Pick of the week: Spark Technology: In consolidation mode

After putting in energies into expansion Spark Technology CEO S Nautiyal is
focusing on stabili-zing the growth and building on it. Now Spark Technology
& Testing Pvt Ltd has gone into consolidation mode..

Last six months saw Spark open a branch in Gurgaon, become stockists for Tyco
and tier one partner for WeP Peripherals-all capital inten-sive activities.
"After Noida, Dehradun, Jammu and Jaipur we have opened our fifth branch in
Gurgaon," said Nautiyal. He elaborated that Spark's Jaipur branch is
operational since last one year and has done well, particularly in the first six
months of FY05.

Clearly on an upswing Spark is the tier one partner for a number of vendors
including Cisco, Linksys, Samsung, HCL and now WeP Peripherals. The company's
focus is clear 'bottomline is more important than the topline.' Keeping
bottomline in view Spark has positioned itself as the tech-nology distribution
company.

"Seventy percent of our work involves high-end products," said
Nautiyal. Focus on broad-based distribution and high-end products help the
company maintain margins.

Beginning in 1993 with ope-rations split between resellers, OEMs and business
from the government sector Spark has delivered a number of good projects as far
as Jammu.

"Jammu branch continues to contribute about 15 percent of revenues and
the company works closely with the system integrators as well as vendors,"
said Nautiyal. Currently, the company is focusing on maximizing the efficiencies
in its operations.

DQW News Bureau

New Delhi