by Vijaylakshmi
When Viknesh Jain established his sanitary brand, Euronics in 2002, India’s IT boom was underway—so his focus was largely towards servicing the large demand for public bathroom automation in the new IT infrastructure coming up in different metro cities in the country. These IT infrastructure by design required a number of public washroom spaces because of the large employee base in each of these new structures.
Slowly and steadily as other sectors started evolving, creating new demand centres for common washroom automation, his scope of business also grew. Speaking specifically about the hospitality sector, Jain said that the last decade has seen a drastic uptick in hospitality demand with rapid development of cafes, restaurants, hotels, across cities.
“Especially since the Covid 19 crisis, most of the things considered to be luxury have become a necessity. People started giving highest priority to health, safety and hygiene. In hospitality units, people started looking at overall experience rather than just one component, food. Hotels and restaurants are investing heavily in common washroom facilities,” Jain said, speaking exclusively to hoteldealers.in.
Started as a bathroom automation company, Euronics has evolved into a complete sanitary suite company today catering to varied industries.
“We have both automated and non-automated accessories in our product portfolio today. These include hand dryers, automatic taps, auto urinals, soap dispensers, paper dispensers, washrooms, showers, etc.,” Jain said.
He claimed Euronics is the only brand which is focussed dedicatedly on the common washroom automation segment while for other sanitary brands it is only one of the verticals.
Sharing the major trends in the sanitary and washroom space, Jain said that multi-functional equipment is being preferred over single utility equipment in the common washroom space.
Water taps with in-built soap dispensers and hand-dryers are preferred over simple water taps. “A lot of multi-functional equipment is coming in,” he stated.
Similarly, behind the mirror accessories are catching on fast. “People do not want so much equipment on their face. The trend today is of minimalistic and invisible design but at the same time hi-tech in common washrooms,” Jain said adding, “We are the first ones to introduce the behind-the-mirror design”.
He said that they are on the verge of introducing IoT enabled washroom equipment which will not only make the common washrooms smart but at the same time ease the pains of the housekeeping department to a large extent.
While the company has a fairly good market share in the space they are in, Jain said that they are looking at expanding their presence in sectors like hospitality in a big way in coming years.
“Hospitality sector is very important for us because it gives the brand a very high visibility among the target audience,” he concluded.
