Pharmacy

...says Rakesh Aggarwal, Director - Operations, Cole-Parmer, India. Explaining the business model, he discusses the strategies planned to achieve growth in the next few years in the life sciences segment.

Meghna Mukherjee & Arshia Khan

How is your business performing?

We are a knowledge and solutions- based business and deal with most of the industries in the scientific and process community. The premier channel through which we reach customers to offer our wide portfolio of products is our product catalog and website.

We have an India-specific catalog, which contains more than 2,600 products and a biennial general product catalog with more than 10,000 new products listed. In India, we have a strong field sales and service team, which covers the length and breadth of the country and reaches customers with our value-added solutions. We also have a dedicated applications team based in  Mumbai, which provides exceptional technical support and customized solutions, assists in selecting suitable products and helps with troubleshooting. We also organize various road shows and seminars, and participate in trade shows to meet with customers and understand their business requirements. Our strategy remains in tine with our mission to excel as the premier global source of instrumentation to meet individual customer needs. It also underscores our reputation of bringing the latest products to customers, and re-stresses our mantra of 'Delivering Solutions You Trust'.

 Please tell us about your product portfolio.

With a mix of proprietary products and   strategic   partnering   with leading manufacturers, Cole-Farmer's business is highly diversified across a spectrum of products, consumables, services and solutions. Cole-Parmer offers a wide range of products for needs ranging from R&D, pilot plant and production; specializing in  providing scale-up  assistance- With  more than  50 years  of experience, Cole-Parmer is one of the global leaders in supplying fluid handling,   life   science,   general laboratory products, instrumentation and equipment.

What is Cole-Farmer's strategy for growth?

Our parent company has made a number of strategic acquisitions over the years, large and small. We always look for appropriate opportunities whenever they present themselves. Cole-Parmer has been m India for more than 15 years with a direct presence in the last five years. We have a strong presence in the biopharma and bioservices markets. Today, around 40 per cent of the business comes from biopharma, while the remaining 60 per cent derives from food & processing, chemical,   automobiles,   dyes   & pigments industry and government- owned research labs.

What are the recent developments at Cole-Parmer?

Our biennial 2011-12 general catalog recently launched in India contains 10,000 new items with approximately 2,500 brand new products mainly catering to the pharmaceutical. Academics, food and agriculture sectors. Our website in India is in the nascent Stage and does not represent our full capabilities. So, we have a plan to develop our website, giving it a local perspective based on the feedback received.

Every year, we pursue several initiatives to increase customer awareness of the latest technology and trends. The objective is to meet customers and provide them with answers to their demanding application needs.

What are the strengths of your company?

At  Cole-Farmer, we strive to offer our customers convenience along with their choke of unique products, technical application support and exceptional service, producing value-added solutions.

We give our customers complete solutions from expert advice to help in selecting the right product suitable for their application to exceptional pre- and post-sales service to help with troubleshooting and most importantly convenience.

What are your plans in India?

We are looking at a growth of 20 to 25 per cent in India. We will be investing in hiring people, including in the Areas of marketing, sales and application support. And lastly, our focus would be to have stronger e-commerce capabilities in India.

What kinds of investments are you looking at in India? What is the kind of business potential you see here?

Our expansion plans for India are significant. We are aggressively looking at growth in terms of people, meaning sales resources, application support resources and customer services.

In the coming years we plan to develop our Indian website to give it a more local perspective, so this will also be our next level of investment. Another area for expansion is our product portfolio. Presently, we source a majority of our products globally. Yet, with India improving the production of analytical instruments and process-oriented products, we look forward to a potential inclusion of locally manufactured products, which meet our high quality standards. These expansions will give us a broader customer base. With investment-friendly policies in India, companies are expanding their manufacturing capacity as well as investing in R&D and production of new products. We are optimistic about Cole-Farmer's future in India.

Which are the other markets that hold potential for Cole-Farmer and why?

We see a lot of opportunities in the biopharma, automobile and food & beverage industry because these industries are showing double-digit growth year after year.

We offer difficult-to-find, unique and breakthrough products and solutions to support their processes especially consumables, which bring annuity to the business.