“We believe that competition is always healthy”
Amol Dhillon,VP strategy and planning, Woodland, takes Shubhangi Mehta through Woodland’s journey in India since 1992.
In the early 90s when we considered other markets we realised that there was no such specialised brand in India. We realised that this market can really be nurtured into a very big market for us. It’s a long process to be very honest. But as we know India is one of the biggest markets in the world with our population being second largest in the world. The process is on, the growth continues and this is a growing market with extremely promising prospects.
Tell us about the process when Woodland entered India and how you address the issues and obstacles? Tell us about your product expansion plans?
We initially tested the market through our distribution network. We got together with a few distributors in the main markets like Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh etc and we tested a few products through these distributors. We made sure that our product quality was at par with what the consumer wanted as the fits and foot sizes were completely different in the Indian market. The initial testing process we did was a big success. The first year, in 1992 our turnover was Rs 7 crore, the next year it soared to Rs 20 crore and the year next to Rs 35 crore so it was a huge incremental growth that we achieved in the market. This gave us the confidence to open our first store in Delhi over a period of time. We now have 400 stores in the country and in this financial year we are planning to open another 50 odd stores. We still keep on studying the markets and location and we are still equally cautious in our growth approach. This is the reason that all our stores are profitable.
Woodland plans to add about 50-60 stores in the current financial year. Out of these, 30 per cent will be the metros and tier 1 cities as the metros and big cities are expanding fast and new markets are coming and so are the new malls around the new development.
40 per cent of the new stores will be in the Tier 2 cities where we have stores already and would add more on the basis of encouraging sales figures and performances of FY 2012-2013.
The rest 30 per cent will be in the tier 3 and 4 cities, which have high growth potential and market is already developed. It has a strong youth base with presence of colleges and educational institutions.
What was the initial route of communication you adopted to build the brand in India? How has the communication evolved over the last two decades that you have operated in India?
In those days electronic media was very important. So, our approach took a lot of support of the electronic root. OOH and print was also very important. We were very clear on our target group, which was young consumers in the15-20 year age group and hence, we were clear with our marketing approach from the very beginning.
But now things have changed completely. Our focus now becomes social network and digital. We do stick to electronic media but print has become much less. Now I can say that electronic and social media has evolved tremendously and no brand can now shy away from that. We work with Lowe Lintas for traditional media, Group M for digital media and Inkling, London for social media. Apart from this we work with several national and international agenc.
CHANDAN SINGH
PGDM 2SEM
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