Fire Safety Devices: Success through coherent innovation
Q. “FIRECHEM” is an established brand. Tell us about this journey of creating a brand?
Branding is a rigorous and continuous process which requires meticulous care and nurturing. Branding means connecting with your customers and building a relation of trust with them. They extend their belief towards you and you have to reciprocate. When we started FIRECHEM brand it was first quality assurance to our clients, taking their feedback and imparting those valuable ideas to keep pace with their changing needs. Then we focused on market communication and marked our presence with advertisement in established magazines and exhibition participation worldwide. Slowly, FIRECHEM established itself as a trusted brand. Firechem brand was the brainchild of late Mr. Parag Parekh, a whiz kid of our family. He named it so that it has a connect with the product as he had a flair for chemical science.
Q. As the Director of Fire Safety Devices Pvt. Ltd., how you adopt & strategise marketing communication?
This is all market specific. We innovate and exercise marketing communication which should appeal to the market segment which we are trying to address and yet remain focused on the quality. Fire chemical is a technical product. Hence, we emphasise on the technical aspect. We take feedback from our channel partners and incorporate their relevant suggestions. Apart from print media we also utilize technology like web promotion, emailers etc. to reach and communicate with various market segments. Manpower is an important tool for marketing communication. We keep our professionals abreast with new marketing techniques and technical knowledge of the products. We invest on them & make them to attend marketing seminars etc.
Q. What is the significance of branding for the Indian companies and how much they lack behind on this front?
Branding is must to sustain in the market for long. We believe that sustenance is an important function of branding. Rise in the number of exhibitions and increase in advert in media is an example. Fire industry needs to build confidence within itself to surge ahead with its product branding for this purpose associations and other bodies should extend support as a part of collective effort.
Q. Do you have any plans to launch new product line?
We have plans to launch foam equipments like foam chambers, foam bladder tank, foam monitors. This our product focus on oil sector etc.
Q: Any new certification for any product in near future?
FM approval for foam which will be first of its kind in India.
Q. Tell us about your international presence?
We are present in almost all the continents. We have plans to set up manufacturing units in overseas market also.
Q. What factors drive fire business in India?
Development & awareness towards safety and quality consciousness.
Q. Last year witnessed shaky economic scenario worldwide. As a strategic thinker and planner of the company how did you manage to neutralise its effects?
Our simple policy is to increase the effort towards the expansion of our business geographically to achieve the targets. We motivated and extended sizeable financial support to our channel partners in India and emphasized on international market to reach our goals. In short, methodical planning, exploring new business avenues and lot of hard as well as smart work.
Q. What expectations do you have for this year on economic front for fire industry?
We have ultimate belief that under the guidance of “the man of action” our honourable PM, we can see exponential economic growth. As he has clear vision to give conducive atmosphere to business.
Q. Kindly let us know about your flagship product range?
“Firechem Foams” and “Firechem Powder” are our flagship products.
Q. What expectations do you have with next-gen entrepreneurs who have joined business?
We have created legacy and this time slowly we are on the verge of handing it over to our next generation in due course. We hope and believe that they will take the legacy forward to new heights.
Q. Any message for the readers?
Safety is a practice and it is for the interest of oneself. Precaution is better than cure. Make safety a habit. Always use quality product as life is precious.
Fire Safety Devices Pvt. Ltd.: A journey with difference
Success can be determined by the genuine efforts to achieve the goals. Entrepreneurs do not do different things but they do it differently and with diversity. In the year of 1993 late Mr. Parag Parekh, a visionary and whose love for chemical science drove the company to take a plunge for the manufacturing of fire fighting chemicals. This was the time when no such manufacturer was even present in the Northern market and we filled the gap with our quality production. This proved to be the best ever bet for the company. This is a noble business of life saving.
Market and our esteemed clients started rating “Fire Safety Devices Pvt. Ltd.” as a quality manufacturer of fire fighting chemicals. But we have always strived to produce the best and opted to accredit our product range with national and international certifications. We attained “ISI Certification” for ordinary powder and AFFF foams for fire fighting in 1995 and 1999 respectively and in the year of 2004 “UL Listing” for the foams. There is no shortcut to success and it took ten years of hard work and dedication for us to mark our presence on the world map.
Fire Safety Devices Pvt. Ltd. is proud to declare that we have presence worldwide, we marked our footprint as first Indian company to many countries which include U.S.A. and Latin America. We believe that success is spelled with team effort, hard work, methodical planning and pulling in fresh & innovative ideas. We dedicate our standing today to all our team members and nextgen enterprenurers. In this line Mr. Aditya Parekh, chemical engineer and MBA from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai has been a great contributor and growth driver for the company. He with his innovative ideas added many feathers on our cap. Under his competent management style and guidance, clients like Singapore airport, Sri Lanka refinery and Uruguay refineries are added to our list of esteemed clientele besides ONGC and Defense.
We are believer & promoter of quality and ethical business practices in the market. We have “Fire Chem Force” UL classified 299 C which has lowest application density in the world, and thus making it world’s strongest extinguishing fire fighting media. Our products have certifications and approval like GL & DG shipping for marine, EN certification, Defense approval, DSIR, CE for fire extinguishers (Fire Chem). As our quality commitment, FM approval for foam is under progress, first in India. We have expanded our manufacturing facility with state of art technology.
Our efforts are supported by strong marketing strategy to connect with users directly to understand their changing needs, valuable suggestions to produce products for best and their effective application. We exercise effective media campaign in magazines, fire industry directory, web media and presence at prominent exhibitions, both national & international. We are present at Interchutz 2015, Germany at stall no “013 C 48” as well. We believe that marketing communication is an important tool and branding is must.
Fire is man made disaster and products related to combating fire are life saving. Our products are quality driven. Our company goals are set by market and clients’ needs. We have always tried to match and live up to the expectations presented to us. We will always strive to do so in future as well.