|  Did he take the inspiration from the desi Pepsi Ad? Kumar Mangalam Birla did not clarify when he announced the group's mega plans for presence in the growing Retail segment. But the chieftain of the $ 24 billion Aditya Birla, one of the top progressive and diversified conglomerates in India did reveal on Friday that marketing the 'More' brand in Retail will be completely desi without any foreign partnership.
DelWine had reported earlier about the group's intentions to enter into this sunrise segment in January, 2007. It had then acquired Hyderabad-based, supermarket retail chain 'Trinethra,' which with about five lakh square feet of space is today the biggest retailing company in South India .
"We believe that the Indian consumer is today underserved. Our mission is to change the way people shop. We will give the Indian consumers a fundamentally better shopping experience and intend to be among the leading players in India ," said Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, AV Birla group, while addressing media persons.
The key points of Aditya Birla Retail strategy :
- The new venture will operate under 'More' brand.
- There will be no partner, local or foreign.
- The first 'More' store will open in Pune this month.
- 1,000 retail outlets will be set up in the next three years.
- Investment in the retail venture will require around Rs. 9,000 crore, which will comprise a mix of debt and equity. No listed Birla Group company will own any part of equity.
- Aditya Birla Retail will be an unlisted company with no plans at present to raise funding from the public.
- There will be two retail formats: Neighbourhood Supermarkets that would stock the daily and weekly household shopping needs and Destination Hypermarkets that cater to monthly and event-based shopping needs.
- All stores would be owned stores.
- At the operating level, the company will hire thousands of young men and women. In the first year, the company will hire between 5,000 and 10,000 people.
- The venture will build direct linkages with farmers, which while offering higher prices to the farmers will ensure fresh products for the consumers.
- The venture will also build linkages at the back-end to eliminate costs at the supply chain level.
- The company has already invested around Rs. 200 crore to create the vendor base.
- The company will have private labels as `More for you' and `More for products under food and grocery categories.
The $320 billion (Rs 1,31,000 crore) retail market, has only 3% share in the organised sector. In the recent past, Reliance Industries and Bharti Enterprises have said that they would pump in Rs 25,000 crore and Rs 10,000 crore respectively for their retail ventures.
Over the next few months, the group plans to hire thousands of young employees for their stores. It has already hired two expatriates with experience in running super and hyper markets in global markets.
Source: indiaretailbiz.com |
