Dear Shareholders,
"Driving Innovation' is not just the tag line in the logo of MIC Electronics
Limited. It has been the driving force behind all the endeavors of the company over the
last three decades.
Development of Smart' street lighting products, solar powered street lights with
integrated advanced battery technologies and non metal casing material, concept proving of
Smart' street lights in New Delhi and Hyderabad, development of double layered
images in the 3D Holographic systems domain can be stated to be path breaking development
efforts of your company in the year under review. Your company has also been awarded
patents for LED TV and LED Portable Lantern in addition to LED
DigiPoster in the financial year 2016-17. MIC's work in the area of LED street lighting
in Andhra Pradesh has helped position the state to become one of the top ranking states in
the Country in the conversion of traditional street lighting to LED street lighting. User
communities in the state of Uttar Pradesh have expressed genuine happiness about the
quality and efficiency of your company's solar powered street lights deployed in large
numbers in that state as part of the Atal Jyoti Yojana. The performance and elegance of
MIC's grid based and solar street lights has attracted the attention of several countries
and active negotiations are taking place with their representatives for exporting these
products to those countries.
The programmes being taken up in the country in the areas of Smart Cities, Networked
Display Systems, LED street lighting projects and Rural lighting programmes with solar
powered street lighting products offer good business opportunities for your company in the
years to come. The country's recent and renewed emphasis on renewable energy sources and
energy conservation, specifically smart grid and smart meter efforts as well as electric
transportation offer opportunities for the company to participate in these initiatives
building on the company's systems integration and machine to machine communications
strengths.
The procedures involved and the payment conditions associated with a few large lighting
projects taken up by your company in different states of the Country have led to serious
cash-flow constraints over the last couple of years. Concentrated and intensive efforts
exercised by senior management have begun the process to help resolve these issues.
However, it is proving to be a time consuming process. The customer organization,
recognizing the ground realities has significantly modified its purchase processes which
will. enable a shorter payment cycle, improving your company's cash management ability and
the attendant operational flexibility.
MIC is endeavoring to change its business from being a predominantly Government agency
based one to a Business to Business' and Business to Customer' based business
with the objective of serving a larger market place as well as diversifying its risk away
from being largely dependent on one sector or major customer. Management expects that this
will also result in a more robust financial and operational capability of the company.
Important pilot programmes have already been launched in association with leading Multi
National companies and Indian companies in the area of display projects. These projects
position your company well to play an important role in smart city initiatives as well as
the retail networked display segments. The company has also begun efforts to protect its
Intellectual Property (IP) the LED TV and Digital poster patents in particular. The
company has first publicized this through an advertisement in a national newspaper
describing the exclusive nature of the patent rights and indicating to manufacturers,
suppliers and users that any use of such devices should only happen through an explicit
arrangement with your company. It has also sent notices or otherwise indicated to major
buyers that they should not be using such products without an explicit arrangement with
your company.
The company continues to make significant progress in its efforts to become a debt free
company. Some major initiatives were taken in the course of the year in easing the
company's debt position. With the active cooperation of various stakeholders involved such
as financial institutions, individual investors and suppliers, the situation has improved
considerably. Management continues to work at identifying further means to achieve the
debt free goal. Operations improvement efforts also continue to be implemented through
pursuit of better, lower cost production sources, reduction or disposal of work in process
inventories and through organizational restructuring and resizing efforts.
MIC's pioneering efforts in the field of true colour LED display systems and
3D-Holographic systems will enable to company exploit their potential as effective
information dissemination devices in several application areas going beyond event
coverage, advertisements and entertainment. Focused efforts and planning are underway to
improve penetration and sales in these arenas.
The company is definitely on the path to recovery from the difficult times experienced
in the past few years. Sustained focus and effort will continue to be made to reach
targeted goals. We began this report citing our tagline of "Driving Innovation".
Coming out of these difficult times, this has never been truer. Our future growth and
success will depend on our embracing innovative approaches to management, markets and
technologies. Management, with your support, is motivated and energized to not only keep
this focus but also to generate the additional resources and capabilities required to
capture the many market opportunities being presented to the company.
Thanking you all for the continued support and with best wishes,
|
With best wishes, |
|
Sd/- |
|
Dr. M. V. Ramana Rao |
Place : Hyderabad |
( Managing Director) |
Date : 04.09.2017 |
(DIN : 00010301) |