vol. 7 | issue 6 propelling indian · pdf fileopportunities it presents and its benefits to...

PROPELLING INDIAN RETAIL

November - December 2016

VOL. 7 | ISSUE 6

ceo message

Printed and published by Kumar Rajagopalan for Retailers Association of India 111/112, Ascot Centre, Near Hotel ITC Maratha, Sahar Road, Sahar, Andheri (E), Mumbai - 400099. Tel + 91 22 28269527-28, Fax +91 22 2826 9536, Email: [email protected] at Mail Order Solutions (I) Pvt. Ltd., Plot No. 6 & 7, Moti Udyog Nagar, Ramchandra Lane, Kanchpada, Malad (W), Mumbai - 400 064, India. Phone: +91 22 4211 8000This publication is for the purpose of information only . The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Retailers Association of India and the opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the editor, publishers or their agents and it should not be used in substitution for exercise of independent judgment. This report is based on the information obtained from various sources and sources believed to be reliable, however, no warranty, express or implied, are given for the accuracy or correctness of the same and it should not be construed as such. The report contained in the publication is also not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase and sale of any items. No matter contained in this publication may be reproduced or copied or forwarded without the prior written consent of the Retailers Association of India.

meeting the finance minister of the country, Shri Arun Jaitely, was undoubtedly one of the high points of RAI’s

existence. Key members of RAI’s national committee had a fruitful discussion on access to FDI for Indian retailers as well as GST during the meeting.

The event that overshadowed the glow of the meeting was demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs1000 notes by the Prime Minister. The sudden decision to discontinue the high-value currency sent the entire country into a tizzy. While RAI as well as the entire modern retail industry welcomed the move, the ground reality was that it did affect business to a large extent. Sales of retailers dropped between 50 and 70% in the first five days. At the same time, use of digital means of payment shot up by more than 300%. Demonetization certainly bodes well for digitalization of the country, especially for modern and modernizing retailers and has long-term benefits. Coupled with introduction of GST, it would eradicate unaccounted sales of retailers.

This is a wake-up call for retailers that haven’t yet embarked on the modernisation journey to do so and account for every sale. This is because all transactions will now become traceable. Demonetization is a move that’s good for sustainable growth of the economy.

For retailers, achieving sustainable growth requires adopting green retailing practices. This issue is dedicated to creating awareness about sustainable retailing, the opportunities it presents and its benefits to business and the environment.

wake-up call Publisher : Kumar Rajagopalan [email protected]

Executive Editor : Shiv Joshi [email protected]

Contributing Editor : Vidya Hariharan [email protected]

Contributors : Surabhi Hegde

[email protected]

Art Director : Deris Micheal [email protected]

Graphic Designer : Pratik Naik [email protected]

RaI advisory Team

Director-Retail Learning : Lawrence Fernandes [email protected]

Director-Marketing : Dr Hitesh Bhatt [email protected]

Head - Finance : Gautam Jain & Advocacy [email protected]

STOrai Advertisement : Sarang Mehta [email protected]

Kumar Rajagopalan,Chief Executive Officer, RAI

RaI National councilAtul Chand, ITC - Lifestyle Retailing Business DivisionB A Kodandarama Setty, Vivek Ltd.B S Nagesh, TRRAINBhaskar Bhat, Titan Industries LtdBijou Kurien, L Capital AisaGovind Shrikhande, Shoppers Stop LtdJamshed Daboo, Trent Hypermarket LtdJ Suresh, Arvind Lifestyle Brands LimitedKabir Lumba, Lifestyle International (P) LtdKishore Biyani, Future GroupKrish Iyer, Walmart IndiaNoel Tata, Trent Ltd. (Westside)Pinakiranjan Mishra, Ernst & Young Pvt. Ltd. Pranab Barua, Aditya Birla Retail Ltd.Rafique Malik, Metro Shoes LtdRahul Mehta, CMAIRakesh Biyani, Future Retail Ltd.Shashwat Goenka, RP-Sanjiv Goenka GroupShubhranshu Pani, Jones Lang LaSalleVinay Nadkarni, Globus Stores Pvt. Ltd.

CEO_Message.indd 1 05/12/2016 11:34:35 AM

2 | STOrai | November - December 2016

CONTeNTS

Strategy54 Questions all retail business

leaders must ask themselves

review36 retail CFO Summit 2016

teChnOlOgy

56 how retailers are making offline click the phygitial way

induStry COnneCt

58 Openbravo: Solutions for success in india

induStry update04 updates from the industry

advOCaCy update

08 policy, regulations and more

COver StOry

10 taking stock of indian retail’s sustainability journey

16 Significant Facts about Sustainability in retail

20 a look at the sustainability in shopping centres

22 list of responsible retail destinations

60 what’s new at 2017 international home + housewares Show

62 inorbit Malad gets remixed

repOrt

48 ihgF delhi Fair-autuMn 2016

42

36

42 Chennai retail Summit 2016

Contents_SJ.indd 2 25/11/2016 7:38:56 PM

ContentsHuman resources

64 revenue per employee: The metric that matters

Picture tales68 What’s next in in-store

innovation

marketing & Branding70 Family-run businesses and

naming of brands

memBer ProFile80 The ‘untraditional’ tale of a

traditional retailer

consumer insigHt74 even loyal customers are prone

to straying to competition

noW trending76 digitisation: The positive effect

of demonetisation

68

68

Contents_SJ.indd 3 25/11/2016 7:39:09 PM

Industry update

4 | stOrai | november - december 2016

Future Group, is joining hands with British wholesaler Booker Group to open cash and carry stores in the country. This move will bring it in

direct competition with Walmart India and Metro Cash & Carry.

Through this equal joint venture between Future Consumer (FCL) and UK’s largest wholesaler, Future Group plans to open 60-70 cash and carry stores in three years to sell merchandise to local kirana stores, hotels and catering firms.

Booker entered India in 2009, but has not expanded its operations aggressively and has six stores in Maharashtra and Gujarat.

With the rise in the number of air passengers, airports are emerging as the next preferred destination for retailers. The current vacancy

levels in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru airport varies from 0-5 per cent in international and 5-10 per cent in domestic terminals.

Over 30 brands have tapped the business generated by domestic travel through new T2 terminal at Mumbai international airport. According to GVK that operates Mumbai and Bengaluru airports, most outlets at Mumbai airport are performing above expectations. Business at the Bengaluru airport is driven by Duty Free stores and F&B outlets. Recent trends indicate growth in lifestyle and personal products like cosmetics, fragrance, fashion and accessories.

even as consumers and retail businesses are grappling with the effects of demonetisation of high-value notes, there is an immediate positive fallout of

the move. Independent and small retailers are making a beeline for ATM/ debit/ credit card swipe machines, spurred by demands made by customers.

Cash-strapped customers of traditional retail businesses are curtailing buying activity, which is affecting small businesses adversely. To continue business as usual and keep the money coming in, they are now forced to keep card swipe machines at their outlets, which is in essence is a part of becoming modernising retailers.

While HDFC Bank received as many as 5,000 requests in the initial days, Axis bank recorded a three-time jump.

Future - Booker tie-up on cards for cash and carry stores

Airport retail takes off

Demonetisation forcing small retailers to modernise

Industry Update_SJ.indd 4 25/11/2016 7:25:42 PM

H omegrown retail chain Toonz Retail launched its second store in Belgaum. The new store on Civil Hospital Road is spread over an area

of 1450 sq ft. and is stocked with Toonz’s flagship brands and a complete range of kids’ products including fashion, baby care, nursery, toys and school supplies amongst others.

Toonz opens 2nd store in Belgaumexpansion


Industry update

6 | stOrai | January - February 2016

spencer’s Retail is testing its own food and grocery e-commerce venture in the national capital region (NCR) and Kolkata. Towards this, it has

initiated talks with three leading marketplaces including Amazon to list as a seller. The country’s fourth largest food and grocery retailer with 37 hypermarkets and 12 supermarkets will soon scale up the ecommerce venture

in the South in another six cities.jargon buster

Online baby products seller Firstcry is acquiring Mahindra Retail’s offline store brand Babyoye for about Rs 362 crore. The deal will help

Firstcry, which already has 180 franchisee stores, create one of the largest omni-channel retail plays in the country, with a strong presence both online and offline.

High speed retail (n.)It is all about making the customer’s shopping journey faster and shopping experience quicker. It is born out of the increasing competition for grabbing consumer’s share of watch. examples ■ Drive-through grocery stores ■ Pop-up stores■ Mobile businesses such as food trucks, stores-on-wheels■ Limited time deals (these too are considered a form of high-speed retail as they spur consumers into action to complete their buying within a limited period of time)■ Que-busting solutionsThe use of mobile POS systems is extremely common in High Speed Retail as they run on the cloud and can update every aspect of the business (inven-tory, CRM, payments, etc) in real-time, thus helping merchants stay up-to-date at all times and process instant mobile payments.

Firstcry acquires Mahindra’s baby care franchisee business

spencer’s logs onto grocery etail in nCr, Kolkata

oMni-CHannel

As part of the strategy, the company is revamping its supermarket stores. It will also offer smaller pack sizes that consumers buy for their weekly or daily needs. In addition, each store will double up as a fulfilment centre for the online business.

The company is aiming for a larger share of the consumer’s wallet through ecommerce and for that will either lower or waive off minimum bill amount. It hopes to achieve breakeven of the ecommerce business at the store level in 5-6 months.


AdvocAcy UpdAte

8 | Storai | November - december 2016

AdvocAcy UpdAte

Work in progress on state level retail trade policies

RAI has been working with various State Gov-ernments in regard to the State level retail trade policy. Currently, Governments of AP,

Maharashtra and Karnataka have announced their respective policies. Various other states are in the process of announcing similar policies to facilitate ease of doing business.

Madhya Pradesh: Meeting held with Principal Sec-retary, Industries Department in regard to the state level policy. The Principal Secretary has requested RAI to start representing issues to the concerned de-partments for them to be resolved. Subsequently, the policy shall be looked up, discussed and shall be sent for approval to the cabinet. He has further requested RAI to submit a list of issues retailers are currently facing in the state.

Gujarat: Meeting held with Additional Chief Sec-retary, Industries Department on to express RAI’s views on the draft retail trade policy proposed for the state.

Telangana: Meeting held with Principal Secretary in regard to the state retail trade policy. Awaiting draft retail trade policy from the state government.

Haryana: Submitted draft retail trade policy to the state government. Policy to be announced soon.

Karnataka: An empowered committee has been set up under the leadership of Additional Chief Sec-retary (ACS), Industries to facilitate the implementa-tion of the policy pointers. A meeting was held with all the members of the empowered committee. RAI was asked to submit fresh representations to the con-cerned departments. The ACS assured that he would look into the matter and issue required orders.

Maharashtra: RAI delegation met Deputy Secre-tary of Urban Development & Town planning in re-gard to the draft DCR regulations for retail stores / malls in the state. The draft has been submitted to the Deputy Secretary and the government is considering issuing a Government Order on the same.

RAI delegation meets Finance Minister

A delegation of retailers led by Retailers Associa-tion of India (RAI) met with the Honourable Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley and dis-

cussed policies to develop Indian retail. Retailers part of the delegation, have invested over Rs40,000 crore generating 400,000 jobs with annual sales exceeding Rs. 100,000 crores. The delegation emphasised the need to support Indian-managed, Indian-owned retail busi-nesses to access global capital up-to 49 % without any restrictions. They also discussed the need to create a unified FDI policy for “Retail Trade” as channels like E-commerce are just a sub-set of retail.

Apart from FDI in retail, the retailers also dis-cussed several important aspects of GST with the fi-nance minister, appreciating the slab-wise approach to implementing the much-awaited tax.

In particular, the retailers welcomed the Govern-

ment’s decision to keep all essential products, like Food, Textiles and Apparels at rates ranging from 0-6% under GST. In addition, the delegation empha-sised the need to transition to GST at rates as close as possible to current effective rate of tax.

The RAI delegation included senior leaders from Future Group, Shoppers Stop, Tata Group, Aditya Birla Group and Landmark Group.

Advocacy_update.indd 8 25/11/2016 4:45:04 PM

AdvocAcy UpdAte

November - december 2016 | Storai | 9

More states to allow stores to remain open 365 days

RAI has submitted representations to various state governments in regard to allowing re-tail stores to be kept open 365 days a year.

Subsequent, state governments of Maharashtra, AP, Telangana, West Bengal, MP, Delhi and Tamil Nadu have issued notifications in this regard.

Furthermore, RAI has represented to the State Governments of Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka, Guja-rat to allow retailers to keep stores open for 365 days a year.

Committee set up on FSSA

A parliamentary committee has been set up to resolve and fast track the pending FSSA. RAI was invited to be a part of the meeting

to exchange suggestions in the existing provisions of the FSSA. The committee held meetings in Benga-luru and Mumbai. RAI delegation submitted its sug-gestions / recommendations to the parliamentary committee to facilitate ease of doing business.

RAI submits fresh representation on sale of household insecticides

RAI delegation had a fruitful meeting with Joint secretary Shri Ashwani Kumar, Depart-ment of Agriculture & Co-operation, Gov-

ernment Of India. The joint secretary was support-ive of retailers and informed that the Government is considering relaxing unnecessary regulatory require-ments for retailers.

RAI has been asked to submit a fresh representa-tion wherein each legal entity/ State shall have one li-cense and one qualified person for sale of household insecticides.

Advocacy_update.indd 9 25/11/2016 4:46:10 PM

Cover Story

10 | Storai | November - December 2016

With India emerging as one of the most attractive retail destinations in the world, domestic players are facing mounting pressure from increased competition. From being a largely

fragmented sector until a few years ago, Indian retail is moving towards large format stores, international brand chains and online convenience, aided by the

easing of FDI norms by the Government of India. The growth of large-scale e-commerce players who have successfully leveraged discounting as a mainstream business model, has made ‘price’ emerge as the big-gest differentiator, driving consumers to shop online or in-store.

This competitive landscape is offering the Indian consumer a plethora of choices, thereby coercing do-

Sustainability in Indian retail is an emerging reality. While the awareness is growing, it is still fairly limited. Retailers who have taken the eco-friendly route, vouch for the immense benefits it brings to their business, both tangible and intangible. A look at some of the ground realities and business opportunities...

The smarT road To susTainabiliTy

n By Anjana Shanmugavel and Ann Elizabeth Jose

Cover-story-1.indd 10 25/11/2016 4:52:49 PM

Cover Story

mestic retailers to match their global competitors’ way of doing business. This global expansion is not only likely to transform Indian retail economically, but also promote a culture of corporate responsibility. The last few decades have witnessed retailers like Wal-Mart, Marks & Spencer, Tesco and IKEA leading the path on proactive sustainability agendas.

What’S the need?

Sustainability, when adopted as a business strategy, can substantiate the proposition of differentiation, a major component in retail. According to a 2015 PwC report titled Perspectives on the Indian Retail Industry, creating brand differentiation has proven to be essential as fac-tors like e-commerce disruption, access to capital, customer loy-alty, and increased competition in the market continue to affect retail businesses.

As a resource intensive business, retail runs the risk of business continuity due to increasing costs, disruption in supply and potential reputational and regulatory risks. Sustainable business practices drive huge benefits in terms of reduced long and short-term risks around operational security, sourcing reliability and increasing energy and raw material costs. Hence, integrating sustainability as part of the operational strategy becomes imperative. An effective retail sus-tainability strategy needs to holistically address the impacts linked to direct operations like energy, waste and packaging as well as the indirect impacts due to the ecological footprint of the production and trans-portation of their supply chains.

