Organizations rely heavily on their data network these days, yet the networks go unnoticed most of the time. And despite being an essential component of any business operation, networking infrastructure is generally not understood by majority of an organization’s staff or management. While users are fully aware of any network failures that occur, nobody wants to invest too much money into preventing these failures before they happen. As very few see value in investing large amounts of time and money into maintenance and upgrades; this lack of investment puts pressure on a network and results in network failures that can be very damaging, expensive, and difficult to fix. Surprisingly, despite of companies knowing this, the average local area network (LAN) fails 20 times a year, for an average of four hours, affecting 40 percent of network users.

With the enticements of convergence promising delivery of the holy grail of networks; enterprises must evaluate implementations of storage and data traffic over a single network, offering the advantages of reduction in deployment costs, reduced Capex & Opex expenditures and simplified network management. Actively shaping the networking markets locally as per the global standards is Smartlink Network Systems Limited, with corporate office in Mumbai and Technical Assistance Centre located at Goa that offers a comprehensive range of products for various communication needs including Switching, Broadband Routing, Enterprise Wireless, CCTV and IP Surveillance with all products backed by high quality after sales and service support.

The ‘Smartlink’ Advantage
A pioneer in bringing IT Networking to India; with over two decades of experience in Manufacturing, Sales & Marketing in the IT Industry; Smartlink enjoys being the first company to start local manufacturing of IT Networking Products in India. Smartlink was established in 1993 to boost the Indian market in the field of Network Infrastructure; and today it spreads across the nation, with 10 branch offices, 22 regional distributors, over 180 Stockist Partners, over 222 Systems Integrators and over 5000 Reseller Partners. Known for its honesty, ethics, integrity and respected by all its peers in the Industry; company caters excellent support services across PAN India. The company accomplishes products under the brand names DIGISOL, for its range of Active Networking, Communication Products and Surveillance products and DIGICARE for its service and support division. Smartlink’s Local Manufacturing facility, Strong after Sales & Service support and nationwide sales and distribution network; aid company stay ahead of its competitors.

Moreover, possessing over two decades of experience in manufacturing electronic products for the IT, networking and the telecom industries; the highlights of Smartlink Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) are 1,20,000 sq. ft production shop; ISO 9001:2008 & ISO 14001:2004 certified plants with highly versatile SMT lines; and latest technology equipment's like ICT, BGA Rework machines, X-ray machine & Wi-Fi Tester to name a few.

Sufficing Networking Needs with ‘DIGISOL’
Setting a new benchmark in the Converged Communication Systems space; DIGISOL is Smartlink’s brand of over 150 environmentally tested products across the IT networking spectrum, backed by Smartlink’s own manufacturing facility, its R&D, a Pan India distribution and call based technical support backed by a strong in-house service team. “Smartlink conducts 100 percent testing, unlike other brands and therefore, our return rate is lowest among the networking vendors.” says Arati Naik, COO & Director, Smartlink Network Systems Limited. Responsible for scaling up the company’s operations and expanding its presence; Arati is actively involved in managing DIGISOL business and defining strategies for the products business.

Launched in 2009, the DIGISOL range has succeeded in capturing a good market share with visibility and availability across the country, in a short span of time. Providing a lifetime warranty, the product range offered by DIGISOL covers areas like Switching, Broadband Routing, Enterprise Wireless, IP Surveillance and CCTV Surveillance. The company invests considerably in training and empowering its channel partners to build their technical expertise as well as enhance DIGISOL’s brand positioning in the industry. Sound market knowledge and in-depth understanding are claimed to have helped Smartlink to emerge as a front runner in delivering end-to-end products, covering a broad spectrum in SMEs and SOHOs .

DIGICARE Service Support Division
DIGICARE, the Service Support division of Smartlink that consists of RMA centres, Smartlink Technical Assistance Centre (STAC) and Direct Service Department (DSD); is the high quality and reputable after-sale-services, strategically built to deliver customer satisfaction. Having evolved most efficient, skilled and professional state of service infrastructure; DIGICARE provides end-to-end product life cycle support which includes remote support to the channel partners and end customers on configuration of products in various networks; warranty support for repair/replacement of products when they go defective during warranty period; and post warranty support to manage the trouble free functioning of the product.

Contribution towards ‘Make in India’
Smartlink feels dignified to be one of the first companies to start manufacturing networking products in country with setup of the SMT lines and one of the few companies willing to spearhead government’s Make in India initiative. “Now we are manufacturing some key products such as wireless products in India and highlighting the fact ‘Made in India’ in bold print on our packaging so that we can leverage based on that image.” says Arati.

Smartlink proposes to be the torch bearers to carry forward government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative. With the core strength of company being ‘Networking’, that is considered as an integral part of making digitally connected India a reality; company wishes to be one of the key drivers of the digital India with the range of its products like routers, CCTV cameras and IP Surveillance solutions. Moreover, aiming the networking products at SOHO and SME segments, Smartlink Network Systems Ltd has a robust product portfolio and a nationwide reach through its network of national & regional distributors, resellers and system integrators. Smartlink is a front runner in providing wireless and computer networking products and IP Surveillance & CCTVs in the surveillance segment with ambitious plans to be the first mover under the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

Future Docket for Brand Building
Smartlink considers imprinting of brand image on the customers’ minds equally important as providing best quality products. “Since brand DIGISOL is still young, to promote the brand we are putting a lot of efforts to educate the channel community- partners, distributors and SIs. because it is the channel partners who interact with the end customers, and play a big role in building the brand.” adds Arati. The company enlists establishing of the brand DIGISOL in the customers’ memory as its main objective for the coming year; so that customers are capable of recognizing the DIGISOL brand as associated with networking and wireless products in particular. After achieving customers’ satisfaction & trust with its product range, quality and specs; company plans to focus on brand awareness among the end customers and position its brand as a value-for-money ‘Made in India brand.’

Moving ahead, Smartlink also plans to take advantage of economies of scale for consumer products and has thus started giving documentation and product descriptions in regional languages to focus on tier 3 and tier 4 cities. Having started with one language currently; Smartlink plans to add other languages in the near future. The company also had a celebrity endorsement for its consumer line of products where Smartlink chose Sonakshi Sinha as a brand ambassador for DIGISOL. “The celebrity endorsement helped us to create brand awareness among the consumers and also helped us reach out to the new community that was not a part of our target audience at one point of time. We wanted the brand pull and we achieved that in metros and tier 2 cities.” concludes Arati.