FIREPRO SYSTEMS

Founded by N.S. Narendra; Provides fire protection and security solutions
Secret Sauce Follows the integrated approach to make sure that the customer gets all the services under one roof. Went global early and now gets 25 percent of revenues from overseas.
Financial Dashboard AIG Investments (now PineBridge Investments) invested Rs. 50 crore in 2006 for 23 percent. Recently Standard Chartered PE invested Rs. 150 crore, at four times the valuation that Pinebridge invested at.
What the Smart Set Saw A company that looked and behaved like its IT peers but was catering to a faster growing construction industry.

N.R. Narayana Murthy probably doesn't know N.S. Narendra though both of them attended the same college — Mysore's National Institute of Engineering — but 20 years apart. The similarities don't end there. Like Murthy, Narendra also founded his company in a small room with a capital of a little more than R.s 10,000 back in 1993. And very much like Infosys, today Firepro is a synonym for its industry - fire protection and security solutions.

And to do that, Narendra first focussed on project delivery to differentiate Firepro from the mom-and-pop companies that had come to dominate the market. So when Intel was developing a 500,000 square feet property in Bangalore and had a specific deadline to finish it, it chose Firepro. "This is important because about 35 percent of the business comes from repeat customers," says Narendra.

 

But when the competition from multinational like Honeywell and Siemens increased, Narendra did what nobody else had done before. "We followed an integrated model from 2000. While others would specialise in security and automation or fire suppression system, we brought every service under one roof as technology was evolving. We even now work with IT companies like Cisco to provide network solutions like developing city surveillance system for Bangalore."

And to make sure that he always had the edge, Narendra invested in people. Of the 1,500 employees, 80 percent are technically qualified. He even managed to lure people employed with international fire protection companies and information technology firms to work for him. And Narendra has been willing to pay for talent with salary packages for senior positions increasing five-fold within two years.

 

Firepro's revenue have jumped from Rs. 20 crore in 2002 to Rs. 500 crore last year. A fourth of this revenue comes from international operations – another differentiator for Firepro. Next on his agenda — one on which Narendra has made "a certain amount of investment" (as he puts it) — is providing premium home automation solutions for high-end customers.

 

The initiative has also seen the company trying to transform itself from a business-to-business company to a business-to-consumer company. It has opened an outlet in Bangalore with plans for more in other cities.

 

The big question, of course, is whether the Indian market has evolved enough to demand expensive home-security solutions that involve using the remote control or a handset from anywhere in the world to monitor what is going on at one's home? Narendra is willing to take the bet and so are his two investors – AIG and Standard Chartered PE.