On speaking to some large Indian retailers, it is un-derstood that the uptake of sustainability in the do-mestic market is influenced by three key drivers: cost, consumer preference and regulations. Lalit Agarwal, CMD of V-Mart Retail said, “Sustainable operations decrease cost and improve operational efficiency. Stra-tegically, sustainability is very important for business growth because of the rising consumer awareness around it and the imminent regulatory requirements that can be foreseen in the years to come”. In this con-

text, it becomes important to analyse these drivers and shed light on how groups around the world and within the country, are responding to them.

turning driverS into opportunitieS

Cost as the primary concern: This makes the top of this list. With the emphasis on profitability driving the industry, investments in sustainability can be rational-ized within the core areas of the business. Retailers are focusing on using resources more efficiently, as this di-rectly impacts their bottom-line and helps streamline their operations. Initiatives around energy reduction, waste management, packaging improvement and lo-

gistics optimization seem to be the common starting point for most retailers.

As energy is a significant com-ponent of store operations costs, most retailers have realised the significance of energy conser-

vation and efficient energy use. Innovation around choice of packaging material and design optimisation are helping companies leverage the benefits of cost reduction and consumer communication. For exam-ple, Whole Foods Market implemented a responsible packaging program, which involved redesigning its fresh produce casing to reduce the packaging weight and cost, increase transportation efficiency and im-prove the shelf life of the product thereby avoiding millions of pounds of food wastage. In India, Arvind Ltd., which has around 14 licensed retail brands across the country has adopted an energy management pro-gram at its stores. Abhishek Bansal, Chief Sustainabil-ity Manager of Arvind Ltd. said, “Our retail outlets in India are working on reducing energy demand and in-creasing efficiency through initiatives like LED light-ing, energy optimization sensors etc.”

Consumers are integral: Another key driver is the consumer. Using sustainability as a brand positioning statement is helping retailers improve their reputation among their customers, investors and suppliers. The needs and expectations of the average urban Indian consumer are undergoing a major transformation, fu-elled by the rising purchasing power, improved educa-

→ The domestic market is influenced by three key drivers - cost, consumer preference and regulation.


Cover Story


tion levels, increasing connectivity and growing global consciousness. They are evolving into consumers mindful of not only price but also factors like quality, ethics, experi-ence and social values. Companies can build brand loyalty by tapping into the eco-consciousness of their consumers — by creating aware-ness, sensitizing the audience and providing access to the product in-formation to help consumers make informed purchasing decisions.

Mahesh Shah, CEO of Home-town, a lifestyle products retailer said, “Retailers stand to benefit by effectively communicating the ad-ditional value created; to attract and retain customers. If sustain-ability is communicated right, brands can use its influence”. On the other hand, Bansal added, “We have not seen much of a push from the Indian consumer on sustain-ability. We have undertaken some experiments to gauge consumer interest through the launch of certain sustainable apparel collec-tions with a focus on recycle and reuse. However, due to the direct consumer connect, a shift in the sustainability expectations of the consumer similar to the organic food market is expected”.

Customer expectations and me-dia pressure is also encouraging re-tailers to extend their sustainability standards to their suppliers’ opera-tions in order to build transparen-cy and improve accountability. For example, Wal-Mart has created a sustainable supplier mechanism through a simple questionnaire assessing the environmental and

▶ Growing preference of consumers for all things organic is one of the drivers of sus-

tainable retail

social practices of their global sup-pliers.

Preparing for emerging policies: Lastly, it is important to note that the current heightened global in-terest around environmental is-sues such as climate change, defor-estation commodities, and water scarcity are influencing environ-mental legislation in the developed markets. Most retailers begin their sustainability journey by respond-ing to these regulatory require-ments to ensure compliance and avoid legislative risks.

For example, in 2013, Wal-Mart was charged a sum of $110 million by the US Department of Justice for violating the Clean Water Act and mishandling hazardous waste at its stores. This could have been avoided had Wal-Mart designed a responsible waste management sys-tem and provided proper training to its employees on the handling and disposal of hazardous waste.

In addition to legal standards, voluntary codes developed by in-

dustry groups and non-govern-mental organisations are gaining prominence and are defining cor-porate principles. In the emerg-ing markets like India, imminent regulations are expected to place additional operational constraints on businesses. Hence, anticipating such requirements can position domestic retailers to be in com-pliance when regulations go into effect. In Bangalore, for example, bulk generators of waste like su-permarkets are required to com-post wet waste at site, or hand over to authorised private wet waste collectors on payment. Stores like V-Mart in India are tying up with recycling agencies to handle the dry waste from all its stores.

the way forwarD

For Indian retailers, the battle to se-cure profitability and market share is a constant challenge. Companies in India willing to learn from glob-al practices will have a competitive edge, by positioning their busi-nesses for long-term sustainable


Cover Story


IN Store

■ Assess alternative energy measures and more efficient technologies. For instance, renewable sources of energy like solar and wind for electricity.

■ Reduce the size and weight of packages; it reduces costs and mini-mises wastage. Options like recyclable resources and recycled ma-terials to produce packaging can be considered.

■ Harness and use rainwater, use sensor-activated taps.

■ Consider natural refrigeration systems and natural lighting for il-lumination, which are certified by leading rating systems like LEED or BREEAM.

■ Sell repaired or damaged products returned by customers at a dis-count.

■ Give away food not suitable for retail to farmers to be used as feed or for anaerobic digestion, where the waste is used for generating electricity.

IN the SUPPLy ChAIN

■ Adopt a clean supply chain policy and sell more products that are made responsibly.

■ Influence suppliers to use modern, fuel-efficient vehicles with more sustainable fuels.

■ Implement plans and strategies for protecting marine resources and wetlands, protecting the biodiversity of the supplying regions.

■ Optimise the use of equipment to increase number of products shipped per load to minimise road transportation.

At the CoNSUmer eND

■ Encourage customers to return old clothes/electronic waste and earn some rewards. The same can be recycled to produce new clothes or something innovative.

■ Introduce point-based system for reusing carrier bags.

■ Add a list of sustainable products on your website to help custom-ers become more aware about them.

■ Promote the adoption of leading international certifications to po-sition products with consumers.

■ Increase transparency, through reporting on sustainability that also meets increasing investor requirements for disclosure of Environ-mental, Social and Governance parameters.

SuStainable SuggeStionS

‘Anjana Shanmugavel is a Senior Manager with the Sustainable Business division at WWF-India working on transformational partnerships with

companies focusing on conservation benefits. She has a Masters in Environmental Engineering with a major in Green Design from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.

Ann Elizabeth Jose is Communications Officer in the Sustainable Business team at WWF-India. She holds an MS

degree in Communications and is fond of writing and blogging.

growth. Using creative customer engagement mechanisms linked to emerging consumer preferences is one way to establish a point of difference and drive deeper busi-ness change. Holistic sustainability strategies are most effective when they contribute to core business outcomes by boosting revenues, reducing costs, managing scarce natural resources and anticipating shifting regulatory pressures.

Such a strategy can also provide them with a larger opportunity to contribute to safeguarding the en-vironment and improved social outcomes. By working with their suppliers and leading the conversa-tion with their customers, retail can be a positive catalyst in the environ-mental sustainability equation.


Cover Story


■ A Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) study found that retailers’ programs typically be-gin with a focus on their own operations—with an emphasis on energy and waste reduction in stores and distribution centers—and then turn to addressing the product and supply chain impacts. Retailers that lead in sustainable practices go one step further by engaging consumers and other stakeholders in the company’s journey, and help

consumers to understand the full impact of their product purchases.

■ Retail companies that perceive sustainability to be a source of competitive advantage are more active in sustainable supply chain engagement – and de-rive more benefit from those activities – than do companies that address sustainability from more of a risk management standpoint.

▶ LeD lights have become commonplace in retail stores

We dug through the mountain of data on sustainable retailing to bring you some very interesting insights…

facts of the matter

n By Team STOrai


■ Retail leaders are integrating sustainability stra-tegically into their business model and pursuing tactics i) directly with supply chain partners, ii) internally at various functions and levels of the organization and iii) externally through collabo-ration with other players in the industry – often through industry-led working groups – as well as governments and non-govern-mental organizations, which offer guidance and support for various initiatives.

■ When it comes to sustainable re-tailing practices, a report by Smart-Centres, Canada found that, one size does not fit all. Company strate-gies varied widely according to such factors as merchandise category, number of stores, format, size and ownership structure.

■ Although the framework for achieving sustain-able best practices varied among retailers, there were common threads. These include:→ A deeply held conviction by the CEO/owner/

founder/senior management that the company must reduce its impact on the environment

→ An environmental strategy and plan→ An environmental management structure→ Staff who were appointed with environmen-

tal responsibilities at the head office and store level

→ External advisors to assist in developing the strategies and providing advice

→ Sustainable strategies, actions and indicators integrated into existing operations and man-agement structure

→ Policies with broad sustainability principles and specific functional or issue-related poli-cies

→ Policies disseminated internally and, most of-ten, externally

→ Regular updates of sustainability policies and achievements, typically every one to three years.

■ A global study of retailers revealed three strate-gic focuses, either individually or in combination: operational, market transformation and supply chain. The operational approach focuses largely on bricks and mortar, in both stores and ware-houses, and centres on facility retrofits and ener-

gy savings. The grocery chains typically pursue this route first. Consumer mar-ket transformation focuses on trans-

forming the market with three main approaches: merchandising and mar-keting, operations and research and development. Home Depot provides

an example of this strategy. Consumer engagement or market transformation programs through merchandising and

marketing are the most advanced methods and

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Cover Story


they have more direct control over their manufacturers and have merchandise made to their specifications. IKEA, for example, has a very extensive and sophisticated network of controls, purchasing require-ments and auditing processes.

■ Over 80 per cent of the com-panies measure and track en-ergy usage, waste produced and diverted, CO2 emissions, transportation and water us-age. Energy and waste top the list. Many publish goals for reduction and track progress from benchmarks.

■ ROI is a central focus of en-vironmental best practices. Both large and small leading retailers realize that sustain-ability provides a very healthy return on investment and fur-ther differentiates their busi-nesses. There were three main

form the cornerstone of their strategy. Their vision has been to search out and develop sus-tainable products and provide them to their customers at good prices in their Eco Op-tions program. Home Depot’s objective is to maximize social influence and reduce the con-sumer’s environmental foot-print through the profitable sale of these products coupled with consumer education.

Supply chain market transformation focuses on the supply base and more broadly includes transportation. Re-search has shown that the largest portion of a retailer’s environmental footprint is its supply base. Wal-Mart esti-mates it to be 90 per cent of their footprint. Private brand retailers have tended to be the pioneers of this strategy since

approaches to measuring success:

Cost savings—focuses on re-ducing costs

Carbon emissions reduction—success is a reduction in CO2 emissions

Revenue generation—success through the sale of green prod-ucts.

■ Managing the supply chain is critically important because research indicates that be-tween 80 and 90 per cent of the retailer’s total footprint comes from the products that are carried.

■ The four focal points for retailers in conserving energy are light-ing (changing habits, reduction of wattage and retrofits), various building improvements, refrig-eration, and tracking usage and reductions.

“

“

All too often politicians and businessmen have said to me: ‘You’re a businessman, so surely you’re opposed to the green agenda?’

They think: ‘You cannot make a profit and go green.’ They think: ‘A consumer society cannot be a green society.’ And they believe that developing economies cannot afford to go green.

From my perspective this is all muddled thinking. I fundamentally disagree and I say that if we want long-term growth, we must go green.

- Sir Terry Leahy, former CEO of Tesco


Cover Story


A $450 billion strong industry in a country has a substantial impact on the environ-ment as can be expected. Scientists pre-dict that the temperature of the planet will increase by 2 degrees against all efforts

and declarations by the nations to control it. This is a critical and dangerous threshold to reach and needs serious efforts by each nation to mitigate.

The RAI (Retailers Association of India) in the re-port on “Strategic issues of Retail CEOs” by PWC have identified three sustainability issues that the retailers are confronted with. They are (1) Climate change (2) Waste (3) Supply chain.

1. Climate change: The measurement of retailers carbon footprints and those of their products is vital to enable retailers understand and mitigate its impact on climate change.

2. Waste: In Mumbai alone 70% of the waste is food, increasing toxicity in the dumping grounds by virtue of being unsegregated. There is need for wide-spread awareness of reduction of waste at all links in the supply chain and the need for re-cycling, re-using and use of eco-friendly material in packing.

3. Supply chain: Responsible procurement be-comes more relevant in the context of sustainability.

SuStAiNAbility iN ShoppiNg CeNtreS

As we gear up for FDI in single brand and multi brand retail, we will have many retailers who will up the game by following already incorporated sustainable practices. This will help in involving Indian retailers to contribute their bit.

In retail real estate currently only a handful of malls out of the 260 A grade malls in India have ei-ther incorporated sustainability in the design or have

incorporated in the building post occupation. There is greater awareness among the developers, customers and the general public, which in turn pushes greater efforts from all concerned.

When the services are planned for a building about 40% of construction cost is contributed by MEP (Me-chanical, electrical & plumbing) of which nearly 75% is towards heating, ventilation and air-conditioning. Green initiatives hence are a necessity and not an op-tion.

Singapore offers a great example of what’s pos-sible. Since 2005 when Singapore implemented a green mark policy specifically for tropical climate, 1650 projects and 49 million sq. mts. have been made green. By 2013, Singapore had been recognized as the most heavily involved among 62 countries.

As many as 32 malls have been made as eco malls in Singapore and have achieved huge savings in water and energy. With a 2 - 3% higher investment in con-struction cost, good sized returns on the investment have been made.

▶ Pacific Mall, New Delhi

An overview of sustainable practices in shopping centres in India

sustainable spacesn By Kanchana V. Gokhale

Cover-story-mall.indd 20 25/11/2016 5:19:39 PM

Challenges & Change

The foremost challenge to implementing sustainabil-ity in most projects has always been the increased initial investment. Though the scale of investment has reduced from 6% of the project cost to 2 -3%, for some developers, this still proves too much to take up.

The second challenge yet the more important one is the lack of will to change. That said, initiatives like the respected Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat pro-gram go a long way in pushing reform.

Mall advisory/management companies are aware of the pitfalls of not implementing the environmental measures to optimize the operation of the malls and hence encourage developers to take some proactive steps.

In a small but steady manner, with active encour-agement of the developers, several shopping centres have incorporated sustainable measures in some manner. In the case of leading malls, the principles of recycle and reuse are incorporated in the design stage itself. Although not every mall is desirous of getting an LEED/ IGBC rating due to pecuniary reasons, mall advisory companies share their experience into the design to maximize its efficiency leading to saving in operating costs in nearly every MEP discipline.

enCouraging examples

Seawoods Grand central at Navi Mumbai has a LEED gold rating.

Vega mall in Bengaluru has incorporated waste compactors for more efficient disposal of waste.

Pacific mall New Delhi uses water collected in the rain water harvesting tank for landscaping and saves up to 10 – 12,000 litres of water.

Thane One, Thane a predominantly commercial complex with complimentary retail has achieved Platinum rating.

Even though developers miss the sustainability bus during development stage, they can embark on the journey down the line. Oberoi Mall in Mumbai that undertook a green audit exercise after five years of operation is a fine example of this. The mall went on to become India’s First LEED Gold Rated Mall un-der EBO&M category (Existing Building Operation & Maintenance).

Viviana mall in Thane near Mumbai has achieved a LEED IGBC Gold rating eventually.

