Global Franchise Architects invests Rs 40 crore in its India operations

Geneva-based Global Franchise Architects which runs food brands like Pizza Corner and Donut Bakers is investing Rs 40 crore to expand operations at its Indian subsidiary.

The funding will be primarily used for the growth of Pizza Corner according to Joseph Cherian, CEO of GFA Global. "The organised food sector in India is growing rapidly and the pizza category is growing at 25 %" said Cherian.

The company keen to capture a slice of the growing action in India's pizza industry which is valued at Rs 1200 crore, had been scouting for risk capital for over a year now.

However a lack of consensus on valuation has stymied plans to raise private equity funding.

GFA is also changing its franchise strategy for its flagship Pizza Corner brand. So far, almost 75% of the 60 Pizza Corner stores in India are owned by franchisees. However, as the company expands into new markets it will have a majority of corporate- owned stores in the next few years.

The brand plans to launch 25 stores in the next nine months, primarily in South India.. "Once we have a sustainable model in one region, it is easier to expand, because entry cost is always large in the back end," said Cherian. The company has posted an increase in India revenues by 25% annually for the past couple of years.

Franchise model, most effective in tapping rural retail market, but Pricing, a major challenge in e-commerce: experts speak

More than 90% of rural retail market is left to be tapped and franchisee-based model is proving to be the most efficient one in tapping this market, echoed retail experts assembled at Evolve, a two day summit on retail and e-commerce organized by Sir M Visvesvaraya Institute of Management Studies and Research (SVIMS), a leading Mumbai-based business school.

“Our experiments in places like Kalol (Gujarat) and Karnal  (Haryana) is so far proving  that it is effective to set up a single big wholesale unit in remote places and encourage residents in villages nearby to run franchisees by sourcing products from the unit. In this way, villages will have access to the best of the products available in cities. We are running about 15 franchisee outlets around our Karnal wholesale outlet and is proving to be very successful,” said Dipayan Baishya, Associate Vice-President, Strategy, The Future group, addressing the audience assembled at the Evolve summit.

Future Group will be providing the right brand, technical and training support for the franchisees to ensure uniformity in the look and feel of these stores. He said at the moment, it made little sense to operate fully owned retail shops in tier-iii towns and villages.

In addition to rural, the Future Group plans to step up franchisee based models, in the form of convenient stores in metros like Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai as well. “Right now we have 100 franchisee-based convenient stores in Delhi and 200 stores throughout Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai. We plan to expand to more than 1000 convenient stores in these cities in the next two years,” said Mr. Baishya.

This would be an alternative viable option as in the next 5-7 years as the city is expected to face shortage in the availability of land for retail expansion. Customization of products and services, to suit the needs of regional and sub-regional population will be the key to success, he highlighted.

Supporting Mr Baishya’s view, Dr BR Manjunath, Director General, SVIMS said that the retail market in India is too nascent and retailers need to invest a fair share of time and resources to study understanding the customers for the next five years, as customization of products and services has become too critical today. 

In 2011, Indian retail market was about $470 billion and is expected to touch $675 billion by 2016. By 2020, the traditional and organized retail industry is expected to touch $ 1.3 trillion.

Mr. Jerry Rao, e-commerce expert and Chairman, Value and Budget Housing Corporation, said, pricing is currently a major challenge in e-commerce.  The e-commerce companies charge any rate today for their services, which may be too low or too high. According to Mr Rao, there needs to be more research and studies conducted to arrive at a standard pricing mechanism for different kinds of e-commerce products and services. “Should an e-commerce arm of a retail company sell its products at lesser rate compared to products sold out of its physical outlets is still a dilemma. The retailer could pass on the benefits he saves on rentals, staff and AC, to his e-commerce customers. However, this could also have a demoralizing impact on its retail employees. Similarly, how much a telecom company should charge its customer for using specialized calls like knowing Rahukalam or astrology  is still unclear. Should it be one rupee, five rupees or ten rupees?”

According to Mr Jerry Rao with the advancement of technology, availability of real time data will enable services with time-bound requirement of a five Star hotel or an airline to fill the unoccupied suits or business class seats through innovative concepts like last moment auctions, targeting the right customer profile. This technology to predict consumer interest is gradually moving into physical retail space. Iris screening technologies are being used to study the time spent by a particular consumer at various spaces of the super market, time spent in searching spots of her interest, products her interest, which could be utilized by companies for prediction of her interests and engagement with her of.

According to Nitin Mukadam, founder, localbaniya.com and CRM expert, Customer Relationship Management aided by data analytics is going to be the game changer from now. Technology will enable procurement of timely data based on the choices of the customer, which can be effectively used for customer engagement leading to customer loyalty.

According to Mr Mukadam, the technology is growing in such a way that it is today able to exactly predict what the customer is planning to buy, which section of an e-commerce site she visits often, what are her areas of particular interests etc. E-commerce companies could utilize this knowledge for customizing its services for this particular consumer. According to Mr Mukadam, an e-commerce company could build right data-bases by extracting intelligent data from Google analytics, incentivize the customer to register and then later engage customers in constant dialogue and foster customer communities through social media.

