‘Jubilee Corporation is a wonderful partner for its understanding of technology.’
Cheaper cost is nothing but a loss of time and resources, believes Julien

T hough Jubilee Corporation is undoubtedly a big name in the engineering world in Pakistan, the company’s understanding of modern technologies and engineering surely transmits signals to its international partners—Lovato Electric—makes it a distinct engineering concern in Pakistan. The level of satisfaction comes from Lovato through its representative for Asia Pacific region Julien Mermillon who talked to ER during Multitopic Sympoisum 2023 hosted by IEEEP in Karachi. Here is his interview for our readers.
How is Lovato’s relationship with Jubilee Corporation?
It’s a great pleasure to work with Jubilee Corporation. They are very competent people with high technical skills. At Lovato, we sell quite complex engineering solutions, mainly focusing on energy management, metering, control, and protection equipment. Today’s topic was dynamic power factor correction, which is part of power quality solutions. But mainly, we are focusing on metering equipment to understand power quality and the energy consumption. This is about how the energy is spent and if the energy supplied to a facility has proper power quality to avoid any issues. Jubilee Corporation is providing a complete mix of solutions by Lovato, including what we discussed in the Symposium. This solution provides great efficiency at a reasonable cost suitable for the facilities of Pakistan.
The people are conscious of the cost here despite the importance of technology. How is it possible to offer efficient systems at lower costs?
The matter of cost is always, like we say, a balance between CapEx and OpEx. You can invest in technology with cheap products and solutions, which may last only two years. It means you have lost your valuable time and money. A quality product can last for 15 years, which is generally what Lovato is offering. We use the best quality parts in our products. Let’s assume that the product is a box, and inside this box are electronics. Our electronics are made up of premium quality parts, which ensure long product life. It may be higher in cost initially, but over time, it is much cheaper than replacing a low-quality product three or four times in the same period. Lovato Electric is a main player in this category. We are a family-owned business, which means that the company is reinvesting its money to improve the product, not to please shareholders. We are making the best product at the best price, which means that we are expensive than low-quality products available in the market. Our customer is satisfied with the quality of our products.
Many people in the engineering sector believe the Chinese are a big challenge. Are they a challenge for your company too?
They are a challenge for the entire world, especially from the business point of view. Luckily, they target different market segments. Usually, they bring some very cheap solutions at the cost of low durability and reliability. Maybe you don’t see it here, but they also bring some very advanced solutions, which came to be at the same price as us. The main difference between Chinese and western or Japanese, or Korean companies is that we cannot afford to have low-cost and low-quality products due to the high cost of labor. If you install some low-cost equipment and you need to replace it after a few months, that will cost you a huge labor cost. This will also disturb the production process of the facility and reduce operational efficiency. So, in the end, it is a different market segment. Some people may want to try it, but others would not go for it.
You are also looking after the Asia Pacific region for Lovato. What is the landscape there in terms of metering and such solutions?
I would say, as compared to Lovato’s historical market, there are quite massive developments that involve huge numbers of meters to monitor energy consumption accurately. We have sold one of the biggest metering systems. It’s a competitive and challenging market, but I must say it is also a land of opportunity. Our partners, like Jubilee Corporation, are doing a great job representing Lovato products in their respective market.
While working with Jubilee Corporation, has Lovato had any thought to engage in any joint venture to manufacture products and provide systems in Pakistan?
Lovato is a family-owned business, and we don’t have many factories around the world. We have three manufacturing facilities in Italy. We are a medium size company, and we are focusing on staying efficient. We have no factory outside Europe. Time will tell us if we move on to the stage where we start manufacturing somewhere else outside Europe. I believe Pakistan could be a very high potential market for us. I am always pleased with the Jubilee Corporation team because they are probably the most technical people and well-accustomed to Lovato products. When we have some training sessions to check how much knowledge is assimilated by our partners, we are pleased to see that they are at the top of the list. By Manzoor Shaikh