 Spotlight 
  Face-To-Face with Sanjiv Kumar Sharma Q. Yours is a new group. What were the prime concerns when you were launching projects? We are just a year-and-a-half old. Our strength was that we had huge land banks. So the main issue we had to grapple with was how to project our brand to promote saleability of the projects. Q. What did you do to ensure that your brand develops a distinct identity? The first think I realized was that I have to launch projects that a lot of people want to buy. Price was an important concern. So we fixed the Rs 30-40 lakh in the Delhi NCR market. The second was the quality of the planning. Being a civil engineer myself, I was well equipped to oversee the planning process myself. I went in for hafeez Contractor to design my buildings because people would be comfortable with that name and he is a very good architect. We launched projects, undertook building and finished the project. This was important to the end user who did not want to wait endlessly for the project to take off. Our Goa project will be complete in December 2008 while the NCR projects will be complete in 2009. Q. What percentage of your projects are driven by end users? About 95 per cent of my buyers are end users. To woo them we emphasized on location and quality of construction. Even the specifications of the project are driven by people’s demands. For instance we launched our 1750 sq ft apartment as a 3BHK with a servant’s quarter rather than as a 2 BHK. Q. Does the market slowdown affect you? We have created new financing options to solicit end users. We have introduced the pay on possession scheme three months ago on our projects across India. In the case of buyers in the 55+ age group, we are facilitating finance on the guarantee of children. Q. Where all do you have projects? We launched projects in Goa, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Faridabad, along the NH24 in Ghaziabad and three projects in Vasundhara in Delhi. We have launched different kinds of projects – villas in Hyderabad, plots in Bangalore, resort in Goa, commercial in Faridabad and residential projects in Ghaziabad. Q. How do you choose your locations? We seek projects very close to the metro links. For this kind of growth we ae definitely looking at alliances. Q. How does your product mix vary from city to city? In North India the demand ios not for very high rises. Maharashtra’s buyers look for high rises. In smaller cities where land is not so expensive, the group housing concept is missing. Once you enter the city, you have to cater to the local customers. There is a huge local demand in every city. For instance, the new generation wants to stay near enough to the parents but wants a modern lifestyle. They seek modern lifestyle features as well as adequate parking. Q. Have you also experimented with new concepts? We are creating a old-age development on 50 acres. Security is a major concern here. Older people reqire the same lifestyle features they are used to but small extra concern areas such as walking tracks on level ground, heightened security, yoga room etc are taken care of. 
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