Mr Rahul Jagtiani, Founder, Plush Plaza, India’s home décor site said that e-commerce and social media is making it easy for the start-ups to gain visibility. “New Search engine optimization and search engine marketing models, social media sites and You Tube are enabling new entrepreneurs to gain maximum visibility in no time. These advantages were never there for a generation back entrepreneur,” said Jagtiani.

Mr Kartik Jain, Vice-President, Infibeam, a leading e-commerce site, the emergence of social-cloud-mobile media is enabling e-commerce companies to give multiple services to different vendors on a cloud-based model. The cloud-based model is negating the need for multiple server farms and at the same time enhancing the scalability and efficiency of services. 

According to Mr Jairaj Hegde, Vice-President, Sherwin Williams, India, Indian retailers should focus heavily upon improving supply chain management and training of man power. Today, there is an increasing need to deliver highly customized products and services on a real-time basis.  Most retail enterprises falter because they do not recognize that it is the supply chain which ensures Customer satisfaction and delight

Vinayak Bhat, Country Manager, FactSet India observed that FDI is going to change the whole retail scenario in the country. He observed in the new regime, there is going to be more opportunities for domestic micro and small and medium enterprises, partnership opportunities through joint ventures, franchisees and strategic licensing, and more job creation. This may put pressure on the kirana stores to innovate. E-commerce growth will result into creation of supply chain infrastructure, mobile commerce, social media leverage etc.

D. Balasubramaniam, partner, Ecovis RKCA, said the big retailer should make an attempt to learn methods on customer relationship and service from the local kirana stores and adapt them at their level. He focused on the strengths of Kirana stores, and forecasted that the Kirana stores in India would reinvent themselves, most probably on Supermarket model, to meet the customer expectations.  Ultimately, the cash Management is easy for Kirana stores, as in most Indian cities, rentals are far higher than in the west, which is a disincentive for the Retail trade.

Is HR ready for growth in retail and e-commerce? The industry says no, while the institutes think otherwise. Mr Ravindra Gupta of Micro Retail said, “If in acquisition of talent, its management and development is not done right, there is a huge rate of attrition. Hence innovative techniques are needed to retain the employee hired.”

Mr Rakesh Vanarse, founder, Brandcepts Advertising, said the retail sector has the potential of bringing in millions of job opportunities in the country. There lies a huge training potential at the level of retail management and retail operations. This is an opportunity for B-Schools, and other education and training centres to come up with new courses on retail operations management. 

OfficeYes.com Announces Franchise Opportunity

OfficeYes.com, India’s largest Office Supplies and Stationery Company has recently announced its franchise opportunity in India. Through this franchise channel, entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can open one-stop stationery and supplies stores all across India under the OfficeYes brand name.

The stationery and supplies market in India is estimated to be worth approximately Rs.50, 000 crore but is largely served by local vendors. This is where, OfficeYes.com steps in with its franchise channel offering opportunity to capture a share of this large market through organized retail with minimum risks and investment.

The OfficeYes franchise opportunity is open to anyone with the passion to sell and the capacity to invest minimum Rs.3-4 Lakhs (including the refundable reseller fee of Rs.1 Lakh). OfficeYes.com has launched its franchise opportunity based on the reseller model, which gives more autonomy and freedom to its franchise partners or resellers letting them run their business their way without too much intervention together with providing all the support they need.

Commenting on the initiative, Co-Founder and MD – Siddharth Nambiar explains that “Our company’s main value proposition is offering great value via a convenient platform and our reseller stores will help us to spread our offering over a wider area and access new channels. Building a chain of stores throughout the country with the capacity to provide a comprehensive stationery and supplies solution to businesses, institutions and individuals is what we aim to achieve”.

OfficeYes.com’s Franchise Opportunity in India comes with various benefits such as extensive industry driven expertise, guidance at every step and widespread marketing at a low investment cost.

Mahindra First Choice Wheels Limited inaugurates a store in Malad

Mahindra First Choice Wheels Ltd. (MFCWL), India’s No. 1 multi-brand certified used car company,  inaugurated its authorized dealership in Western suburb of Mumbai. Auto Alliance was inaugurated by Mr. Yatin Chadha, Vice President – Retail Business (Franchise & COCO), Mahindra First Choice Wheels Limited and Mr. Sumit Bali, Director, Kotak Mahindra Prime Ltd.
“We are delighted to enhance our network in Mumbai with this new dealership at centrally located Malad (W), which will offer the entire range of services for customers, including purchase and sale of certified used cars, car finance, insurance, fitment of car accessories and assistance with paperwork and documentation. MFCWL iswell positioned to tap the potential of the certified used car market in this region and is planning to double its network in Mumbai, Navi-Mumbai &Thane. The company has always believed in launching innovative products in used car space. We already have Certifirst and Warantyfirst which are the most comprehensive warranty products in used car space today. We have just launched IBB price guide for checking used car prices and Autoinspekt which is the car evaluation service. It’s exciting times at MFCWL, when passenger car industry is shrinking, We are rapidly growing. New car dealerships have started shifting business interest in this opportunity. We are in the process of launching a slew of products to enhance ownership experience for customers, in this financial year,” said Mr. Chadha.
With changing consumer needs and increasing potential of organized used car market, we felt that it would be a great idea to associate with India’s number 1 multibrand certified used car player and be a part of organized used car growth story,” said Mr. Zareer Pardiwalla of Auto Alliance.