Virginia Mall, Bengaluru rewards customers using bicycles to reach the centre by a welcome drink and giving out entertainment vouchers to be used in the mall (the green voucher). The disposable cutlery used in the mall is non-Styrofoam based. More initiatives are planned in the coming year.

As awareness about the benefits of sustainable re-tailing practices increases, more and more shopping centres will invest in them. After all, it makes sound business sense.

Kanchana V. Gokhale is Sr. Manager - Design Development Team at Pioneer Property Zone (PPZ) with over 15 years of experience in architecture and interiors with projects ranging from offices, hospitality and retail. She is also an accredited LEEDS IGBC professional working on projects which aim to achieve the possible green ratings. She has been with the Design and Development team at PPZ for nearly seven years now.

▶ Vega mall, Bangaluru


Cover Story


Spread across the retail space of 2 million (sq.ft. GLA), the DLF Mall of India is one of the largest malls in the country. It is divided into five zones spread over seven floors and houses 330 brands including fashion brands for men, women and kids and food and casual dining.

Aware of its impact on the environment and the neighbourhood that it operates in, DLF has incorpo-rated sustainability right from its design. “Sustainabil-ity is at the centre of all the business decisions that we make, this is because we understand the implica-tions that new projects can have on the environment and hence make sure we comply to all the necessary guidelines as laid out by the government of India,” said a spokesperson. As a proactive initiative, DLF Mall of India has obtained a LEEDS certification that shows its intent towards creating a sustainable organisation.

reSpoNSible meaSureS

Some of the sustainability initiatives taken by DLF Mall of India are:

Gold Certification by Indian Green Building Coun-cil (IGBC) for leadership in energy and environmen-tal design (LEED)

The MEP and Fire engineering team peer reviewed by international consultants has been put in place to maintain the best international standards

The mall complies with Ashrae 90.1, a benchmark for commercial building energy codes in the United States and a key basis for codes and standards around

Responsible Retail destinationsAlthough every retail company is taking some steps towards becoming a environmentally responsible, some have infused it into their DNA. Here’s a list….

the world for more than 35 years. It was one of the highly efficient green buildings of the time

■ Energy efficient air conditioning system with 20% less energy consumption.

■ Solar Power plant of 40 KW for using solar energy.

■ Solar water heater of 4000Ltrs, saving electrical energy.

■ Ventilation fans coupled with CO sensor in car parking.

■ Over deck insulation with solar reflective Index finish

■ Pumps and fans coupled with variable speed drives for saving energy

■ Sequencing batch reactor for waste water treat-ment with latest technology.

impaCt

Given the business environment that we are in, sus-tainability has to be an on-going process to have a tangible and measurable impact. Sustainability is an essential ingredient for a company’s long term success and it definitely has a positive impact of the overall business and brand image. The positive impact can be attributed to high brand loyalty among customers and committed employees that also results in positive financial results.

DlF mall oF iNDia, Delhi


Cover Story


Viviana Mall, a part of Sheth Corp, has emerged as a shopping destination to reckon with. With an area en-compassing one mn sq.ft, the mall boasts of a unique tenant mix – Cinepolis, a megaplex with 14 screens, 19 large anchor tenants. In all, it houses 250 leading brands in its prime retail and leisure space. The mall is India’s first and only visually impaired friendly mall and has also launched “XRCVC-Viviana Extension” a resource centre for visually impaired.


■ A special plant has been installed at the mall, where the food waste generated in the mall is converted into manure, which is then given away free of cost to customers. A special manure stock unit is locat-ed near the information desk of the mall.

■ In another initiative for saving water and energy

the mall has a rain harvesting plant installed for treatment of rain water. Treated water is extensive-ly used in toilets.

■ A sewage treatment plant (STP) treats water that is used in toilets.

■ Special water control valves are mounted in all taps across in the mall to control flow of water.

■ Regular cleaning of oil and grease chamber to avoid fouling, which helps in improving water quantity.

■ There are waste segregation bins outside toilets that help in eco-friendly waste disposal.

■ CFL bulbs and LEDs are used across the mall for energy efficiency.

■ Regular servicing of transformers, monitors and electrical equipment to reduce energy wastage.

“

“

When customers queue up to take manure free of cost we know that the message is slowly passing. When people appreciate and talk about the STP plant, we know that the message is spreading. When kids ask their parents in which bin should we throw the tissue paper, we know that the message is reaching to an audience who can take the legacy ahead.— Sunil Shroff, CEO, Viviana Mall.

viviaNa mall, thaNe

▶ organic Waste Converter plant at viviana mall


Cover Story


Oberoi Mall has been open for business since 2008 and is considered a preferred shopping destination for shoppers in the western suburbs of Mumbai. It is the first mall in India and the 3rd in the world to re-ceive the LEED Green Building GOLD certification by United States Green Building Council (USGBC) in the Existing Building Category.


■ Retrofitting of plumbing fixtures with aerators. ■ A sewage treatment plant that meets the complete

landscaping water needs.■ A structured approach to map the energy perform-

ance of the mall year-on-year through software tools. This also helps map the current levels of CO2

emissions with respect to energy consumption.■ Lux-level sensors for lighting, occupancy sensors

to control lighting and group control for elevators.■ Retro-commissioning that involved evaluating the

current performance of the building systems and identifying measures to enhance energy efficiency. These include:

i. Chiller sequence control ii. Replacement of belts and filters iii. Water balancing iv. Modification of operation logic of chiller v. Adjusting chilled water set-point■ A System Description and Building Operation

Plan is in place to be followed by the mall opera-

tors. Regular O&M documents like the checklist, operational plan etc are aligned with international standards.

■ The mall staff uses Green Seal Housekeeping chemicals and sustainable cleaning equipment that have minimal impact on human health

■ A procedure to track waste collection and disposal.

■ Key policies in place such as a Sustainable Purchas-ing Policy, which provides guidelines for purchase of eco-friendly materials with recycled content, low mercury lamps, local materials from within 500 miles, FSC certified materials etc. In addition a solid waste management policy which provides guidelines for disposal of waste.

impaCt

Retro-fitting of plumbing fixtures with aerators ena-bled a 30-40% water use reduction.

oberoi mall, GoreGaoN, mumbai

impaCt

For Viviana, sustainability is a mechanism to spread the message of preserving and conserving natural re-sources. It has had a significant impact in its brand image as a responsible retail destination. “When cus-tomers queue to take manure free of cost we know that the message is slowly passing. When people appreci-

ate and talk about the STP plant, we know that the message is spreading. When kids ask their parents in which bin should we throw the tissue paper, we know that the message is reaching to an audience who can take the legacy ahead,” said Sunil Shroff, CEO, Vivi-ana Mall. He added that though unintended, the ini-tiatives have also helped Viviana in saving its energy and water bills.


Cover Story


Marks & Spencer (M&S) was founded over 130 years ago in the UK and currently has 900 stores in the UK and over 460 stores across 59 territories in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

The iconic British brand opened its first store in In-dia in 2001 and, in April 2008, signed a Joint Venture with Reliance Retail to form Marks & Spencer Reli-ance India Pvt Ltd.

Since 2008, the retailer has built a solid platform to accelerate its growth in India with 58 stores located in 27 cities across the country, including 3 standalone Lingerie and Beauty stores in Mumbai, Jaipur and Kolkata.

Since 2015, M&S lines are available on Myntra and Flipkart.


■ Plan A is the name M&S has given to its ethical and environmental goals. It was launched in 2007 as a 100 point, 5 year plan. Having achieved the major aim of making its UK business carbon neu-tral, the retailer has now introduced Plan A 2020, which consists of 100 new, revised and existing commitments, with the ultimate goal of becom-ing the world’s most sustainable major retailer. The three thrust areas are: responsible sourcing, waste

markS & SpeNCer


reduction and helping communities and the retail-er works with partners, employees and customers around the world to achieve the goals.

■ Plan A touches on every aspect of how M&S does business and the products it sells – from raw mate-rials to the manufacturing process; its logistics net-work to its store estate; to the local communities it serves and how it helps its customers live more sustainably.

■ M&S develops the capacity of its people to deliver Plan A locally in all the countries beyond the UK and Ireland where it operates stores. As its pilot market, India is central to this and the company has worked with Forum of the Future to research the key social and environmental issues in India. It has identified many common basics such as energy efficiency, waste and recycling, as well as some op-portunities on community and engaging custom-ers on Plan A. It has appointed a Plan A manager in India to help roll out Plan A initiatives across the country.

■ South Extension was the first retail outlet in India to be awarded Platinum LEED rating. Bengaluru was M&S’s first sustainable learning store to open in internationally, features lighting which is 15% more efficient and water saving technology that uses 30% less water.

■ M&S works with 10 Eco factories in India, which are equipped with the latest technology to reduce their carbon footprint as a part of M&S’s Plan A initiative to create a globally sustainable business by saving water and using less electricity compared to other factories.

■ M&S strengthens relations with communities and suppliers in India by using sustainable cotton, em-ploying Fair-trade practices and rigorous recycling efforts to achieve company goals.

■ The retailer has identified 23 different Plan A qual-ities for its clothing & home products with the goal of having at least one Plan A quality in all its cloth-ing & home products by 2020.

Impact

As many as 78% of M&S products that are made in In-dia have at least one Plan A attribute. To help achieve its aim of sustainable sourcing of at least 70% of the cotton it uses globally, the retailer has partnered with WWF and the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) in Warangal and Karimnagar. Working together with over 18,500 farmers, the retailer has been successful in reducing the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesti-cides up to 37% and 15% reduction in the use of wa-ter. The farmers have also benefited by earning almost 114% higher net income, 44% higher profits and have reaped 18% higher yield.

▶ Farmers in Warangal m&S works with


Cover Story


Woodland, the outdoor and adventure wear brand has created a strong niche for itself in the minds of the customers. It signifies the spirit of adventure and has been an environment concentrated brand that strives to work incessantly towards the same direction. In ad-dition, to the several eco-friendly measures and prac-tices Woodland runs Pro planet, one of Woodland’s CSR initiative committed to making our home, our planet, a better place to live in. “The goal is to inspire the next generation of enthusiasts and increase their participation in conservation of nature,” said Harkirat Singh, Managing Director, Woodland.


■ Woodland uses environment-friendly materials like organic cotton for its products. In addition, it invests heavily in green technologies such as video conferencing and solar panels.

■ Packaging of all its products—right from the box used to pack shoes and other products like carry-bags given out to customers are made of recycled paper.

■ Woodland offers biodegradable shoes and sandals that are free of any major processing. The mate-rials used are free of any harmful substances. As much as 80 percent of the material used for the soles comes from recycled tires, which is processed at a local facility and transported to a sole factory just few kilometres away. The outer sole and heel is made of crepe rubber (natural raw rubber) and the upper is made of vegetable tanned leather, which

has also been utilized in the lining of the shoe. Cel-lulose has been used to make the insole, the toe puffs and the counters. The in sock / foot bed is made of latex foam and duly covered by vegetable tanned leather. Water based rubber adhesive has been used for fabrication and the upper has been stitched to the insole and the sole. The thread and the laces are made of cotton.

■ Woodland uses recycled water in the manufac-ture process of jeans. This water is recycled mul-tiple times which significantly reduces the overall amount of water used to make products. In addi-tion, eco-friendly chemicals and dyes are used for the processing and finishing that further lowers the impact on environment.

■ The brand makes extensive use of social network-ing platforms to create greater awareness among the masses about sustainable practices. Its website has a carbon emission calculator that helps evalu-ate a person’s share of pollution. The brand has col-

“

“

While it is essential that we create profit for our shareholders, it is just as essential that we create value for our communities. We have always focused on the importance of eco-consciousness and has embraced it as one of the key objectives with the goal to inspire the next generation of enthusiasts and increase their participation in conservation of nature.— Harkirat Singh, Managing Director, Woodland.

WooDlaND


Cover Story


laborated with MTV to launch ECO-LUTION, a digital campaign encouraging youth to plant trees and preserve the environment.

■ Woodland constantly looks for opportunities to tie up with environmentally conscious NGOs to pro-mote eco-friendly initiatives in the community.

■ The brand’s work culture fosters eco-consciousness and employee level participation in eco-friendly activities. Employees are trained in issues of social responsibility. The organization focuses its efforts by: assessing, promoting and assisting factories in improving their working environment; communi-cating, educating and motivating employees and partners to seize opportunities to reduce environ-mental impact and supporting communities where we operate.

H&M, Hennes & Mauritz AB, the Swedish interna-tional retailer, is known for fashion and quality in a sustainable way. Sustainability is part of H&M’s DNA and it will continue its responsible retailing practices in India as it does internationally.


■ The H&M head office has a department dedicated to sustainability with 20 people responsible for de-veloping strategic directives, reviewing progress, and supporting and advising all relevant depart-ments on the development and implementation of prioritised ‘Conscious Actions’ based on continued stakeholder engagement, business intelligence and innovation research. The department sets priori-ties, new trends and recommended goals and ac-tions to each department.

■ Besides these department specific goals, country managers are measured against our 4C scorecard (Cash, Customers, Colleagues, Conscious), which gives all four areas equal importance.

■ Twice a year, H&M CEO, CFO and Head of Sus-tainability review the progress made. With the same frequency, the head of sustainability reports

H&m

▶ Shoes and sandals made from recycled material


“

“

I am proud of the positive impact we are making. We are leading the way today within several sustainability areas and I want us to continue to raise the bar. I am so happy to see that sustainability is on the minds of so many people at H&M – every day and in all depart-ments. I believe companies that take responsibility for people and the environment will be the most successful in the long run.— Karl-Johan Persson, CEO, H&M

performance against key sustainability indicators to the Board of Directors.

■ About 130 people from H&M’s sustainability teams operate from 21 locally based production offices around the world. They work directly with the sup-pliers to support them in complying with the com-pany’s Sustainability Commitment, helping make its supply chain more sustainable.

■ About 50 ‘Conscious Coordinators’ work in dif-ferent departments and country offices supporting the implementation of H&M’s global sustainability strategy in their organisations.

■ Organic, recycled and Better Cotton represents 31% of its total cotton use. The goal is 100% by 2020. The retailer has aims to replace solvent based glues in production of footwear and other acces-sories by 2020.

■ In 2013, H&M set in place a garment collecting system, where customers could drop off their un-wanted garments - no matter what brand and what condition – at H&M stores. By the end of 2015, al-most all H&M stores around the globe offered this service. For new stores garment collecting services are up within six months after the opening. For franchise markets, at least one store per market of-fers recycling options. Once the old garments have been dropped off in a store, H&M’s partner col-lects and sorts them into three categories: Rewear – clothing that can be worn again, to be sold as sec-ond hand clothes; Reuse – old clothes and textiles to be turned into other products, such as cleaning cloths; Recycle – clothes to be turned into textile fibres, and used for things like insulation.

■ H&M works with its suppliers to truly integrate sustainability into their management systems by providing training and conduct management sys-tem analysis.

■ 78% of the electricity H&M used in 2015 came from renewable sources.

■ All H&M clothes are marked with the Clevercare label. Tips to care for clothes in an environment-friendly way are shared on it company website.

■ The retailers ties up with environmentally green transport companies and opts for rail or sea trans-port where possible to increase transport efficien-cy.

■ In 2013 H&M Group partnered with WWF to develop a holistic strategy for water stewardship targeting four key themes: improving the use of water; building water awareness; collective action and measuring water impact and risk. In March 2016, the retailer partnered with the WWF again, in a five year partnership. The focus is still on water stewardship, but also includes climate action and a strategic dialogue related to H&M and the textile industry’s broader sustainability challenges.

