Franchising Association of India (FAI) - Events

Shoppers Stop to open 24 stores more:

Buoyed by rapid growth in the retail industry, K. Raheja Group-owned Shoppers Stop plans to open 24 stores by FY 14, a senior company official said. “We plan to open 24 new stores in the next three years. To start with, we would be opening 8-9 Shoppers Stop stores in the current fi...scal,” Group Chief Financial Officer, Mr. C. B. Navalkar, told PTI here.

At present, the company has 38 stores across the country, with a total retail space of about 2.3-million square feet. “The retail industry is growing by around 30-35 per cent every year. We estimate that by FY 14, we will have 62 stores operational with a total retail space of 3.6-million square feet. Apart from expanding in metros, we will also enter Tier-II cities,” he said. Apart from the Shoppers Stop departmental stores, the company has five specialty retail formats like Home Stop (home furnishing), Mother care (baby care), Crosswords (books & music), Estee Lauder (cosmetics) and Mac (cosmetics).

Chi Kitchen & Bar, Pan-Asian casual dining restaurant and bar; looking for rapid expansion through franchising:

Chi Kitchen & Bar, Pan-Asian casual dining restaurant and bar is based on the belief that “a man is nothing but the sum of the food he puts in his body and the thoughts that flow in his mind”. It boasts of the finest dishes from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan and China and has a huge variety of dim sums and teas. At this award-winning restaurant, “we weave ordinary South East Asian way of life into dining experiences”.

South East Asian cuisine is one of the most popular and widely accepted cuisines in the world (especially India). Chi has a contemporary design of an international dining experience. The display kitchen, bright orange colours promote a positive aura / ‘Chi’ and thus imparting and transferring positive energies.

Chi management comprises of individuals with immense experience in the hospitality segment and proven track records of successful restaurants viz. Mr. Sohrab Sitaram, who has more than sixteen years of experience in the restaurant and hospitality industry with a career spanning from working for Taj Group of Hotels to creating brands like Tabularasa, Shalom, Laid Back Waters, Italic and No Escape and Mr. Rohan Gupta, Owner of Tabularasa, Kitchen and Ploof.

Mr. Sohrab Sitaram says, “Chi Kitchen & Bar has invested resources in standardizing all aspects of business and is now gearing up to set its footprint in other cities of India by adopting the well-accepted business concept of franchising, which would help achieve the objective of taking the tally of outlets to double-digits and offering standardized service, quality, hygiene, identical experience, irrespective of the location”.

Chi Kitchen & Bar has allied with Inventure, a franchise consulting firm based in New Delhi for developing, marketing and further putting the franchise expansion plans of the brand into operation.

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Domino's Pizza

Domino's Pizza, one of the market leaders in the organized pizza home delivery segment in India, has launched its new outlet at Wide Angle Multiplex in Ahmedabad.

At the launch, Ajay Kaul, CEO, Jubilant Food Works, said, “Domino’s Pizza is doing very well across the country and in Ahmedabad as well; for us Gujarat as a state holds out great potential in future. Our expansion in the region is in consonance with our strategy of maintaining the leadership position in organised pizza category."

Harneet Singh Rajpal, VP - marketing, Domino's Pizza India, said,” Domino’s Pizza is very well accepted in India. Ahmedabad particularly has always been a favorable market for Domino's and we are happy to launch the outlet in a new location in the city, making our pizzas more accessible to the customers."

Jubilant Food works Limited (JFL), a leading food service company, is the master franchisee of Domino’s Pizza International in India.

McCormick has signed a JV with Kohinoor Foods:

Spice maker McCormick has signed a JV with Kohinoor Foods, one of India’s largest retailers and exporter of branded Basmati rice. As per the deal McCormick will invest approximately $115 million which includes an 85 percent interest in the new joint venture, the company born out of this JV is named as Kohinoor Specialty Foods India.

Kohinoor Foods rice brands will be transferred to the JV Company. While Kohinoor Foods will focus more on the exports business, most of the products will be marketed under the Kohinoor brand, but McCormick will also retail some of its own brands in India. A modern factory for packaged food products and 275 employees will also be transfer to the joint venture.

Gurnam Arora , Joint MD, Kohinoor Foods Limited, is positive that the deal closure will happen as early as possible, however, it could take couple of months.

“Primarily, this deal and funds associated with it will help us reduce our debt and interest burden, which would go directly in increasing the bottom line. Besides, the company will be free to focus on its core strength that is exports," said Arora.

“This venture is based upon McCormick's investments in India and its strategy to expand sales in emerging markets," said Satish Rao, VP, Business Development, McCormick.

He further said that Kohinoor Foods, has a very good distribution network in India and their brand got a very good brand personality that is why we have invested in this partnership.

Including India, McCormick expects emerging markets to contribute 12 percent of sales by 2015, an increase from 9% in 2010. The Kohinoor brand of products fits squarely into the Company's plans for achieving this increase

Titan Industries Ltd’s expansion plans:

Titan Industries has announced aggressive expansion plans post the launch of its largest time wear store at South Extension, New Delhi. The company plans to add over 200 new stores in FY'11 to its current portfolio. The retailer will open 50 new outlets of World of Titan, 60 new showrooms of Fastrack, 40 new stores of Helios, 20 new outlets of Tanishq, five new stores of Goldplus and 100 new Eye+ outlets amongst others, reports IndiaRetailing.

V Govind Raj, Vice President – Integrated Retail Services, said, “We have an aggressive growth plan for our businesses and the retail networks across the cities are being strengthened both in depth (more stores being added in towns) and width (adding new stores in town where we are not present in).”

