The KAY JAY Group was established in 1975 as a security company that later branched out into other business undertakings, one of them being KAY JAY Electronics. This progression was mainly due to the fact that the cost for manpower with regard to security “was getting to be increasingly expensive for people to afford,” says Kushal Johnpillai, Jt Managing Director, KAY JAY Agencies. KAY JAY Electronics had begun moving ahead from manpower to electronic security systems as a way of diversifying their scope of security based products and services to flex costs.
“What we are trying to achieve with our product lines is to offer the target market ‘branded product’,” claims Johnpillai, stressing that they bring the best products down and are extremely skeptical of inferior goods that sometimes seem to flood the market for their low prices. “However,” he continues, “clients will obviously choose inferior products due to the price but as time goes on they will understand that the money that they’ve spent is actually a waste because there’s no long term guarantee of efficient functioning as opposed to the way we do things. What we strive to do is to give a quality product to the market, with an affordable pricing structure, and a long term warranty to the customer as well.” Authorised distributors of Bosch for Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Johnpillai states that KAY JAY Electronics is one of the only few companies in the country to offer a branded product into the market.
According to Johnpillai, maintaining quality comes through experience in being in the business for over 30 years. And although KAY JAY Electronics has had its share of challenges, especially when it came to offering monthly security rentals and investing on behalf of clients and in turn having retrieval issues, as far as collections go. “But as time went on, we got used to the whole process and I can comfortably say that we are one of the few companies that can give a good rental to the client and also have the financial backing to do so.”
“But As Time Went On, We Got Used To The Whole Process And I Can Comfortably Say That We Are One Of The Few Companies That Can Give A Good Rental To The Client And Also Have The Financial Backing To Do So.”
Elaborating on the works of product line cum target market, Johnpillai explains that every product line has a target market, “for example”, he elaborates, “if I take CCTV as my product line, my target market for CCTV would be corporates and businesses.” He admits that the company tends to steer CCTV products to these particular markets due to the fact that industries are evolving in that very scope. Having said that, KAY JAY is navigating towards the commercial and customer market and, “we are trying to introduce CCTV camera as 3G cameras where people can monitor their homes through their iphone,” adds Johnpillai. He believes that life’s all about conveniences and therefore their target market for product lines such as CCTV on 3G would relate more to the general public. He assesses the Sri Lankan market to be one that is growing rapidly where people are becoming technologically savvy.
Introducing the company’s more recent additions to its product line, Johnpillai announces the development of GPS tracking systems solutions and also, more in particular, the CMS or Central Monitoring Service, “where CCTV site cameras will be monitored through our head office on a live feed through the internet.” The CMS system links all CCTV cameras at clients’ premises to a central monitoring station based at the KAY JAY head office. “And the beauty of the whole solution is that our operators from our head office will be able to communicate via internet, with the client’s side.”
Serving nearly 80 percent of the corporate market in Sri Lanka, Johnpillai sees KAY JAY expanding further into the Maldivian and even gradually growing into the Indian market as well. However, he stresses that stabilizing and ensuing strength of their product line in Sri Lanka, is top on their priority list, for now.