Impact

More than 12,000 tonnes of garments were collected at H&M stores in 2015. That’s as much textile fabric as in more than 60 million t-shirts. The total collec-tion since 2013 has been 34,000 tonnes of clothing for reuse and recycling. Greenhouse gas emissions were down by 56% in 2015. The impact on its brand im-age as a responsible retailer that cares for the planet is invaluable.


Cover Story


Sahakari Bhandar is a chain of neighbourhood super-market based in Mumbai serving communities in the city since over 40 years. With over 22 branches stra-tegically located across the city, Sahakari Bhandar has been at the forefront of sustainable retailing practices. Their thrust though has been on educating and en-couraging the customer to be environment friendly through various initiatives.


■ Distribution of over 50,000 cotton carry bags to customers back in 2011 to help curb the usage of plastic bags. Once customers shifted from plastic bags to cotton carry bags, the retailer extended a .05% green discount to customers encouraging to bring their own cotton bag.

■ Tie up with the NGO RUR (which stands for R U Reducing, Reusing, Recycling) for creating aware-ness among customers on sustainable practices. Representatives from the NGO come to the store and educate people on reducing plastic bag con-sumption and using cotton bags.

■ Collection and recycling of Tetra Pak packaging. All 22 Sahakari Bhandar stores have containers to collect discarded Tetra Pak containers, where the store encourages customers to drop their discard-ed Tetra Paks. Representatives from Ragpicker’s as-sociation – the store’s logistics partner – collect the packs and take them to Tetra Pak recycling plant set up at Palghar for a nominal fee. The packs are then recycled and converted into stationery, park

“

“

Customers feel obliged to Sahakari Bhandar for having helped them become good citizens of the city. Such initiatives bear well for our brand name and brand perception. People perceive us as a brand that cares for the environment, a brand that is ethical and conscious and that will therefore not cheat and be competitively priced.— Vinay Adhye, Sahakari Bhandar

and school benches and other furniture. “Initially, to incentivise customers to take the effort to rinse the Tetra Paks, flatten them and bring all the way to our store, we gave goodies. For instance, one book made from recycled packs for every 10 packs brought. Some customers did this for the notebook, others did it for the environment. We have discon-tinued the scheme because of the cost involved.

▶ Customers are encouraged to drop discarded tetra pak containers at the store

Sahakari bhaNDar


Also, we believe that a good deed is to be done for its own sake and not for getting something in re-turn,” informed Adhye.

■ Extending the initiative to beyond the store. Sa-hakari Bhandar approaches schools to participate in Tetra Pak recycling project. There are 30 schools in Mumbai including Arya Vidya Mandir, Dhirub-hai Ambani School, American School, Petit School, Bombay Scottish, Don Bosco that have these bins and the children bring used Tetra Paks from homes and drop them in the bins. The different divisions compete among themselves to see which class col-lects the most. Next, the retailer approached cor-porates that have canteens and gated complexes. With societies the retailer offers an entire suite of solutions wet and dry garbage recycling, Tetra Pak and water recycling and using solar lamps. For every 4500 Tetra Packs collected, the society gets either a park or a school bench. The school bench is donated on behalf of the society to a school that needs it.

Impact

The drive to use cotton carry bags received a great re-sponse and Sahakari Bhandar’s plastic bag consump-tion reduced by 60%.

“Customers feel obliged to Sahakari Bhandar for hav-ing helped them become good citizens of the city. Such initiatives bear well for our brand name and brand perception. People perceive us as a brand that cares for the environment, a brand that is ethical and conscious and that will therefore not cheat and be competitively priced. They go very well with brand values,” said Till today 150 benches made of recycled Tetra Paks have been donated to deprived schools.

▶ Furniture made from recycled tetrapak on display at

Sahakari Bhandar stores

▶ plates made from recycled sugar cane pulp for sale at

Sahakari Bhandar stores

▶ Electronic waste collection drum kept at stores


Retail CFO Summit

36 | StOrai | November - December 2016

as retail evolves, chief finance officers (CFOs) have to take on a much different role than they have been accustomed to. Today’s CFOs need to look beyond bal-ance sheets and think business. They need

to be able to manage change and tackle a number of challenging situations that emerge out various key influencing forces like organisation, technology, envi-ronment, people and processes.

“Retailers today need CFOs to go beyond be-ing number crunchers. Unless they have a business sense, the number crunching capability is very limit-ing. They have to move from being cost controllers to being risk managers. In addition to managing the status quo, CFOs of today need to work shoulder-to-shoulder with the CEOs to drive business growth,”

said Rahul Mehta, President - Clothing Manufactur-ers Association of India & MD- Creative Garments Pvt, delivering the keynote address at the Retail CFO Summit 2016.

A one-of-its-kind initiative by Retailers Association of India (RAI), the Summit brought together various stakeholders of the industry on a common platform to share, discuss and deliberate on one of the most important aspects of retail i.e Finance. In keeping with the transformation sweeping retail, the Summit revolved around the theme: The changing retail land-scape: New Market. New Rules.

“It provided an excellent platform to discuss the evolving role of the CFO in today’s business as an ena-bler to business,” said Mehta.

“The CFO Summit brought to the table some of the

Changing times, Changing rulesThe Retail CFO Summit uncovered several new trends in finance and funding in retail. It also threw light on the changing role of today's CFO...

cfo-2016.indd 36 24/11/2016 6:15:45 PM

2. CEOs and CFOs need to focus on operating model: “For any retailer to get sustained funding requires a very sound operating model. If there is a clear thought, strategy and objective then funding can come from several sources,” Ashwin Khasgiwala, Di-rector & Chief Financial Controller, Reliance Retail.

3. Traditional ways are out, innovation is in: Tra-ditional ways of managing can only lead to more of the same. Retailers need to find new ways of fund-ing, and the CFO needs to help drive that. “We can no longer rely on traditional means of getting funds but find innovative ways for it. For instance, Big Ba-zaar a programme where customers pay us in advance for 10 months and get free shopping in the 11th and 12th month. This helps fund business as well as creates

stickiness of the customer,” said CP Toshniwal, ED, Future Life-style Fashions Ltd. (FLFL) & CFO, Future Retail Ltd. (FRL). Adding to this Vinod Menon, Group President – Finance, Landmark Group India said, “Innovative financing is not only about making money for yourself. You need to work with partners and all the stakehold-

ers even customers to together make money and grow the business.”

4. Technology is changing finance in retail as well: Two most visible areas of technology revolution are: payments and gifting. However, technology is entering other areas too. “Machine learning is enter-ing finance and funding as well, increasing efficien-cies and helping mine customer data,” said Shridar Jayakumar, Cognitive Solutions (Watson & Analytics Solutions), Sales Leader (India & South Asia), IBM. “Retailers need to adopt technology fast or risk being obsolete,” Kailash Kulkarni, CEO, L&T Mutual Fund. Pay-per-use models of technology are business and balance-sheet friendly.

The insightful discussions uncovered several prac-tical insights that the CFOs and retailers present could use to succeed in the changing retail landscape.

most sensitive issues of retail, including loss preven-tion, funding, profits and finance. Industry stalwarts had a productive dialogue in which they shared best practic-es, ideas and insights on money matters to help the industry move towards sustainable and profitable growth,” said Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India.

The key sessions included

■ Money matters: Roadblocks in Retail Funding

■ Driving innovation and Business Growth using Technology

■ Navigating the taxation maze (Special focus on GST)■ Fraud detection and Loss Prevention.

Top Themes ThaT emerged from The day’s discussions:

1. CFOs have to move from being managers to leaders: The CFO has to work with the promoters/CEOs to grow the business, and not just advise on con-trolling costs. CFOs, with their astounding knowledge about numbers, can be excellent at strategy. Therefore, retailers today are relying heavily on their CFOs to be pre-facto advisors on investments rather than on cost control. There is a much larger mantle they now have to don. “CFO is now a business partner,” said Vinay Gupta, CFO, Skechers.

▶ rahul mehta, president - clothing manufacturers associa-tion of india & md- creative garments pvt. ltd.

→ “Retailers need CFOs to go beyond being number crunchers. Unless they have a business sense, the number crunching capability is limiting. ” Rahul Mehta, MD - Creative Garments

cfo-2016.indd 37 25/11/2016 5:33:44 PM

Retail CFO Summit


▶ l-R: anil talreja, Partner, Deloitte; ashwin Khasgiwala, Director & Chief Financial Controller, Reliance Retail; CP toshniwal, eD, Future lifestyle Fashions ltd. (FlFl) & CFO, Future Retail ltd. (FRl); Deepak Kumar Bansal, CFO, essar Retail; Vinay Gupta, CFO, Skechers and Vinod menon, Group President – Finance, landmark Group india

▶ l-R: Shridar Jayakumar, Cognitive Solutions (Watson & analytics Solutions), Sales leader (india & South asia), iBm; Kailash Kulkarni, CeO, l&t mutual Fund; Rajiv Warrier, CeO, Sodexo; Raghu Rajagopalan, President – Finance, max; Vijay Jain, CFO, HyperCitY Retail (india) ltd. Venkatesalu P, eD- Finance, trent limited and Kumar Rajagopalan, CeO, Rai

▶ l-R: Sanjay Chakravarti, CFO, Shoppers Stop ltd; Pratap Swarup, CFO, Bestseller Retail (india); Nitin Khanna, CFO , inorbit malls (india) Pvt. ltd.; Dinesh maheshwari, CFO, Future Retail ltd.; Bibek agrawala, CFO, lifestyle Business, Raymond and Naveen Duggal, CFO, Foodworld Supermarkets Pvt. ltd

"For any retailer to get sustained funding requires a very sound operating model. If there is a clear thought, strategy and objective then funding can come from several sources."

- Ashwin Khasgiwala,Reliance Retail

"It is increasingly getting technology first rather than technology itself. There are a lot of interesting ways in which technology is impacting retail."

- Venkatesalu P,Trent Limited

"GST is not just a finance agenda; It is a supply chain and procurement issue as well. Therefore, the entire organisation has to be aligned to it."

- Bibek Agrawala,Raymond

PAneL DIScuSSIon: Money MATTeRS: RoADBLocKS In ReTAIL FunDInG

PAneL DIScuSSIon: DRIVInG InnoVATIon AnD BuSIneSS GRowTh uSInG TechnoLoGy

PAneL DIScuSSIon: nAVIGATInG The TAxATIon MAze (SPecIAL FocuS on GST)

quoTe oF The houR

quoTe oF The houR

quoTe oF The houR

cfo-2016.indd 38 25/11/2016 5:34:13 PM

Retail CFO Summit


▶ l-R: Hasmukh Patel, Head – loss Pre-vention at Future Group; tanmay Kumar, CFO, Burger King india; Rohit mahajan, Partner, Deloitte; Radha Ramanujan, CFO & Head Commercial, max Hypermarkets P ltd - landmark Group; Himanshu Gupta, Chief Financial Officer, RWL Healthworld Ltd.; Mukesh Lakhotia, CFO, Twentyfour Seven Convenience Stores; Jayesh Patel, CFO, Head - logistics, Business Head - ecommerce, Globus Stores Pvt. ltd. and Matthew Dunn, Senior Consultant, Oracle Retail

Panel Discussion - FrauD Detection anD loss Prevention

▶ Suresh Punjabi, Head - internal audit, Future Group

MoDerator

- anil talreja, Partner,Deloitte Haskins & sells llP

The theme of the CFO Summit 2016 was quite apt and well timed, given the large number of new entrants in the market and the changing regulations (specifically referring to GST, funding and FDI). Some of these regulatory changes not only impact the filings, compliances made by companies, but they also have a direct impact on the business of the players. The impact could be in the form of change in supply chain, financial model or technology platform.

It was good to have a large number of senior finance professionals in one room as it led to the emergence of divergent views on various topical issues currently facing the industry. In addition, it revealed insights on critical economic indicators such as inflation and balance of payments among others.

partner speak

cfo-2016.indd 40 25/11/2016 5:40:22 PM

Retail CFO Summit

November - December 2016 | StOrai | 41

cfo-2016.indd 41 25/11/2016 5:40:48 PM

Review CRS 2016


Modern retail in India is growing at a rate of 12% and the rate is expected to accel-erate in the coming years. In fact, global research predicts modern retail to grow

seven times its current size by 2025. Chennai, one of India’s oldest retail destinations, is among the fast-est growing markets within the country with several leading shopping centre brands developing properties here. In order to help retailers in the region be a part of the growth story, RAI had organised the Chennai Retail Summit focused on the theme ‘It’s All About Growth’.

“Every retailer should not just aim for growth but also plan for it. Growth keeps retailers on their toes,

forces them to look at the big picture and insulates them from turbulence. One could grow by market penetration — taking one’s products to similar mar-kets through other channels; by concept development — introducing logic extensions of products or servic-es; or by diversification — targeting a new consumer segment with new products/services. Or one could simply grow one’s customer base or increase ticket size. Irrespective of the type of growth one chooses, it’s important to have a solid strategy in place. This year’s edition of the Chennai Retail Summit was aimed at helping retailers learn all this and more,” Ku-mar Rajagopalan CEO, Retailers Association of India said about the Summit.

It was ‘all about Growth’Chennai Retail Summit 2016 brought together retailers from diverse formats and markets to deliberate on ways to expand their horizons and their business

crs-2016.indd 42 25/11/2016 5:41:36 PM

3. “We must focus on growth that is competi-tive, sustainable, holistic and internal; that is the need of the hour,” said Mohit Dhanjal, Director - Retail, Raymond Ltd.

4. “Ingredients of success: Freshness, efficiency, and bringing a sense of ownership at store level. With regards to food retail, better, faster and cheaper are the three mantras for success,” said Murali Krishnan, CEO, Nilgiris Dairy Farm Pvt Ltd.

5. “Catering to customers in terms of range, experience and price is important in a digital world where changes are drastic. Also, the personal touch with the customers is more important than the prod-ucts we sell,” said Karthikeyan Murugan.

6. “The future growth of the business lies in making the service people and product agnostic,” CK Kumaravel, Co-Founder, Naturals.

7. “As entrepreneurs, we must not get tied down only by one idea,” said S Shriram, MD, Smiling Baby.

Some of the main SeSSionS of the Summit included:

■ It’s All About Growth■ Food Retail: Ingredients for Success■ Retail of today: New Game New Rules■ Taking Customer Experience to the Next Level

Leading retailers from around the region such as Vivek Pvt Ltd, Nalli Silk Sarees, Nilgiris Dairy Farm, and Naidu Hall Family Store, Nuts n Spices as well as national players such as Shoppers Stop, Raymond Ltd, Shop CJ had all convened on the common plat-form to discuss and deliberate on the most profitable ways to grow in the current volatile and digitally-driven market.

Sharing the secret of his success and phenomenal business growth, Padmashree award recipient, Dr. Nalli Kuppuswami Chetti, Founder, Nalli Slik Sarees said during the inaugural address, “After reading Ma-hatma Gandhi’s autobiography, I kept truth & nonvio-lence as my trade principles when I started my busi-ness. And I strongly believe that is what lead to the success of my business.”

Some of the buSineSS inSightS uncovered at the Summit

1. “We must understand the competitors’ weak-ness and improve upon our strengths to thrive in an environment where there will be international play-ers entering the Indian market,” said T Thanushgaran, Chairman & MD, Shri Kannan Departmental Store.

2. “The two factors for growth in the changing scenario are: product range, and size & location of shops,” said B A Srinivasa, Joint MD, Vivek Pvt Ltd

▶ dr. nalli Kuppuswami chetti, founder, nalli Slik Sarees

▶ t. thanushgaran, chairman & md, Shri Kannan departmental Store Pvt. ltd.

