There are good fundamental signs for stimulating demand: Sanjay Behl

Interview with Chief Executive Officer, Raymond

Sanjay Behl joined as chief executive officer of the lifestyle business at Raymond from the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, and is busy restructuring the business from day one, starting with a new advertising and marketing campaign for the brand. In an interview with Sharleen D'Souza, he talks about why the company is laying more emphasis on advertising and about its plan to set up new manufacturing bases in India and abroad. Excerpts:

Since Raymond is present all across India, how do you see demand coming in for the rest of the financial year, with rural consumption still weak?

We remain positive on a demand build-up across all consumption categories like textiles and fast-moving consumer goods. Inflation has progressively come down and was at its lowest in October. The monsoon across the country has been reasonably good. The rupee has remained stable for a long time. There has been a series of confidence-building economic initiatives by central and state governments over recent months. These are good fundamental signs for stimulating demand and will result in accelerating consumer demand.

Raymond, in the past one year, has increased its advertising. What is the reason? How much are you spending on advertisements this financial year? Do you think Raymond lost out to competition in the past few years?

Raymond is a consumer brand relevant all year long. It has a strong product proposition in suiting, shirting and ready-to-wear apparel. The increase in advertising is to present an evolving brand proposition of ‘The Complete Man’ and a wide array of our product range. We are also expanding our product portfolio in the premium segment with the launch of Regio Italia.

Raymond continues to be the most preferred brand in the textiles and apparel segment, with near-100 per cent spontaneous recall. The key task for the business team is to convert an unprecedented brand equity into sustainable profitable revenue in the lifestyle segment.

Does Raymond plan to increase its textile capacity, if yes, by how much and where? Are you looking at setting up a manufacturing base outside the country and which countries are suitable?

In worsted suitings, we are already the largest manufacturer in India and among the biggest in the world. Encouraged by a sizable business opportunity and continuing aggressive growth in the shirting fabric and garmenting businesses, we are evaluating options to increase our manufacturing capacity in the medium to long term. Both domestic and global options are being evaluated, however, nothing has been finalised yet.

Raymond is predominantly a menswear brand. Do you plan to cater to women as well?

There are multiple new business opportunities we are evaluating, the women’s segment being one of many. We see a significant gap in formal corporate wear for women in India and Raymond’s ‘Made-to-Measure’, or even Park Avenue Woman, can fill this void.

What are your expansion plans for The Raymond Shop, Parx, Park Avenue and Color Plus?

We have over 750 exclusive Raymond stores across 350 towns in India and we will continue to expand through franchises. Our made-to-measure proposition has been extremely successful, and we will invest aggressively to grow the Raymond MTM retail footprint in the top 8-12 cities over the next three years.

Park Avenue and Color Plus have over 150 company exclusive brand stores and we will double our store count over the next three years. Parx has eight brand stores and we are not planning any significant exclusive store footprint expansion as of now. We will grow Parx through multi-brand stores and the e-commerce route.