The company plans to open about 25 per cent of the proposed openings in malls and the balance in high streets and neighborhood markets.

“The company operates an asset light retail network by franchising the retail outlets and has minimal number of company operated stores. Hence, the investments in the expansion of the retail network are relatively low,” he further added.

Mahindra First Choice Wheels

Multi-branded pre-owned car company Mahindra First Choice Wheels has set a target of selling one lakh units by financial year 2013-14. The company plans to take the number of franchise dealership network to 300 by FY 2014, from the current 136, according to a top company official.

"The company has sold 28,000 units last year and the target for the current year is 50,000 units. By FY14, we want to touch the one lakh mark," vice-president (operations) Ashesh Dhar said.

Launching two more dealerships in Kolkata, Dhar pointed out that the used car market in the country is growing at the rate of 20 per cent per annum.

The total size of the organised used car market is 3.1 lakh units with the company's market share of 10 per cent.

Dhar said top 20 cities are the major markets, while the rural segment is slowly gaining size.

Costa Coffee launched its Express service or coffee on the go:

Coffee chain Costa Coffee has just launched its Express service or coffee on the go - in home base UK. But for the moment, it rules out plans to enter this segment in India. Instead, the focus here will be to continue adding more stores, according to a top company official.

“We plan to launch 60 to 100 stores annually for the next three years,” Santhosh Unni, chief executive officer, told Business Line.

Although its competitors Café Coffee Day, Coca-Cola's Georgia, Bru and Nescafe already have a visible presence in the express or institutional business, Unni said it would be premature to talk about entering this space for the next one year – even though it has a presence in American Express and Google offices in India.

“In UK, our parent company has acquired an express business, so over a period of time other international markets such as India will have a ripple effect. But not in the next one year,” said Unni.

Meanwhile, the company has tied up with PVR Cinemas, and will be given the first option of putting up a café in the multiplex. Currently present in four cities, the coffee company plans to enter eight cities by the end of its expansion spree in three years. Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai and Punjab are on its radar. Rather than entering more cities, it plans to focus on a particular territory and add more stores there. It will use a combination of various channels, from shop-in-shop, airports, IT parks to multiplexes to achieve this.

There is enough scope for growth and the entry of international chains such as Starbucks is welcome, said Unni. Costa Coffee hopes to become the number two player going forward.

Zoomin Online (India) Pvt Ltd planning to take the franchise route to launch 45 to 50 offline stores:

Zoomin Online (India) Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai based company is planning to take the franchise route to launch 45 to 50 offline stores by end of this year across India. The company is targeting people who are not at ease with internet usage or do not prefer the use of credit card online through these offline retail franchise stores.

The company which is a photo services start-up already has 17 retail studios in the country out of which two are franchised stores. The other outlets are in partnership with retailers like Shopper’s Stop’s bookstore chain Crossword and Tata’s consumer electronics store Croma.

Currently, ZoomIn studios are located in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Chennai.

The company is also aspiring to benefit from ZoomIn services by seeking ways to team up with interested neighborhood photo studios.

Mumbai-based Zoomin Online (India) Pvt Ltd, a photo services start-up, plans to set up 45-50 offline stores by the end of this year through franchise model. At present, ZoomIn has 17 offline retail studios across the country, of which two are franchise-run stores and the rest are in partnership with retails such as Shopper’s Stop’s bookstore chain Crossword and Tata’s consumer electronics store Croma.

The company is also betting on digital camera sales this quarter after witnessing a doubling in user activity on its flagship portal Zoomin.com. Its website offers customised photo products such as mugs, calendars and wedding albums.

Elaborating on why the company took the service offline, Ajay Menon, VP of corporate and business development, Zoomin.com, said, “Our core target is wives and mothers who organise photos and create memorabilia. However, many are not comfortable using the Internet and even if they are, they do not prefer to use the credit card online. Access to the Internet from homes is another barrier. Finally, the touch-feel factor is very powerful in India. That is the reason we have decided to opt for offline retail.”

ZoomIn studios are located in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Chennai. At these studios, visitors can purchase the same range of print products which are available online. The studios typically record 50-200 footfalls on weekdays.

The company is also exploring ways to work with neighborhood photo studios to leverage ZoomIn services. Some of these studios have shown interest and are conducive to becoming ZoomIn resellers, said Menon.

Bata India announced plans to expand via franchise model:

Footwear retailer Bata India has announced plans to expand via franchise model. The company plans to introduce almost four designs every day, open 70-100 stores of at least 5,000 square feet every year, and push its online sales to shed its image as a low-cost functional footwear brand that appeals to the 40-plus age group.

"If the last five years were all about consolidation, the next five years will be all about expansion," said Marcelo Villagran, MD and CEO, Bata India who transformed the company from a point of bankruptcy when he took over six years ago to one of the most profitable operations of the Swiss multinational globally.

Bata board is considering a proposal to start franchisee operations this year in smaller cities where setting up company-owned outlets may not be viable. Villagran says Bata will decide the location and then choose the partner. "It is not that anybody with real estate space can open a Bata store and the stores have to be according to our specifications so that customers do not feel the difference,'' he says.

The company has shut down almost 400 small stores, which looked more like warehouses with hundreds of pairs of footwear staked in 1,000 sq ft or less, and opened 270 large-format stores at prime locations.

At present, Bata is delivering to 315 towns across India, including tougher and difficult to operate markets like Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh and Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

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