is at a premium. Despite the government's best efforts power generation has lagged between 11% and 18% behind peak power consumption. In 2011/12, India generated more than 185,000 MWs making the country the world's fifth largest power producer. 73% of this comes from coal-fired turbines, 19% from hydro sources, 3% from nuclear stations and the rest from an assortment of smaller contributors such as wind, solar and diesel. In the near future the criticality of power will increase; the gap between supply and demand will, however, remain unchanged. In a way, this erratic supply is the raison d'tre for power back-up companies to exist. It is out of this that they make capital and ensure that those who install Home UPSs never, in a manner of speaking, stay in the dark. The Home UPS market in India is estimated to be about C8500 crore (US$ 1.60 billion). Several companies operate here many in the unorganised segment. In this market, Luminous is a dominant brand. It's been around for more than twenty years and is widely acknowledged to be a leader in the less than 10kVA segment, commanding

Achievements
A popular brand in a growing market is expected to generate goodwill. But what Luminous has done is quite exceptional. It has been recognised across the board for brand development, quality production, excellent use of cutting edge technology, employment of best practices and more. The awards and accolades won by Luminous make for an impressive list of achievements. The company won the Frost & Sullivan award for Market Penetration Leadership Award for the Asia-Pacific region in 2007. This award recognises best practices and felicitates companies, products, processes and executives. The company was awarded the ISO 90012008 for conforming to quality management systems laid out by the organisation. It gained approval from the government of India, several telecom companies operating in the defence sector and computing. The Consumer World Award was also conferred upon Luminous. Mera Brand felicitated the company four years in a row, between 2005 and 2008. While awards are an elixir and act as motivators true satisfaction

comes from technological advancement. Here Luminous has outperformed competition and come up trumps. The company developed a high frequency Home UPS with trapezoidal output waveform for superb performance. Other developments include a high leakage inductance transformer with built-in and separate windings for improved safety; it patented a tower type PPCP (Polypropylene Copolymer) container-cover design, assuring a significantly higher electrolyte level above plates for better performance and also patented a special envelope separator to minimise the possibility of an internal short-circuit. Luminous Home UPSs are recognised for excellent deep cycle recovery and better charge acceptance for areas afflicted with frequent power cuts. As a sequel to these achievements, Luminous has been given a letter of approval from the Indian Railways for supplying train lighting batteries. This makes Luminous the only company in the industry to have secured this level of acceptance.

Promotion
Luminous is a shrewd buyer of media space. It has correctly ascertained the consumer mind set and established that the common man's interests start and end with cricket and movies. As a result, its media strategy focussed on events that exploited these two vehicles. Its brand ambassadors, not surprisingly, are from these fields. Sachin Tendulkar is the current brand ambassador while earlier media exposure had icons such as Navjot Singh Sidhu and Amrish Puri. This coupled with strong nationwide above-the-line and below-the-line campaigns has made Luminous a household name in India, satiating the needs of its primary target audience which are predominantly males in the age bracket 25 to 40 years.

Product
Realising that people's needs vary and urban and rural needs are

Brand Values
Luminous means many things to many people but in the main it's a friend in times of distress. It's there, standing firmly by the side, in the deep of the night when power suddenly goes off or on a hot summer afternoon when a fan is the most desirable companion and power has fled. Luminous believes it discharges an important function in people's lives and, therefore, everything it does must bear the stamp of excellence. In short, Luminous stands for the core values of reliability, consistency, longevity and the highest sense of integrity.

History
In 1988 Luminous from luminosity was launched with little fanfare. For three years the company worked to perfect a product that would find acceptance in the market. By 1991 the first Luminous Home UPS was ready and met with instant success. Three years later, the first uninterrupted power supply (UPS) was delivered to the market. The next six years were spent in innovation and further improving a product already billed as world-class. At the turn of the century the first Luminous Home UPS was exported. In the meanwhile, to complete the circle, Luminous decided to manufacture batteries. As a consequence a state-of-the-art plant was set up in 2004. In the same year, Luminous entered into an agreement with EaglePicher Inc., a US major and a leader in battery technology. EaglePicher is an original equipment supplier to such diverse industries and activities as automotive, space, chemical processing, defence, environmental, medical and nuclear applications. Its heavy-duty customised batteries are successfully working in the most demanding conditions such as space ships and on planet Mars. The company offers a six-sigma process that gives the company world standing. Soon after the agreement was signed, technology flowed in from EaglePicher and Luminous launched a broadside on the battery market. A full range of advanced batteries for automotive use, Home UPSs, tubular batteries

a17% share (Source: internal data). With peaking power not anywhere close to bridging the demand-supply gap the business potential is enormous. Estimates project that the Home UPS industry will grow at 19.80% year-on-year over the next five years (Source: Frost & Sullivan) before beginning to level out. To the government's credit, it's not as though additional

diametrically different, Luminous, in the last five years, has developed more than 320 models in the power back-up category. Even the batteries, called upon to perform differently, come in a wide range. Luminous products are designed to not just perform, but also perform outstandingly even in the most arduous conditions such as areas of frequent power outages and those where constant and heavy discharge is required. The company's focus is on research and development so that power back-up products are more finely customised. Much of this activity is happening at its manufacturing facilities each at Baddi and Gagret in Himachal Pradesh manufacturing Home UPSs and batteries respectively. In a small shift in emphasis, Luminous is now also actively pursuing renewable and alternate energy solutions like solar, wind and hybrid applications, infrastructure solutions for IT and telecom sectors and even diesel generator sets.

Things you didnt know about

Luminous
Luminous was the 1st player in the organised power back-up industry It was also the first power back-up company to have a brand ambassador and the first to air a commercial on television Its manufacturing facility in Himachal Pradesh is the single largest such set-up in the Indian power back up industry Within five years of launch, Luminous has become the 2nd largest battery manufacturer in India As at August 2012, Luminous had 934 service personnel across 58 cities The short tall tubular Home UPS battery is a Luminous invention Ghar Ka Chirag, an education initiative involving cricketer S Sreesanth offered scholarships to meritorious students from the weaker sections of society Luminous has built a hospital in Gagret in Himachal Pradesh in addition to educational and playing facilities for its workforce Luminous has donated 100 Home UPSs and 100 inverter batteries to 100 schools across India helping over 50,000 students in rural areas study more comfortably

Recent Developments
With a pedigree supporting its production lines, Luminous is striving to lay claims to being a power specialist company. It is using the expertise of its parent and the huge goodwill it has garnered to move into the home electrical products segment. Luminous envisages gaining entry into homes through electrical wires, protection devices, wiring accessories and exhaust- ceilingand table-fans. The company believes it has the wherewithal

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