▶ chozha naachiar rajasekar, President, the tamil chamber of commerce

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REVIEW CRS 2016


partners at Chennai retail summit 2016

together to create a festive shopping experience for the Chennai consumers for the Diwali month from 7th October to 3rd november.

as part of CsF, all the brands and each partici-pating store provided fabulous festive offers and dis-counts for consumers. all participating stores carried the branding collateral to entice shoppers to log onto www.chennaishoppingfestival.com that displayed the brand offers. Customers could login with their phone numbers to avail the offers via sms, which could be redeemed at the participating retail outlet.

several leading retailers and brands in Chennai including Basics, Viveks, naidu hall, indian terrain, raymonds, Girias, sangeetha, naturals and Green trends among others participated in this shopping festival.

■ Gst – The next steps and what business needs to do

PROPEllINg gROWTh

in continuing its efforts towards helping retailers grow, rai used the Chennai retail summit platform to make a very significant announcement: The launch of rai Globallinker, an online business networking platform.

The feature-rich platform makes establishing new business connections; setting up eCommerce stores, and staying informed of trends, technology and tech-niques fast and easy and promises to change the way retailers in india do business.

The summit also witnessed the flagging off of an-other significant initiative: The Chennai shopping Festival. more than 30 brands and 350 retailers came

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REVIEW CRS 2016

November - December 2016 | STOrai | 45

▶ L-R: Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India; B.A. Srinivasa, JMD, Vivek Pvt. Ltd.; Vasanth Kumar, ED, Max Fashion Retail; Mohit Dhanjal, Director - Retail, Raymond Ltd and Dhruva Chandrie, COO, SHOP CJ Network Pvt. Ltd.

▶ L-R: Sunil Sanklecha, Founder, Nuts 'N' Spices; Murali Krishnan, CEO, Nilgiris Dairy Farm Pvt Ltd; Senthil Natarajan, Managing Partner, Kovai Pazhamudir Nilayam and Harris Abdulla, MD, Fruit Shop on Greams Road

The two factors for growth in the changing scenario are: product range and size & location of the shops.

- B A Srinivasa,Viveks Pvt Ld

Ingredients of success in food retail are: freshness, efficiency, and a sense of ownership at store level. And the mantra for success in food industry is better, faster and cheaper

- Murali Krishnan,Nilgiris Dairy Farm

PANeL DIScuSSIoN: It’S ALL ABout Growth

PANeL DIScuSSIoN - FooD retAIL: INGreDIeNtS For SucceSS

cheNNAI ShoPPING FeStIVAL LAuNch

quote oF the hour

quote oF the hour

▶ K. T. Srinivasa Raja, MD, Adyar

Ananda Bhavan Sweets India Pvt. Ltd.

PreSeNtAtIoN

crs-2016.indd 45 25/11/2016 5:43:10 PM

REVIEW CRS 2016


▶ L-R: Suhail Sattar, MD, HASBRO Clothing Pvt Ltd; L Subhash Chandra , MD, Sangeetha Mobiles Pvt Ltd; Suresh Jain, MD, Kesar Gift Mart; CK Kumaravel, Co-Founder, Naturals; Muhammad Razak, CEO, Bubly Superstores Pvt. Ltd. and Dr. Nanjan Balu, Director, Cos-mos Sports World LLP

The future growth of the business lies in making the service people and product agnostic.

- CK Kumaravel, Naturals

PaNel DisCussioN - TaKiNg CusTomer exPerieNCe To The NexT level

quoTe of The hour

▶ L-R: Balachandar R, Founder & CEO, Wassup Laundry; Vinay Bysani, AVP Projects - Vivek Pvt. Ltd.; S. Shriram, MD, Smiling Baby; Omar Sait, MD, Gatsby Collection Pvt Ltd; Kaushik Sunku, Director, Sunku Lifestyle Pvt. Ltd. and Karthikeyan Murugan, Director, Jyothi Textiles & Dresses

The personal touch with the customers is more important than the products we sell.

- Karthikeyan murugan,

Jyothi Textiles & Dresses

PaNel DisCussioN - reTail of ToDay New game, New rules

quoTe of The hour

▶ Viswaroobhan G, South India

Head, Strategic Alliances & Brand

Partnership, Zeta

▶ Srinath S, Associate Partner, Dhruva Advisors LLP

▶ Vikas Chawla, Co-founder, Social

Beat & Co-Founder, InfluencerPreseNTaTioN PreseNTaTioN

PreseNTaTioN

crs-2016.indd 46 25/11/2016 5:43:40 PM

RepoRt


IHGF DelHI FaIr-aUTUMN 2016

wHere THe worlD sHopsIHGF Delhi Fair-AUTUMN 2016 organised by Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts is the world’s largest comprehensive show that offers matchless sourcing opportunity for Indian Retail

n By Team RAI

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A key and comprehensive meeting ground for importers, wholesalers, retailers and professionals seeking the best of home, lifestyle, fashion and textiles across a spec-trum of classic and contemporary styles -

IHGF Delhi Fair has taken shape over 42 editions as the world’s largest sourcing event, encompassing the complete supply chain of home fashion & utility, col-lectibles, gifting and fashion accessories. The Autumn 2016 edition of the fair, held from 14th to 18th Octo-ber 2016, at India Expo Centre & Mart, Greater Noi-da Expressway, New Delhi NCR, featured over 2950

participants in 14 well-defined segments. Visitors also had access to the 900 marts, located on four levels at the sprawling India Expo Centre.

Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Union Minister of Textiles inaugurated the exhibition in a colourful ceremony. Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State (I/C) for Tour-ism and Culture, Shri Ajay Tamta, Union Minister of State for Textiles, Smt. Vimla Batham, Member of Leg-islative Assembly, Uttar Pradesh, Shri Dinesh Kumar, Chairman – EPCH, Shri Naved Ur Rehman President of the fair, Mrs. Leela Bordia and Shri Kishore Kumar Bhansali, Vice Presidents of the fair, Shri Rakesh Ku-


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“

mar, Executive Director- EPCH and Chairman, IEML, Members of committee of Administration, press and media from India and abroad were present during in-augural ceremony.

WiDe vaRiety

Enriching the sourcing experience, this edition of IHGF saw significant expansion in all categories with a wide assortment of creations. On display were art metal ware, EPNS ware, wood carvings, furniture & accessories, glassware, fashion jewellery & accesso-ries, hand-printed textiles, shawls, stoles & scarves, embroidered goods, lace, toys, houseware, decorative, gifts & general handicrafts, home textiles and home accessories, candles & incense, pottery, terracotta & ceramics, nautical instruments, Christmas and floral decorations, dry flowers & potpourri, handmade pa-per products, in addition to crafts made of leather, lac-quer, marble and other material. The number of prod-uct lines increased from 1460 last year to over 2000 this year.

Exhibitors hailed from all major manufacturing hubs, artisan clusters and craft pockets of India. The five-day business rendezvous, witnessed a heady flow of buyers and trade visitors, overseas and Indian me-dia, business negotiations, enquiries, order placing, signing of buyer-seller contracts, informative semi-nars, interactive sessions, live craft demonstrations, vi-brant cultural performances, etc. Buyers from over 110 countries and regions visited with impressive numbers from USA, Germany, UK, Australia, France, Japan and China, with new buyers from countries as diverse as Tunisia, Syria, Cyprus, Kyrgyzstan and Panama. Rake-sh Kumar, Executive Director – EPCH, informed that there was a 40 % increase in the number of countries participating in this edition.

CateRiNg to DomeStiC DemaND

Responding to the retail and e-tail advancement in In-dia, organizers of IHGF Delhi Fair, Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH), have also opened their doors to domestic volume retail buyers, interior designers and architects. Many of the Indian stores/wholesale buyers and leading e-commerce chains keen

“We have been participating in IHGF fairs since several years and are very satisfied with them as they are a source of good business. Moreover, EPCH does its best to put us in touch with good buyers. This year the fair has served as an important gateway for us to enter the Indian market.Kishan Kamaliya, Shiva Industrial Corporation, Kolkata

I had visited the fair last year and decided to participate in it. I am really happy with the response I have received. The fair has helped us make inroads into the domestic market. We have met several potential customers and even have a few sampling orders in the kitty. EPCH is incredible and extends full support even to first timers like us.Ashish Jain, Arihant exports, Varanasi

“participant speak

“


RepoRt

November - December 2016 | Storai | 51

In course of the fair EPCH organized a “Round Table Conference on Retail and e-Commerce” on 15th October,

2016, at the India Expo Centre that brought together Mr. Kumar Rajagopalan, Chief Executive Officer, Retailers Association of India, as the moderator and Mr. Vikram Chitnis, Business Head, Shoppers Stop; Mr. Nitin Jain, Managing Director - J.Nitin Mer-chandising & INV Home; Mr. Vikas Dhingra – Partner, Special-ity Merchandising Services Pvt Ltd.; Mr. Karan Jethwani, Propri-etor, International Trade Link-ers and Coordinator-Domestic Retail Promotions at EPCH; and O P Prahladka, Vice Chairman, EPCH, among speakers and par-ticipants. The roundtable discus-sion provided an insight into the market size of online and retail sector in India and a wider per-

spective of India’s retail stature as well as potential of handicraft exporters to cater to domestic de-mand and help the Indian econ-omy while helping the country earn forex.

Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, RAI, initiated the discussion highlighting the potential of the domestic market in the present scenario and explaining why it should be preferred over exports. “India is flourishing, there’s a lot happening. Considering the population of our country and the increased purchasing power, there is a huge untapped market in India itself, which exporters should consider,” he said.

Judging by product popular-ity and sales in the Indian retail segment, Vikram Chitnis, Busi-ness Head, Shoppers Stop, said that the present market can focus on metal, brass, handicrafts and

lighting products out of the In-dian handicrafts basket.

In addition, he informed that home segment was poised for growth and would be 2.5% of modern retail in 2020, which is expected to touch trillion dollars by 2020. “The opportunity for exports to sell in India is tremen-dous,” he said.

Nitin Jain, MD, J.Nitin Mer-chandising & INV Home, said, India is going through a big phase of consumerism and we are not far behind the US market. It’s all because young people are taking up the market, wanting comfort first and readily paying the price for it. e-Commerce has helped the Indian market in an unex-pected way, reaching out to every single corner of the globe.

“Realising the demand, several exporters have quit exports and

Round Table ConfeRenCe on ReTail and e-CommeRCe-3600

maRkeTing - Home and beyond

▶ FRom R – L: KumaR RajagopaLaN, Ceo, RaI, NItIN jaIN, mD, j NItIN meRChaNDISINg, o. p. pRahLaDKa, VICe ChaIRmaN - epCh, KaRaN jethwaNI, pRop. INtL tRaDe LINKeRS & VIKRaN ChItNIS


RepoRt


have gone domestic full-time,” informed Vikas Dhingra, – Part-ner , Speciality Merchandising Services Pvt Ltd.

Karan Jethwani, Proprietor, International Trade Linkers; and Co-coordinator for Domestic Retail Promotions, EPCH, said

“there has been 20-30% increase in buying from India. Major do-mestic buyers are looking for good vendors. It is an opportune time to build a brand now.”

Urging exporters to consider domestic market O P Prahlad-ka, Vice Chairman, EPCH said,

“There’s a lot of business in do-mestic market. In fact, imports from China are impacting do-mestic sale. Opportunities are unlimited; the intent and effort has to be there. My advice to ex-porters is start with 10% to do-mestic market.”

to source international quality products within India pre-regis-tered to visit. EPCH had arranged for the buyers to visit the fair and meet suppliers as per their require-ments. As many as 1352 exhibitors displayed the symbol ‘SR’ (Source for Retail) at their stalls indicating that they were open to domestic retail buyers. Nearly 2,700 domes-tic volume buyers had the oppor-tunity of sourcing at IHGF Delhi Fair.

Domestic volume buyers al-ready patronizing the show in-clude Westside, Home Stop, Home Town, Archies, @home, The Good

Earth, Godrej & Boyce, The Bom-bay Store, The Furniture Repub-lic, DLF Brands Ltd.(Pure Home & Living). Among e-Commerce groups, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Pep-perfry, Urban Ladder, Ajio.com and many more.

IHGF Delhi Fair-Autumn 2016 offered an exclusive opportunity for Indian retail brands that strive to step-up their offer for top-end consumers, besides the global home & lifestyle retail brands/chains which have a growing in-terest in India-both for sourcing as well as retailing. It is a single platform to conduct business and

source export quality lifestyle products that adorn the shelves of renowned global chains like Hobby Lobby, Target, Pier1 Imports, Zara Home, IKEA, Marks & Spencer, Ralph Lauren, etc.

Supported by the 2700 domestic trade visitors, the Fair generated export volume of Rs 2950 crores this year representing an increase of around 10% over the last year.

“

“

When we had considered opening to volume domestic buying two years ago, there were very few exporters looking at the domestic market. Even today, many are unable to gauge the potential of our own market, specially the e-Commerce segment. That said, in this 42nd edition of IHGF Delhi Fair, there were over a thousand exhibitors open to talk business to domestic market buyers, and many from Jodhpur and DelhiNCR are already doing sizable business through domestic retail and e-Commerce market. Moradabad and some other clusters are also slowly joining the band wagon.Rakesh Kumar, Executive Director, EPCH and Chairman, India Expo Centre & Mart

Next eDitioN

IHGF Delhi Fair – Spring 2017 is scheduled from 16th to 20th February, 2017.


Strategy


Three simple yet probing questions the leadership team of every retail organisation must ask itself

Mirror check

It can be quite dangerous to believe that you are better than the competition when the customer evaluates your product offering in isolation and out of context. When I was at Sears our research regularly told us that our target consumers

viewed us as the best provider of appliances and tools. Yet we continued to leak market share.

1. HOw gOOD are we? As it turns out, once customers checked out the appli-ance or tool offering at Home Depot and Lowes they learned that, while the product assortment wasn’t quite as good as ours, the prices were often better. And if they were doing a DIY home improvement project they could get everything they needed in one trip. Plus, having to jump back in the car and deal with the hassle of shopping in the mall added to the “cost” of buying from us. For many customers, at the moment of truth, Home Depot and Lowes were good enough.

The opposite side of good enough involves brands that managed to thrive for many years despite their mediocrity, despite their peddling rather average products for average people.

When consumers had few alternatives, little access to information about their options and weren’t all that demanding, they had little choice but to settle. Those days are rapidly disappearing. Today, in most instanc-es, folks are faced with a virtually infinite amount of choice, information and access. This reality lays bare the deficiencies of any brand for all to see.

Good enough no longer is (good enough).

2. wHere DO we aIm tO reacH?Maybe you’ve been to the famous comedian’s show where by far the biggest laughs come from the bits

you’ve already seen him do on Fallon. And Kimmel. And YouTube. And his five year old Netflix special.

Maybe you’ve excitedly gone to hear that market-ing guru at a big industry conference and grown wea-ry and uninterested when she begins by talking about her just released book, you know, the one you haven’t read. But you instantly light up again when she starts to riff on the ideas from a decade old tome that formed the basis of her TED talk that you’ve watched a half dozen times.

Maybe you’ve attended a concert by an iconic rock band and became impatient with the lead singer’s ex-tended stage patter. And then as soon as they start to play

n By Steve Dennis

Strategy.indd 54 25/11/2016 5:46:43 PM

the new stuff–or maybe some deep track from a classic album you’ve always skipped past—you know that’s your signal to head to the rest room or go grab a beer.

For any kind of artist–and we’re all artists now—it’s a whole lot easier to go for the well-tested laugh line, crank up the guaranteed crowd pleaser or simply default to the thing that made you popular (or at least accepted) in the first place. As it turns out, most of us like safety and there is safety in the familiar.

