Vikash Banwarie, Managing Director MET-APAC-India at TRILUX Group, discusses his present role, diverse client base, and the growing emphasis on human-centric lighting in the face of a pandemic

What are your main priorities and goals in your role?
Being two years with our firm TRILUX Group, we have put lots of focus on bringing our brand and solutions closer to the key markets in the Middle East and Asia Pacific. The journey started by shifting our regional headquarter for growth markets to Dubai. I firmly believe that you can serve markets at their best when you are as close as possible to your customers. In particular, in today’s environment where digital is getting more common practice, living and experiencing the markets at first hand is so vital. As the region is very diverse, it helps us to really understand our customers and bring meaningful lighting and building solutions forward to meet their needs. In the same spirit, TRILUX also opened our own office in Singapore and we have tied up with new strong channel partners across Asia and the Pacific.

What would you say are the defining philosophies of TRILUX?
The brand promises to deliver individual value through end-user driven lighting solutions with leadership in sustainability and digital connectivity. We clearly see in both spaces the innovation cycles and product lifetime are getting shorter. New themes as circular buildings and smart connectedness require an ongoing dialogue with leading customers, architects, lighting designers, and other specifiers. This conversation goes beyond being a knowledge partner for all stakeholders in the building industry, but really involve your market in your innovation roadmap. For example, when it comes to smart buildings and cities, TRILUX works together with different companies beyond lighting and from an open-innovation mindset bring distinguished value to the building industry. A nice proof point is our collaboration with ZECH Group, a leading international consortium of smart building solutions.

What are the challenges facing your industry going forward amid COVID- 19?
Please allow me to share that our people are the most important asset. In the Middle East and parts of Asia, many of our employees are expats. They have been hit very hard in their mobility to be close to their dear families during the pandemic. Our first and actually only challenge was to protect our employees and their relatives. This was literally our main challenge. As on the other hand business-wise the pandemic has accelerated our creativity to further build our brand through digital programs, opening new markets on a strong nurtured network on distance and dare to enter new channels as EPC in Oil & Gas and run innovation pilots on for example PoE. The pandemic made our teams much more flexible and creative. I am so proud of my teams, who never gave up and delivered a successful 2020 and perspective 2021 is also promising.

What parts/products of your business are staying busy – or even busier – due to the virus?
Though most of the existing known trends continue during the pandemic, there is one that is getting more vast attention: human-centric lighting. Due to the pandemic health and well-being has been in the spotlight more than ever. And with a new norm of partly home working, people will continue to spent now even more time indoors. We clearly notice that the eagerness from the market to learn more about our human-centric lighting solutions and adopt even human-centric buildings is absolutely breaking through. Tell us about some softwares you are working with? A software is more appealing when properly designed and applied. As then it will be the DNA of distinguished services. At TRILUX, we provide a wide spectrum of tailored services. Some nice examples are space occupancy optimisation, crowd control, remote maintenance management, but also proximity marketing in commercial spaces and what to think about daylight simulation in 24 hours spaces like healthcare or logistics. At the end of the day, it is all about getting the business model explained and tested on value creation to our clients.

Who are your main clients?
As with many global companies, we serve a wide range of top box clients in the public and commercial sectors. It’s interesting is see that the role of lighting is changing due to the increasing role of themes like circularity and smart buildings, we not only work for more clients but especially we now also deal with different decision-makers who want to know about our value we can forward, from marketing directors to CFO’s and CEO’s from e.g. property developers, airports, universities, hotels as well as infrastructure.

What’s next for your company?
The beauty of TRILUX is that we are over more than 100 years always consistent in what we do. Though the lighting industry will demand more complex solutions from companies like us – that is why relevant partnerships are very important in our way forward -, TRILUX simplifies Light! and we will continue to do so. That might explain why we have continued growth also outside Europe.