Living a grand retail dream

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An idea of setting up a super market chain in 1986 would not have seemed like an enterprising idea then, but that's what Anjaneyulu Kakkera, managing director of Trinethra did.

He discussed the idea and the intricacies involved in setting up a supermarket chain with three friends.

"My wife and I were working in a private company which was closing down. When I told my friends about it, they suggested the idea of a super market since we knew few wholesale dealers," Anjaneyulu said.

"For about six months, we studied the concept behind the project by observing what was happening at Nilgiris in Bangalore," he adds.

"With an initial investment of Rs 4.7 lakh, that we could raise between the four of us and a bank loan, Trinethra's first 3,300 square feet branch opened in Dilsukhnagar. This outlet had the shopping area, office and the godown under the same roof," he recalls.

The chain's turnover in the first year of operations was Rs 12 lakh. But then because of the problems in understanding the concept of pricing and the difficulties experienced in procurement, the company was almost on the brink of closure.

"At that time people were concerned very much on the pricing and not so much on the quality aspect but this has changed and now people pay slightly more to get good quality," Anjaneyulu said.

Initially, they also supplied to hotels and guest houses in the city, but then because of irregular payments this stopped.

"After the initial problems, this was the second major problem that we faced. But then we thought why not open our own branches, and thus we opened our first branch in 1992," Anjaneyulu says.

Year after year starting from 1992, Trinethra added branches at different places in the state and had 19 branches in 2000. But then in the last four years Trinethra has opened 53 branches. Anjaneyulu attributes this sudden spurt in the number of branches to the investments of various private financial organisations and banks.

"In 2000, ICICI picked up a stake in the company and invested around Rs 8 crore. This made us feel confident and we went in for extensive development plans," Anjaneyulu said.

The firm was reconstituted into a 'private limited company' in 1990 and subsequently converted into a 'public limited company' in 1998 under the name Trinethra Super Market Limited and in 2003 changed to Trinethra Super Retail Limited.

Trinethra had a turnover of Rs 107 crore for the financial year ended on March 31, 2004 as compared to Rs 80 core the previous year. The company expects the turnover to be around Rs 200 crore this year.

According to Anjaneyulu, a new hub would be built near Nellore or Tirupathi this financial year "� to the existing ones at Vijayawada and Vishakapatnam "� to cater to the south coastal branches.

The company plans to invest about Rs 30 crore to open about 22 new branches at district headquarters in the next 12-15 months. The company also plans to open hyper-markets by 2005, to supply to small retailers. "We want to establish ourselves as a state player and then hopefully open our first branch outside the state in 2006," he says.

The day-to-day functioning of operations is a family affair. Anjaneyulu's wife, Savitri, looks after the quality management and his son Sriram looks after operations. Even in his free time, he likes to spend with the family by watching television or by going on tours to holy places.

Trinethra, which started with a modest strength of nine employees, including Anjaneyulu and his wife, at present has a total strength of 700 employees. The company on an average does billing of 20,000 per day, serving about 13 lakh customers a month and selling around 1.3 lakh items.