Organizations and brands aren’t a whole lot dif-ferent. Most non-profits turn again and again to golf tournaments and galas to raise money. In the CPG (consumer packaged goods) world, the core strategy is to churn out seemingly endless iterations of best sellers. And just about every retailer goes back to the well over and over again with minor tweaks to long-standing merchandising and marketing practices.

Yet the evidence is clear. Eventually we grow tired of the greatest hits. What worked well for so long, no longer does. And with more and more art and content and ideas and disruption being produced literally by the second–accessible to nearly everybody at any time, anywhere–what once seemed remarkable is anything but.

Is there an audience who only wants regurgitated versions of what you or your organization has always done, who can’t possibly accept new material, who has no interest in being challenged? Perhaps.

Is that the audience that is going to get you to where you need to be?

3. Are we telling the right story?You sell a product that is losing out to online on price and convenience?

Stop chasing your tail in the pursuit of ever lower prices or fanciful plans to get into the same-day de-

livery business. Tell a better story; one rooted in deep customer relevance and remarkability.

You run a non-profit that has trouble getting the attention of large donors?

Stop trotting out endless statistics and convoluted theories of change. Tell a better story, one that con-nects emotionally, paints a clear picture of a brighter future and inspires hope in a new and different way.

You see yourself as someone who has to do some-thing to prove their worthiness?

Stop repeating the false narrative of victimhood or original sin. Tell a better story, one that rejects the abusive programming from your childhood and one that embraces the gifts of imperfection.

I get it. Facts can’t diverge from an experienced real-ity forever. But far fewer things are actually facts than we tend to think. And besides, data without a soul, an inspiration or an ultimate hero, is often meaningless.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it’s a lousy business strategy.

You may feel like you have facts on your side, but hearts and minds (and wallets) rarely open up to the overwhelming force of logic.

The best way to claim our worthiness–to believe we are enough, we have enough and we that do enough-is to buy into the story until it rings true. Until it be-comes habit.

People buy the story before they buy the product.

If nobody’s buying the product (even when that product is you) maybe the time you spend trying to be like everyone else or burnishing your PowerPoint would be better spent crafting a better story, believing in it and watching it spread.

Steve Dennis is a consultant, speaker and writer on retail innovation, omni-channel strategy and marketing personalization. As President of SageBerry Consulting, he leverages more than 30 years of experience to help retail and luxury industry clients accelerate their growth and become more customer-centric. Prior to founding SageBerry, Steve was Senior Vice President of Strategy and Marketing for the Neiman Marcus Group and has held several leadership positions with Sears, before that. He has also been associated with companies like NatraSweet and Booz & Co. He shares his insights through his blog: stevepdennis.com.

Strategy.indd 55 25/11/2016 5:47:02 PM

Technology

56 | STorai | november - December 2016

Make offline clickThe right mix of design and technology can ensure high engagement levels at the store, resulting in higher sales

n By Ashok Ghose

Digital transformation has led to the pro-liferation of multiple channels that have helped retailers move to consumer-centric and solution-oriented models. In the last six years, ecommerce in India has grown

phenomenally. Goldman Sachs estimates the ecom-merce market in India to cross the $100 billion-mark by 2020. Yet, there exists a large group among mil-lennial shoppers who prefer shopping offline. Accord-ing to The 2015 Time Trade State of Retail study in the US, over 85 percent of consumers still prefer in-store

shopping. Consumers today prefer phygital experi-ences that bring together the best of digital and physi-cal retail. This puts the onus on businesses for deliv-ering superior customer experiences. Yet, Congnizant found that less than 12 per cent retailers are able to offer omni-channel experiences.

ShifT To PhygiTal

Why is this crucial? Today, 95 per cent purchase deci-sions are based on a combination of online, mobile and in-store interactions between a consumer and a brand.

Technology.indd 56 25/11/2016 5:47:36 PM

Technology

Keeping this in mind, brands from across categories of products and services are donning a new avatar, which is modest and not pushy. This avatar is not just about competitive pricing but about creating a long-term de-votion towards brands with the help of the right phy-gital experience. It brings together RFID tags, digital associates, social buzz, virtual dressing rooms and af-ter-hours pick up, among numerous possibilities.

The offline advanTage

A survey by PwC indicated 66 per cent still value the offline experience at a physical store due to the ability to see, touch and try the merchandise; immediate avail-ability of the product; and being more certain about fit or suitability. Even in categories where consumers predominantly buy online, a significant percentage of consumers still research online and buy in-store.

Understanding the significance of a larger than life retail experience, many ecommerce players have in-vested in state-of-the-art experience centres. If they like something, the sales executive helps order from the company’s website. But it is even more important to differentiate this experience from a run-of-the-mill experience in a departmental store. How?

geTTing phygiTal

The right mix of design and technology can ensure high engagement levels at the store, resulting in higher sales. With online-to-offline business models mush-rooming around the world, today customer insight technology can blend software and hardware to cre-ate in-house data for retail brands, helping understand their customers better. App check-ins across airports, restaurants and clubs give clear ideas to retailers on profiles of customers and their preferences. This data can be used to tweak offerings and in some cases in-store displays of products and promotion material.

Then there is Augmented Reality (AR), which can

enhance the retail experience by blurring lines be-tween what’s real and what’s computer-generated. With the help of augmented reality, leading players in different categories of products and services have cre-ated unforgettable customer experiences. For exam-ple, toy maker Lego recently launched a new series of kiosks. When a shopper would hold up a Lego product in front of the kiosk, the screen will display the com-pleted model as if it were in her/his hands.

Pokémon Go, a location-based, augmented reality, multiplayer online mobile game that also supports its own custom wearable tech has gained immense popu-larity around the world. You look for the critters, catch them, train them and battle with them. It uses the real world to inform one’s game experience. The game uses a phone’s GPS sensors to track location of the player, and makes use of a stylized Google map as the pri-mary game board. Your character moves in the game as you walk around in real life, and events and objects – known as PokéStops – are associated with specific locations in the physical world. So far, top brands like Amazon, Mall of America and Whataburger, among others have built user engagement with Pokémon Go.

In recent times, retailers have leveraged AR tools to grow their businesses in the B2B space as well. Players like L’Oréal and Coca-Cola have invested in creating ap-plications to simulate life-size products in-store. Sales representatives of Coca-Cola Germany are now able to access full catalogue of coolers offline on their tablets. Later they can simulate 3D cooler configurations on-site for their customers. This way AR can expedite the sales process and increase the conversion rate.

Going forward, with more global players entering India, there will be a need to deploy cutting-edge tech-nology in-store to keep customers engaged. Both online and offline players must go back to the drawing board and re-strategize on how to make the most of one-on-one interactions with the consumers at the store.

Ashok Ghose, is the Senior Vice President – Postpaid at Tata Teleservices Limited. He is a seasoned professional with 23 years of experience across Sales and Marketing, which includes international stints. He has worked across industry segments from FMCG, semi durables to Telecom. He is a Post Graduate in Marketing from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kolkata.

Technology.indd 57 25/11/2016 5:47:49 PM


INDuSTry CONNeCT

retailers operating in a rapidly developing mar-ket such as India face some unique challenges as well as enormous opportunities to grow their business and take full advantage of the trans-formation in Indian retailing.

Openbravo has direct experience of both the opportu-nities and challenges, and has designed Openbravo Com-merce Suite to help retailers adapt to the specific require-ments of the Indian market, thereby achieving success.

Let’s look at six major business challenges that are com-monly found in an emerging market such as India and the key characteristics of Openbravo Commerce Suite that help retailers transform challenges into opportunities.

SIx key faCTOrS1. One of the most obvious challenges facing a retail-

er expanding in a market like India is the need to easily and rapidly deploy and maintain store systems within an aggres-sive expansion program of store openings. By choosing a modular, cloud-ready software platform such as Openbravo Commerce Suite, retailers can speed deployment and get a new store up and running in a day or less.

2. Business agility is key in emerging economies. The macroeconomic conditions can change rapidly and so can the competitive environment. Therefore, retailers need IT systems that can adapt to fast-changing requirements and respond to local market needs.

3. An issue that is particularly relevant to emerging countries is network reliability. To reduce the in-store IT foot-print, we offer the Openbravo Commerce Cloud with 24/7 monitoring and strong disaster recovery strategies, which is available around the globe. Openbravo can also operate in offline mode if network connectivity is suddenly lost.

4. Innovation and differentiation are winning factors that retailers need in order to stay ahead of increasing com-petition. The Openbravo modular architecture leverage new disruptive technologies such as cloud or mobile, and can be

easily integrated with new technologies such as RFID, bea-cons or mobile payments for innovative and differentiated shopping experiences.

5. How do you maximize employee productivity in a high-turnover industry like retailing? Openbravo has been designed to make it very easy to rapidly open new stores and train new hires.

6. Finally, there’s cost. Openbravo incorporates sev-eral features that reduce the need for upfront investments thereby significantly improving ROI, including subscription-based pricing and a mobile POS solution that runs on low-cost mobile devices.

affOrDable, prOveN SOluTIONOpenbravo Commerce Suite is a highly affordable solution, thanks to its subscription-based pricing and an architecture that significantly reduces the IT investment required in each store. It offers seamless integration with existing corporate systems, so simplifying multi-store management of chains irrespective of whether you have a few stores or a few hun-dred.

Openbravo Commerce Suite has already been selected by leading Indian retailers including M&B Footwear (Lee Cooper distributor), Decathlon Sports India or Oxford Bookstore.

Turn Challenges into Opportunities with Openbravo Commerce Suite

SOluTIONS fOr SuCCeSS IN INDIaOpeNbravO

Industry-connect-OpenBravo.indd 58 25/11/2016 5:49:30 PM

Industry ConneCt

60 | storai | november - december 2016

neW PAVILIon to sPotLIGHt tHe sMArt HoMe, ConneCted ProduCts

the future of housewares is quickly moving to-ward the smart home. With innovations from established and start-up companies, connected and smart products, once only a dream, are fast becoming a reality. The 2017 International Home

+ Housewares Show will spotlight these innovative house-wares products in the IHA Smart Home Pavilion. The 2017 Show will be held from March 18 to 21 at Chicago’s McCor-mick Place complex.

To be located in the Hall of Global Innovation in the Lake-side Center lobby, the IHA Smart Home Pavilion will feature up to 12 exhibitors of connected and smart products. The pavilion will include suppliers new to the International Home + Housewares Show as well as current exhibitors. Compa-nies will be selected by a jury of industry professionals and must meet exclusive criteria set by the industry experts.

“Connectivity is being incorporated into products all around – from light bulbs to coffee brewers to thermostats to ovens – and the IHA Smart Home Pavilion will spotlight these unique products that are changing the way we inter-act and live,” said Phil Brandl, president & CEO of the In-ternational Housewares Association, the Show’s owner and operator.

To help identify and recruit suitable companies that of-fer smart and connected products, IHA is working with two top influencers in the tech industry: Carley Knobloch and Mike Wolf. Carley Knobloch is a digital lifestyle expert and a regular contributor on the Today Show and CNN. She’s also a technology consultant and host for the HGTV Smart Home, where she makes smart homes easy, approachable and fun. Knobloch also has been featured in Real Simple, Allure, Redbook and Good Housekeeping. Her blog can be found at http://carleyk.com.

Mike Wolf is the creator and host of a leading smart home podcast, “The Smart Home Show.” He combines in-depth market analysis with insightful commentary on the latest

news and updates in the space. Wolf has also become a leading authority on the Smart Kitchen and is the founder of the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle, Wash. http://www.smartkitchensummit.com. The influencers will also create Show educational presentations on smart home develop-ments and promote housewares innovations to consumer media, Brandl informed.

In addition to the pavilion, smart products will also be recognized at the Show with a category in the IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia). All Show exhibitors can enter this category through submissions in the New Product Show-case. Finalists will be included in the New Product Show-cases in the Buyers Clubs and in the IHA Global Innovation Awards display in the Hall of Global Innovation. The winner of the smart home gia will be announced at the invitation-only gia gala dinner on Saturday, March 18.

Exhibitors will also be able to promote their smart home products through special signage, their Housewares Con-nect 365 profiles, the mobile app and Show directories.

The 2017 Show will feature more than 2,200 exhibi-tors from around the globe showcasing their new products throughout five expos and 62,000 total attendees. For more information and to register for your free entrance pass, visit www.housewares.org.

2017 InternAtIonAL HoMe + HouseWAres sHoW

Industry connect_IHA.indd 60 25/11/2016 5:48:34 PM


INDuSTry CONNeCT

Mumbai’s most popular shopping destination, Inorbit mall, Malad is all set to infuse new excitement in the shopping experience it offers. One of the first malls in Mumbai, In-orbit has come a long way with the support

of its patrons. With a view to enhance the shopping experi-ence, Inorbit Malad has revamped itself with an attractive ar-ray of fashion, ambience, lifestyle, food and entertainment. It has not just remixed the categories, but also has undergone a structural transformation.

WhaT’S NeW?The mall has witnessed many changes over a decade, but in the year 2016 the mall has experienced an unprecedented facelift. The mall rezoned its ground floor to welcome a new tenant mix. As many as 14 fresh brands, a swanky looking façade, a complete new circulation for ease of connectivity from parking to food court and the launch of fashion an-chor H&M are sure to wow every shopper. Other brands that made entry include Forever New, Kazo, Mina, Bobbi Brown, Steve Madden, Nail Spa and Global Desi. The mall offers the best in not just shopping but has also doubled the num-ber of dining options, currently housing 10 restaurants, 2 café’s and 11 popular food joints.

DIgITal & DelIveryThe mall constantly stays in touch with its customers digi-tally, with state-of-the-art mall directories placed strategi-cally inside the mall. In addition to the popular Inorbit app, there is a new facility and first of its kind in the industry, that Inorbit has introduced recently — the Shop Online feature, which is available on Inorbit website and app. This assures shoppers convenience of shopping from their favorite shops at the mall from their homes with a quick delivery at their doorstep.

The mall also provides facility to home deliver shopping bags, one can shop and drop the bags with the mall to be

delivered to their door step, providing hassle free time for movie or dining.

INOrBIT Mall, MalaD geTS reMIXeDA transformation that matches customer expectation making Inorbit a preferred lifestyle destination

→ “With the latest transformation, consumers can look forward to a different shopping experience. It is the ambience with best brands that entices shoppers to visit Inorbit. By meeting the demands of consumers and the relation with our tenants, Inorbit will continue to stay as one of the preferred shopping hubs and we promise to bring new exciting features in the near future.”

—Rajneesh Mahajan, Executive Director, Inorbit Malls

aBOuT INOrBITInorbit malls, a group company of K. Raheja Corp, is committed to set benchmark in the retail industry in In-dia. In addition to the mall in Malad, Inorbit has had a diverse portfolio of shopping malls in Vashi, Vadodara, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

Industry-connect-inorbit.indd 62 25/11/2016 5:49:02 PM

Human ResouRces

64 | sTorai | november - December 2016

Increasing productivity remains one of the most critical goals in business. It is, however, an ac-tivity seldom accepted by HR professionals as a legitimate mandate. While many in the HR profession acknowledge their job as a means to

establish policy, procedures, and programs for peo-ple management, few have taken a hard look at what many call Revenue per Employee.

This is an alternative, and perhaps a simpler measure, to elements of employee output – volume, speed and

quality – per each currency unit spent on labour costs. The bottom line is that the metric is one of high value, and for some HR leaders – the ultimate performance goal. A relatively nascent industry in India, a question hovers around the relevance of the metric to begin with. All in consideration with multiple HR metrics already in place to measure productivity and growth.