CarTrade.com launches its thirteenth used car Franchisee Store in India

CarTrade.com is one of India's leading auto websites and helps consumers to buy and sell new and used cars.  CarTade.com announced the launch of its thirteenth CarTrade.com Franchisee used car Store in Bangalore.
Commenting on the company’s latest initiative, Mr. Vinay Sanghi, Founder & CEO, CarTrade.com said, “The CarTrade.com Franchise Store is an innovative offering which now allows our customers to not only get the information and help they need on our web-site, but also an opportunity to interact with well-trained staff, to get the best choice of cars and deals in the market. We are confident that this initiative will further enhance our customer’s car buying and selling experience. This is a significant milestone for us. We have aggressive expansion plans to launch 100 stores across India in the next 10 to 12 months”.
CarTrade.com helps customers who are looking to buy or sell new or used cars and want to remain up-to-date with the latest automobile news, expert reviews and car prices. All this information, along with a host of research tools, price information and a growing dealer network, is available just a click away with CarTrade.com. It also offers a wide variety of good quality used cars backed in many cases by a Condition Check Report. Also, the benefit of car warranty can be availed on selected cars at the CarTrade.com Franchisee Stores.

About CarTrade.com

CarTrade.com is one of India's leading auto websites and helps consumers to buy and sell new and used cars. Unique offerings on the site such as used car price information, condition check of cars and on road dealer prices help consumers to buy and sell with confidence

Over 2 million unique consumers come to CarTrade.com monthly to use these features. The site has new and used car dealers from all over the country who list their cars with prices for sale.

Being Human Seeking expansion across India through Franchising

Being Human clothing in addition to product are offered through five unique shops and 31 shop-in-shops. The business is managed by Mandhana Industries, a clothing exporter, that'll handle the retail business, creating, production and marketing for the manufacturer till March 2020. 

Presently, the brand's target class is 15-40 year-olds. As the preliminary apparel point is for males only, the organization plans to start women's use and kidswear by March. 

There's without doubt that Mandhana is certainly going all out. It's pulled up a complex development strategy for Being Human by tying up with top retail stores for the shop-in- store platforms. 

'By the finish of the fiscal year, we intend to start eight unique company shops and still another 30 shop-in-shops. By next year, their goal is 40 unique shops and 200 shop-in- stores in addition to another 150 to 200 franchisees,' states Mitesh Shah, vice chairman, financing and corporate affairs of Mandhana. 

Shah says out of this past year the five shops that have been exposed since October, four have already were able to break even. 

'Shah's confidence however, many say it's hard to simply accept at the same time when perhaps top manufacturers have found the going difficult for 2 factors -- less discretionary spending in the hands of customers and an over-crowded market. 

'Being Human has been situated as a life style manufacturer in the mid- to advanced variety, which has manufacturers such as for example Zara, Tommy Hilfiger, Woodland and Uni Style Image. 

Brand specialists state Being Human got an enormous initial drive because of the mass attraction of Khan, who's the experience of the manufacturer. However the true problem for the store will begin following the hoopla around it decreases. 'People can come to the shops because of the attention element because of Khan, but rationality gets control after that,' a specialist says. 

Besides, as Arvind Singhal, chairman of Technopak Advisors, says, 'The goal market for the manufacturer isn't obvious. It's to make certain it knows who their clients are be very specific concerning the styles and also. Centered on all of this, a definite interaction technique for clients must be in the offing'

Launch of Lifestyle Retail for Virtuous Retail

Virtuous Retail released its flagship life style retail center VR Surat within an function held at The Courtyard at 51 Buckingham Gate, London. VR Surat may be the first retail life style location amongst a number of retail improvements underneath the VR umbrella, which are coming up in the Indian towns including Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, and Kolkata. 

 

The approaching retail location is spread across six lakh sq. Foot. and Virtuous Retail has authorized Guess, Only, Accessorize, Calvin Klein Jeans, Esprit, Nautica, Reliance Digital, and Shoppers Stop whilst the tenants. According to Anupam Yog, Marketing Director, Virtuous Retail, 'We visualize VR Surat to be always a focus for the city where people might gather for celebrations, festivities and fairs. VR Surat lies as a residential area location where we shall start social programs along side world-class organisations.' 

 

Proven in 2007, Virtuous Retail is just a retail property resource system financed by The Xander Group, having an preliminary motivation 600 million pounds (above Rs 3,000 crores) in value. Virtuous Retail is creating a pan-India profile of life style, retail and community centers.