However, there is no denying from global and his-torical evidence that Revenue per Employee was and would always be an act of fractions. After all, the de-

metric that mattersMaking a compelling case for adopting Revenue per employee as the de facto method to measure employee productivity

n By Nishant Muralidharan

Human-Resources.indd 64 25/11/2016 5:51:59 PM

Nishant Muralidharan is a Senior Associate – Insight Marketer in Mettl, an assessment and skill measurement company. Among other things, Nishant has taken to developing strong content around insights for the HR fraternity derivative of his communication with professionals of the field. He is also a published author in the fantasy genre, having released a book titled the ‘Tempestatem’ in 2015.

nominator of the metric is employees, which is almost every organization’s biggest expense – a direct relation of the highest value.

In correlation, for the retail industry, which sees their biggest employee base on the shop floor, an an-nual 60-70% attrition rate is cause for concern here. The reason? Business productivity as opposed to peo-ple productivity.

Of course, there is also the aspect about how retail in India is hardly seen as a career option, and rather as a bottom of the pyramid sales job. Again, why is this something of need to look at? Simply because, despite digitization and automation, customers still require human finesse, and the approaching talent simply fails at it.

Some HR professionals cite the lack of a defined career growth path as a reason, while others argue that individual retail stores are to be treated as sub-set organizations that require nurturing of its own. This rung true when Indronil Bose of DLF Brands stressed that store managers ought to become mini CEOs for their respective stores representative of the organization.

This plan came with its difficulties though, and Geethaa Ghaneckar of explained why. A majority of the shop floor employees in retail emerge from the in-ner geographies of India, nurtured and conditioned in a different stratosphere from the customers. The social disconnect in large affects performance, and more im-portantly – business.

However, amidst talk about scarcity of talent and stratospheric differences between employee and con-sumer, experts such as B. Venkatramana and Shilpa Vaid from the Landmark Group and Arvind Lifestyle respectively, raise issue about the manning norms in association with Revenue per Employee. The question was simple – Why not hire less, and invest more?

A classy example of this would be a clash of cases between Amazon and Walmart, where the former, with a smaller sales force, outshines the latter by nearly four times in terms of revenue or sales per employee.

However, with deeper research, it is also easy to note that Amazon’s $855,463 per employee stat was a steep drop from their $1,014,955 margin from 2010. A result from merely adding more employees while sac-rificing pay, training and incentives.

In fact, the 16% decline in revenue per employee for Amazon is testament to why its guidance for the third quarter in 2012 called for an operating loss of between $50 million and $350 million. Yes, their net income plunged. Yes, the profit margin was not what was expected. And the culprit? A huge increase in em-ployment during that period, in fact – 67%. All this, while sales rose by 41%.

At the same time, there is no reason to only focus on the top 20% - cream of the crop – that most organiza-tions even outside retail vie for. After all, it is the 80% that is the essential backbone of an organization point-ed out Ruhie Pande of Kaya. Every employee comes with his or her intrinsic strengths, but while bracket-ing is a necessity, it is best performed with subtlety.

Conversations often spiral from costs to margins, to minimum wage, to several other brackets, which in time would only cumulatively rise. However, one met-ric remained central to every other metric – Revenue per Employee.

Profit. Performance. Productivity. Numbers; yes, the headcount lever that must be used most wisely and effectively. There is little need for these other metrics, and in time, HR will vie to control the big-gest hammer to profit there is. That’s right. Again, Revenue per Employee.

Human-Resources.indd 65 25/11/2016 5:52:12 PM

Picture tales

68 | stOrai | November - December 2016

The big trends in in-store innovation from around the world…

What’s in store?rObOt s

taff

startup Fellow Robots, OSHbot assists

customers and works alongside human

employees in the shop. The five foot

OSHbot is equipped with a pair of large

LCD screens that displays in-store of-

fers. To find what they are looking for,

customers have to press the micro-

phone icon on the front screen and

specify the item. The screen displays

all the variety and types of that item

in stock. When the customer makes a

choice, magnified images of that par-

ticular item along with its location in the

store is then displayed. The OSHbot

even escorts the customer to the item

of the customer so wishes.

Such robots will soon be seen in

more and more stores.Orchard Supply Hardware store in Palo Alto,

California, has employed an interesting staff

member – the OSHbot, a mobile and semi-

intelligent C-3PO robot. Designed by a local

What’s coming up in a big way is interactive window displays. One of the best examples of it is the one by

Kate Spade Saturday in New York city. Painted bright yellow, the store windows sport large touch screen displays on which customers can browse the entire collection and get specific product in-formation. They can even check out the shape and fits of products.

iNteractive DisPlays

Picture-Tales.indd 68 25/11/2016 5:55:56 PM

Smart ShelveS

Smart shelves are an effective way to prevent stock-outs which impact business. Smart shelf is any shelf fitted with an RFID reader. The reader keeps scanning the RFID tagged items on the shelf and sends notifications to the back-end system about the movement of items on the shelf. In case a item from a different shelf is placed on the shelf, it notifies that too. In addition, a smart shelf also sends alerts about items nearing expiry. Kroger is one of the many retailers that has successfully experimented with smart shelves.

virtual realit

y

Leading retailers such as Toms, North Face and Lowe’s are integrating Virtual Reality (VR) solutions into their stores to add the fun element to shopping and boost sales. Lowe, for instance, has built a Holoroom, a simulated space where shoppers can see a 3D mock-up of their renovation plans. Customers can personalise the space with individual room sizes, using products from Lowe’s selection. They can also use virtual reality headsets to see the results as if they were standing in the middle of their reconstructed space.

Picture-Tales.indd 69 25/11/2016 5:56:09 PM

Marketing & Branding

70 | StOrai | november - december 2016

naming plays an important role in building and sustaining any brand. Often, family run businesses rely on their own family name for making a brand promise based on the family’s reputation in the market. This is

common not only in Western Europe, but even in In-dia, where family-owned businesses have invested dec-ades, sometimes even a century to build an emotional connection with customers. This is why Tata stands for trust, Godrej for durability and Mahindra for strength.

When it comes to naming, most Indian family-run businesses began experimenting only over the last two decades. For example, Tatas initially played it safe with brand names like Tata Salt, Tata Steel and so on. It’s only later that they came up with Star Bazaar and Croma.

ShOuld yOu experiMent?Tata and Godrej are some large family-run business conglomerates in India having a wide range of prod-ucts and services. Naming solutions for them may not work for smaller, more local or less diverse family run businesses. What should such businesses do to make the most of their existing reputation and align it with their brand promise? Should they focus on creating brands independent of the family name? Would it ad-versely affect customer loyalty? To arrive at the answer, we must first take a look at the evolution of family-run businesses in Western Europe and the role of naming in the building and sustenance of their brands.

the eurOpean StOryThe brand identities and portfolios of Western Europe-

Should family-run business trade the family-name goodwill for relevance and innovation or stick with the tried and tested?

The name game

n By Geert Docter

Marketing & Branding.indd 70 25/11/2016 5:57:17 PM


an family businesses have experienced a shift over the last 50 years. Earlier, most family-owned brands sim-ply promised trustworthiness, quality, and good value for money. These values were conveyed by the family name. The family had a reputation. If something was wrong, you knew who to talk to.

But times change. Today, more brands have ap-peared. There are more product categories and more channels per brand to buy those products. Meanwhile, factories and shops have become production and retail chains and the owners have become less and less visible. Brand perception today is hardly linked to its owner.

This makes it challenging for brands to distinguish themselves from others, just with values like trustwor-thiness, quality, and good value for money. In this re-gard, any brand is expected to live up to certain stand-ards. There are few ways to convince audiences that they do this better than the competition. This is espe-cially the case if there already are a few large brands promising good value for money without compromis-ing on quality (e.g. Tata in India).

As a result, newcomer brands in Europe started dif-ferentiating themselves with different promises. These promises generally are specifically relevant to the prod-uct category, with an emotional appeal. This was also seen in brands owned by large international corpo-rations. For example, over the years, the brand Dove moved from the functional promise of skin smooth-ness via anti-aging in comparative advertising towards celebrating an individual’s real beauty irrespective of age (their current emotional promise).

The soap brand Santoor used the family angle aim-ing to convey an emotional product message. The brand promise of youthful skin was conveyed via television advertisements in the 1980s, where a mother was mis-taken for a college student because of her youthful skin. Over the last few years, Santoor connected emotion-ally with the modern Indian woman by adding newer themes such as showcasing the mother’s professional excellence, creativity and sporting ability. But the ele-ment of being mistaken for younger has been retained.

Still, for many family businesses, the transition to-wards product category oriented brand positioning

has been a challenge. It may, for instance, feel uneasy to connect a family name to a promise like celebrating one’s beauty. Or, if the business offers not just one prod-uct but a range of products in different categories, how can the brand stand for one product-specific promise? That’s why, in Western Europe, family business brands have developed in roughly two different ways: Family businesses focusing on one product category and those offering a wide scope of products.

Single product category faMily BuSineSSeSThese businesses went the Dove way. Amsterdam-based Beer brewery Heineken, for instance, was run by Gerard Heineken and his descendants for more than hundred years. Fifty years ago, they still had the generic brand positioning of premium quality beer for a good price. Today, Heineken consistently distinguishes itself on an emotional level with a sense of confidence and friendship in all its communications. Innovation and a sense of excitement is now part of the manner in which consumer interacts with the brand. For example, spe-cially designed beer bottles and dispenser or unique trays for serving beer.

diverSe product category BuSineSSeS The other possibility is that the family name has devel-oped into an umbrella brand for sub brands, each fol-



72 | StOrai | november - december 2016

lowing the product specific way. Nu-trition wholesale retailer Schwartz Lebensmittel was once simply trusted because Josef Schwarz had built a trustworthy reputation. Now the company is called the Schwarz Gruppe, being the almost invisible owner of consumer brands Lidl and Kaufland. Supermarket Lidl is growing rapidly, positioning itself on an emotional level as friendly, approachable, and popular. Of course, the Lidl brand name fits this character perfectly, because it sounds like ‘little’.

This is not to say that the generic promise of trusted quality has no value. People do pay more for a known brand than they do for an unknown one. In India, the same holds for a wide range of proposi-tions from Tata. Still, such all-en-compassing brands have become rare in Europe and they are prac-tically always retailers, like Tesco, Carrefour, Lidl, Delhaize, Albert Heijn and Bol.com. The latter four started as family-owned brands, and are now part of larger conglom-erates, which have no relevance as consumer brands, like Schwarz Gruppe, and Ahold Delhaize.

MeSSage in a faMily naMeAn interesting aspect of brand names that are also family names is how they influence consumer perception. The reason is that a

family name evokes associations with social class and geographical origin. Countries in Europe have strong reputations when it comes to life priorities, cuisine and tem-perament. As a result, brands with family names are bound to posi-tion themselves in a way that fits the family name.

For example, Italian brand names raise clear expectations about good taste, cordiality, care about food and clothing but also fickleness and temperament. This translates into the popularity of Italian brands for food (Bertolli) and fashion (Gucci, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana) and is also reflected in how car brands

such as Alpha Romeo and Ferrari profile themselves, with the em-phasis on style, taste and making an impression. Somewhat the op-posite is Germany: decent, mod-est, rational, on the strict side and a bit boring. Not surprisingly, Ger-man car brands in different price categories with family names like Opel, Mercedes-Benz and Daimler fit this expectation perfectly.

A family business name is a way to express traditionalism and dedi-cation - which is especially relevant for product categories that are as-sociated with crafts. But if innova-tion is a core value, you might have to think twice.

Geert Docter is a naming and concept creator at Globrands, a naming and brand strategy development agency based out of Amsterdam, Netherlands and offices in USA, China, France, Switzerland and Spain. Geert creates strategic approaches for brand name and portfolio development and ways to turn them into real life language. Besides naming, this can consist of slogans, tag lines, descriptors and brand promises.

Indian family run businesses can use the following checklist to guide them through the brand naming strategy process:

Brand Positioning: The starting point for evaluating a brand name is always the brand’s positioning. If the brand’s promise is reliability and good value for money, while a large competitor makes the same prom-ise with more authority, the brand may well need a new strategy.

Tone of Communication: In Western Europe, building strategies per product category based on an emotional appeal has been very successful, either adding product subbrands, or by connecting a new meaning to the main brand.

Diversification: Adding new sub brands is only recommended if the family name does not fit well with the message the brand wants to convey, and the product categories are too diverse for the brand to carry a relevant message.

BranD name sTraTegy CheCklisT


Consumer InsIght

74 | storai | november - December 2016

Considering today’s environment, it seems to be getting increasingly difficult to build customer loyalty. In fact, a global loyalty marketing agency, ICLP (A Collinson Group Company) has found that the ma-

jority of Indian consumers are now in less committed relationships with their favourite retailers than ever before, with only 21% feeling devoted towards their preferred retail brands. Devotion, which is a factor of how passionate, committed and intimate consumers feel with a retailer, is key to growing high-value, en-during relationships between people and brands.

the stuDyICLP surveyed consumers in India to rate their expe-riences with friends and romantic partners, as well as brand relationships, on seven core relationship crite-ria. Those were recognition, rewards, reciprocity, reli-ability, respect, trust and communication. By partner-ing with a global authority on relationship dynamics, Professor Ron Rogge from the University of Roches-ter, the company was able to create a model that is based on Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love. The theory focuses on three key components of a relation-

ship; intimacy (willingness to share information with a retailer), passion (brand enthusiasm) and commit-ment (loyalty), which put into a retail context, allows brands to foster increasingly devoted relationships with customers.

“Our analyses suggested that the same seven ba-sic types of relationships emerged for both brand and close relationships. In fact, a majority of respondents approached their relationships with favourite brands in a very similar manner to how they approached their close relationships. Therefore, developing a strong and devoted relationship with a brand might not be so different from developing a strong and car-ing bond with another person, suggesting that people might buy with their hearts,” explained Professor Ron Rogge, University of Rochester.

The types of relationships analysed range from empty (the least desirable), liking, casual, romantic, companionate to devoted (the most desirable). In fact, the study found that at their most loyal, consum-ers fall into the devoted group and are enthusiastic, passionate and committed to a retailer. In addition, devoted customers are the most willing group of con-

Take note, an ICLP study found that given the many temptations in the market, 79% of Indian customers would cheat on their favourite retailers

AffAir Alert

Consumer Insight.indd 74 25/11/2016 5:58:13 PM

sumers to share personal information, opinions and desires with their favourite brands, and are least likely to stray to competitors.

The power of devoTionDevotion is the most favourable state for retail brands, as the study found that 97% of customers that fall into this group would recommend a brand they are devot-ed to. This is a major indicator of how valuable a de-voted customer base is for word-of-mouth, compared with other types of customer relationships. Out of the other five relationship groups, levels of advocacy vary significantly.

Only 15% of customers in a ‘liking’ relationship would recommend a retailer to others, and 34% in a ‘casual’ relationship. On the other end of the spec-trum, three-quarters of those in ‘companionate’ and ‘romantic’ relationships would recommend a pre-ferred brand to others, revealing how powerful a de-voted relationship is to a retailer’s bottom-line.

whaT To creaTe devoTed cusTomersWith only 21% of consumers currently falling into this valuable ‘Devoted’ consumer group, retailers need to find ways to drive this pinnacle relationship across their customer base. The research findings also provided valuable insight into how retailers can tack-le the challenge of driving a deeper relationship with customers. The study found that consumer interest in loyalty programmes remains high in terms of encour-aging spend, as 76% of shoppers stated they would be encouraged to shop more with a brand if it had a loy-alty programme.

The findings also suggest that loyalty goes signifi-cantly deeper than traditional points-based reward programmes. Retailers need to understand the key drivers that build more loyal relationships including ‘romantic’ relationships and that all-important ‘devot-ed’ relationship. These more loyal consumer groups shop more frequently, spend more and are better advocates for retail brands. To inspire more devoted customer relationships, retailers should:

■ Foster brand advocacy: 97% of devoted custom-

ers would recommend a retailer to others, demon-strating the importance of creating and maintain-ing devoted customer relationships

■ Create stronger rewards programmes: Though consumers in empty, liking and casual relation-ships have lower expectations around rewards, 76% of Indian consumers would buy more if they were better rewarded. This emphasises the power of using personalised rewards that ‘surprise and delight’ customers to move them towards a more devoted state

■ Take time to understand customers’ needs: A whopping 78% would buy more if retailers used their data to understand their customers’ individ-ual needs and requirements better. By doing this, retailers can encourage the intimacy required for a devoted relationship

■ Build respect and trust amongst consumers: As many as 57% would buy more if retailers treated them with more respect, and 65% would buy more if they trusted brands more. Trust is key to secur-ing the commitment that exists where there is de-votion

■ Communication is also crucial: About 74% would buy more if brands communicated with them bet-ter. This highlights the importance of using bet-ter communications and engagement strategies to create the reciprocal sense of passion present in a devoted relationship

“Thinking about our own personal relationships, we know that people fall in and out of love and friend-ships – lured by ‘pastures greener’. Now we know that the same thinking can be applied to brand relation-ships, which are dynamic and ever changing; if they weren’t, then you would have pretty much a static number of customers year-in, year-out. But relation-ships are fickle and needs to be nurtured with care, so retailers looking to build and maintain devoted cus-tomer relationships should seek to truly understand what the emotional factors are that drive consumer loyalty,” suggested Anurag Saxena, Country Head & GM, ICLP India.

Consumer Insight.indd 75 25/11/2016 5:58:29 PM

Now TreNdiNg

76 | STorai | November - december 2016

The recent demonetisa-tion of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in India has created panic among the population due to the

deficit of physical cash in the mar-ket. In this scenario, brands have needed to strategise and plan their marketing activities wisely to pro-mote digital transactions. We have seen a 50-70% increase in commu-nication via digital marketing by brands to promote their services owing to the current situation.

e-walleTS caSh iN

E-wallet brands have capitalised on the demonetisation move to acquire new consumers and pro-mote their services, by increasing advertising spends and tying up partners to promote their digital transaction services. In the most recent example, an e-wallet com-pany tied up with an online cab booking service to offer credit on cab bookings for a week.

The market scenario has created a huge opportunity for brands to get people to experience the con-venience of transactional services. Prior to this, e-wallets struggled to grow their reach and catered to a mostly niche audience. E-Wallet as a medium promises a high ac-

ceptability rate in the future due to its digital nature. People are now more open to trying out digital payment solutions for their daily activities like eating out, retail pur-chases and booking cabs. E-wallet companies have also used cash back and other offers to lure con-sumers onto their platform.

There has been an increase in mobile communication by e-wallet brands through digital marketing tools. Brands in this segment have turned to app notifications and SMS as mediums to continuously engage with their consumers. An-other technique for digital market-ing involves the segmentation ap-proach. Brands, especially in the e-wallet sector, send promotional offers and details based on the consumer’s age through marketing technology.

aN opporTuNiTy for BfSi

To keep their customers well-in-formed and updated about regula-tory changes and extended servic-es, the Banking, Financial services and Insurance (BFSI) sector has been disseminating information about regulations and services continuously. It was critical that these messages reached consumers in time. So marketers in this sec-

digital adoption: the good fallout of demonetisation

The author of this article is the Chief Executive Officer of netCORE Solutions Pvt Ltd.

Now Trending.indd 76 25/11/2016 5:59:56 PM

Now TreNdiNg

78 | STorai | November - december 2016

tor increased their digital spends and marketing communication to reach their target consumers and keep them informed.

SMS has been the most used channel of communication by BFSI brands post demonetisation. Mar-keters have introduced regional language SMS as a marketing tool to tap the Tier II and Tier III mar-kets. Brands from the BFSI sector have transcribed brand messages in as many as 11 regional languag-es. Another marketing tool used by the sector has been the automated IVR (Interactive Voice Response) to better engage with consumers from rural markets. Banks also introduced toll-free numbers for consumers to check account bal-ance and last three transactions. These facilities have been aggres-sively promoted through digital channels, SMS across the country and email in Tier I markets.

impacT oN reTail

E-commerce brands get many cash-on-delivery orders and the sector has witnessed a major downfall in business due to demonetisation. These brands have temporarily withdrawn promotions on digital platforms for new consumer acqui-sition as well as cash-on-delivery services, due to the deficit of physi-cal cash in the market. However, they are promoting digital payment offers on cards and net banking even for orders that are in the pipe-line to draw their consumers to the platform.

Offline retail has also seen a re-duction in digital communication.

The businesses in this sector have been actively collaborating with e-wallet companies to offer dig-ital payment solutions to consumers. This sector has also been promoting offers on digital transactions to lure their audi-ences to stores. SMS and email have been the most used market-ing tools.

commuNicaTioN rouNdup

The E-wallet sector has seen an increase of more than 120% in the volume of messaging sent to con-sumers. Banking firms have also increased their digital communica-tion by 200-300% in recent times. On the other hand, there has been a drop of over 20-30% in digital communication from e-commerce and retail brands. SMS, however, continues to be the most preferred digital marketing tool among all brands across sectors.

Banking firms are leveraging marketing technology tools to automate communication work-flows to handle the avalanche of

communication that has to con-tinuously be sent to consumers.

Banking firms use MarTech to ascertain the pre-ferred medium of

consuming infor-mation. Based on these data points, they select the

preferred medium information to con-vey information.

a wiN-wiN

All said and done, the shift to-wards digital is likely to be in the best interest of the country. Going cashless and adopting the digital medium will provide a platform for brands to determine which channel will provide them with the maximum response from consum-ers. A digital economy will also help brands manage their digital spends in the future. While carry-ing physical cash was a risky affair earlier, embracing digital mediums can help individuals rest assured about their monetary security. It is, therefore, a win-win situation for both brands and consumers.

▶ ShifT TowardS digiTal paymeNTS iS iN everyoNe’S beST iNTereST

200%THE quAnTuM

OF IncREASE In

cOMMunIcATIOn

FROM BAnkS

Now Trending.indd 78 25/11/2016 6:00:13 PM

MeMber Profile

80 | STorai | November - December 2016

The unconventional tale of Pravin Chheda, director, Dream Business Ventures, a traditional retailer who broke all conventions of his time to build modern stores that sold experiences at a time when everyone else was busy selling products

retail industry is full of heroes who started from scratch and then built an empire. Of-ten, these individuals are able to achieve their success by going against the current, by find a path where none seemed visible.

It’s that quality to explore the unexplored that set them apart from the pack and took them to new heights. One such retailer is Pravin Chheda, director, Dream Business Ventures, who broke every rule there is in the traditional retailer’s book to build his business on gut

feeling rather than business sense and on passion rath-er than tradition. Step into any of his 24 shops and one would never guess that he is an independent retailer. A lot of people might not understand what the big deal is about the way his stores are designed and run…un-til they learn that the practices that seem norm today have been set up in 1991 when few other retailers even knew of them.

Young Pravin came to Thane (a suburb of Mum-bai) from a small town in Kutch for further education.

n By Shiv Joshi

Dream merchant

Member-profile.indd 80 25/11/2016 6:04:17 PM

MeMber Profile

▶ With mango, pravin chheda redefined the concept of

stationery stores

An interesting model that Pravin Chheda has in place at his company is that whenever he opens a new store, the employee with the most promise is chosen to run it on a working partner basis. “All store managers are shareholders in the net profit. I have given them targets for net revenue. If they exceed it, they get a larger share. After all, it’s their hard work that gets me the success,” Pravin ex-plained.

All his 500 employees are covered by medical in-surance and get financial assistance for children’s education and other needs. It’s no surprise then that the employee churn is one of the lowest in the today’s times.

Partners in Profit

Wanting to be independent he started a wedding pho-tography and video shooting business after complet-ing class 10. Photography being a seasonal business, Pravin started helping his brother at his saree store. “However, I did not enjoy selling even one saree we had in the store as the range was old-fashioned. My ideas of a good range were quite different,” said Pravin. In his free time, he would visit stores like Amarsons, Benzer and Roopkala and stand outside for hours watching the displays. “That was the kind of stuff that I wanted to sell. That’s when I decided to start my own business,” he said.

breaking conventionsThe young entrepreneur’s first store was a brownfield project, where he took over an existing store, which came with its stock and a lot of baggage in terms of ar-chaic practices like selling sarees on installments. “By the time we got out of all the old, it was three years. I realised that if I had to really make my mark, I needed to start afresh,” he informed.

He managed to get a 110 sq feet store on a popular high street in Thane and called it Hastakala. The small store was done up to spell oomph and stocked with designer sarees from Benaras, each one handpicked by Pravin. This was in 1991, and the Thane market wasn’t matured enough for such a range. Increasing the odds was the fact that Pravin had hired freshers with no background of retail so he could train them the way he wanted.

First the first seven days, no customer turned up. Certain that this was a bad decision, Pravin’s older brother summoned him and asked him to return the stock and shut down the store. “My brother tried to put some sense into me. He said that this was Thane,


MeMber Profile

82 | STorai | November - December 2016

new. “My father-in-law was in the stationery business. Considering that there was no proper stationery store in Thane, I decided to start one and chose to call it Mango,”

Even this attracted criticism by well-meaning friends and family, who warned him that a name like that would not work and he would be forced to shut the shop soon. “I was adamant. I didn’t want to name my store XYZ Stationery, I wanted something catchy. I love to experiment even at the risk of fail-ure,” explained Pravin.

With Mango, he broke several more conventions. Most stationery shops had a counter right at the front with the staff on one side and the customers on the other. The staff would fetch from the store what customers wanted. Mango changed all that. The store was designed to be open, where peo-ple could come in, look around, feel the products and pick what they liked. “Our only intervention would be to help with informa-tion,” he said.

This too did not go down well with the traditional retail commu-nity that he was part of. Community seniors strongly recommending him to reconsider his decision for the fear of theft or damage to products. The advice fell on deaf years. Mango became a huge success. In fact, those who had criticised him, emulated him changing the design of their stores to mirror his. “That was a big-ger victory for me,” he said.

After Mango, the expansion rate accelerated. Pravin even signed

not Bulabhai Desai or Napeansea Road and the kind of collection I had would never work here,” re-membered Pravin. Not yet ready to give up on his dreams, Pravin asked for a 10-day grace period. In those days, it was common practice for retailers to put up cloth banners on the road to attract footfall. Pravin too put up a banner. It said ‘Dare to step into Hastakala store’. “The messaging seemed to work and we got our first customer, who bought 11 sarees from us for Rs48,500 – perhaps Thane’s first biggest bill back then,” he said. There was no looking back from there.

He then expanded the store by renting the adjoining 500 sq ft space. By then he had understood what people in Thane wanted… that they had aspirations, which weren’t being fulfilled by current retailers who were limited by their thinking. For Pravin, that was nev-er the problem. He was raring to

try something new and wouldn’t settle with anything mundane.

He was fascinated by the idea of concept stores as it would al-low him to experiment. So, after much thought, he opened the first concept store that stocked a wide range of cotton apparel and named it Cotton Bazar – apt for the climate in Mumbai. It was a big store. And it was right on a high street on which space was a premium. Initially, he wasn’t able to get space. Being creative Pravin found an out-of-the-box solution. He found a building with unused stilt space. So he managed to con-vince the owner to lease the area, converted into a store and went to business. The store was an instant hit. Then came another Hastakala that sold only dress materials.

More of The DiffereNTHaving tried his hand at apparel, Pravin wanted to try something

▶ The interiors of all hastakala stores are designed by the maverick owner himself


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November - December 2016 | STorai | 83

up to open a store at Inorbit Mall Vashi, a decision that shocked his community, which viewed malls as competition. A lot of opposition followed. “Retail was changing and I wanted to be part of the change. The idea of malls appealed to me and I wanted to at least give it a try before rejecting it. It is one of our best running stores. We now have stores in Korum as well as Viviana Mall in Thane and these are doing well too,” he said.

Another shocker was when Pravin shut down his flagship Has-takala store right before peak Na-vratri season — a time when appar-el retailers get maximum business. “I thought we could do more with the store. So I transformed it into a concept store called South by Has-takala. It stocks only sarees from all across South India and has a South Indian theme, complete with gajra, South Indian paan and filter coffee for guests,” he explained. He may have missed the Navratri season but the store opened in a new ava-tar right in time for Diwali.

The NoT So gooDThe journey wasn’t all hunky dory as experiments tend to fail. Pravin has had to shut a number of businesses he opened includ-ing a menswear store, a laundry he had opened to help customers care for their silk sarees and a women’s wear store among others. “It’s all part and parcel of business. But what touched me most was when we had to shut down the 4,500 sq ft Mango store we had opened at a mall in Kalyan. We had spent a

lot of money in doing it up on the lines of international stores. One would feel like one is walking into a store in Germany. Unfortunately, the mall shut down. But we don’t dwell on failures. We learn and quickly move on. There’s so much more we want to do,” he said.

WhaT NexT?Dream Business Ventures has 24 stores under eight different brands namely Hastakala, Mango, Or-ange, Cotton Bazar, Stree West, Silk Line, Milan and Zoo. The stores are spread across Kalyan, Dombivli, Vashi and Thane. New stores are coming up at Inorbit Malad and Chembur. Also on the cards is a concept store Radha that will only sell ghagra choli. “Again, experience will be at the centre of everything. And that’s required if you want to be able survive the mushrooming of online business-es,” the entrepreneur informed.

His company will now focus on growing Hastakala and Mango brands. “First what we were doing was dukandaari (retailing), now we are building retail brands,” he said.

The innovative businessman is also planning to diversify into a café with a promise of an unforget-table experience.

“I am very keen on experience-led retail, right from the time no-body used to talk about it. This is what inspires me to start stores with unusual concepts. I don’t believing in forming a vision or mission as that only leads to pres-sure. I am driven by the passion of providing memorable experiences through every store. The only goal is to give something superlative to our customers and stay profitable. When we take care of the former, the latter takes care of itself,” he said giving away the secret of his success.

▶ every element of the store is designed to give an enhanced experience


WHY JOIN RAIAdvocacy Support

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of India). Other guidelines help in the creation of infrastructure and facilities to improve and retail environment in

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You can also:

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Join RAI as

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a) Issue a tax invoice for every transaction.

b) Be registered under VAT / Service Tax.

c) Not employ child labour.

d) Earn over 50% of the organization's business or INR 100 Crore whichever is less from retail activities.

Turnover Annual Fee with 15% Service Tax

Upto 5 crore 2500/- 2875/-

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NEW MEMBERSŸ Bullet Miami, Coimbatore

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Ÿ Fort St George Co, Chennai

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CORE MEMBERS

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ACADEMIC MEMBER

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Ÿ Saptagiri Restaurant Pvt.Ltd., Delhi

Ÿ Sark Enterprises, Chennai

Ÿ Satyam Lights, Chennai

Ÿ Sports Land, Coimbatore

Ÿ The Himalaya Optical Company, Kolkata

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