project on titan
TRANSCRIPT
Project on: Titan- With Reference To
Advertising and Promotional Activities”
Submitted by: Mona Dharmendra Vyas
Email : [email protected]
Class: T.Y.BA
Division: B
Roll. no.: 139
Submitted to: Prof.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
“TO GANESHA”
At the very outstrip, fail to find adequate words, with limited vocabulary, at my command, to express my emotions, to dear god, who’s eternal blessing, divine presences and masterial guidance help me to fulfill my project.
I will always will obliged and grateful to my teacher for their inspiration and encouragement, which gave succor, and strength to my thought and mapped my way to find modus operandi for myself.
Sometimes it is not easy to express our emotions in word’s to say thanks’ to our parents, for there constant un-demanding love scarifies and inspiration guidance and never ending enthusiasm.
And ostentation use of words will not be sufficient to my institution ‘patkar collage” for their valuable and critical suggestion, constant inspiration and encouragement and sentimental support throughout my work.
I extent my sincear thanks to my friends who’s inestimable has help me a lot to complete the project.
We hope that anyone with idea and suggestion or criticism regarding this project will feel free to contact me. Such comments are always welcome and I solicit additional correction and criticism which may be address to me at [email protected].
Mona D. Vyas. T.Y.BA. Roll No.139
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Certificate
This is to Certify that the “Export Management Project” titled “Titan- With Reference To
Advertising And Promotional Activities” is an academic work done by “Mona Dharmendra Vyas”
submitted in the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of The Degree of “Bachelor of
Arts” Mumbai University from “Patkar collage, under my guidance & direction. To the best of my
Knowledge and belief the data & information presented by him/her in the project has not been
submitted earlier.
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Declaration
This is to certify that I have completed the “Export Management Project” titled “Titan- With Reference To Advertising And Promotional Activities” under the guidance of “ ”in the
partial fulfillment of the requirement for The Award of Bachelor of Arts of Patkar Collage,
Mumbai University. This is an original piece of work & I have not submitted it earlier elsewhere.
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Titan- With Reference To Advertisings and Promotional Activities
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Titan Industries
Type Joint venture
Industry Watches
Founded 1987
Headquarters Bangalore[1], India
Area served
4 continent and 40 countries. India and other
countries esp. Middle east, Asia Pacific and
Africa
Key people Xerxes Desai, Founder
ProductsWatches, Jewellery, Eyewear & Precision
Engineering
Employees 3,000
Parent Tata Group
Website www.titanworld.com
1. History 2. Tata Logo3. Tata Industries3.1 Energy3.2 Services3.3 Consumer Product3.4 Information System And Communication
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4. Tata Acquisitions And Targets4.1 Targets4.2 Revenues 5. Titan Story6. Area Of Business 6.1 Watches 6.2 Time Have Changed6.3 Transition Time 6.4 Good Times7. Looking To New Frontiers7.1Beyond The Familiar7.2 Making It Work7.3People’s Power8.Making It On Their Own8.1 Putting People First 8.1.1 Apart From This 8.2 Face Of Titan:-9. Analysis Of Titan Watches’ Company9.1Introduction9.2Expansion And Growth9.3 Condition Of The Watch Market Before The Titan Entered The Market:-9.3.1 Why Did Titan Choose Quartz Route?9.3.2 How Did The Company Succed?9.3.3 Why And How The Company Did So Many Things?9.4 An Effective Positioning Strategy9.4.1 How Did Titan Go Global?10. Titan Has Built On This Principle Over The Last 15 Years, Almost Year After Year 11 .The Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM)11.1the Objectives Of Tbem Are11.2the Tbem Drives Excellence Across Functions In The Following Manner11.3develpoment Of The Titan Industries11.3.1recent Developments 11.3.2 Records Of Nse And Bse 11.3.3 Titan Industries LimitedA]Financials (Standalone)B] Income Statement C] Balance Sheet D] Ratio Analysis
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12 How Did The Titan Music Originate13. Consumer Industries 13.1 Titans Advertising Techniques 13.2 Brand Activities13.3 Communication Techniques 13.4 Visual Merchandising13.5 Titan Launches Off-Season Discount Scheme 13.6 Titan Industries Joins Mtv13.7 Promotional Activities 13.8 Titan’s Strategies 13.9 Marketing Research 13.9.1 Titan Has Segmented The Market On The Basis Of The Following Variables13.9.2 Complementing This Segmentation Titan Is Pursuing A Three-Pronged Strategy13.9.3 Sales And Marketing13.10 Competitors Activities 14. Conclusion
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1. History
The beginnings of the Tata Group can be traced back to 1868, when Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata established a trading company dealing in cotton in Bombay (now Mumbai), British India. This was followed by the installation of Empress Mills in Nagpur in 1877. Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay (now Mumbai) was opened for business in 1903. Sir Dorab Tata, the eldest son of Jamsetji became the chairman of the group after his father’s death in 1904. Under him, the group ventured into steel production (1905) and hydroelectric power generation (1910). After the death of Dorab Tata in 1934, Nowroji Saklatwala headed the group till 1938. He was succeeded by Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata. The group expanded significantly under him with the establishment of Tata Chemicals (1939), Tata Motors and Tata Industries (both 1945), Voltas (1954), Tata Tea (1962), Tata Consultancy Services (1968) and Titan Industries (1984). Ratan Tata, the incumbent chairman of the group succeeded JRD Tata in 1991.[12]
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2.The Tata logo
The Tata logo was designed by the Wolff Olins consultancy. The logo is meant to signify fluidity; it may also be seen as a fountain of knowledge; maybe a tree of trust under which people can take refuge.
Philanthropy and nation building:
The Tata Group has helped establish and finance numerous quality research, educational and cultural institutes in India. The Tata Group was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2007 in recognition of the group's long history of philanthropic activities.[16] Some of the institutes established by the Tata Group are:
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Social Sciences Indian Institute of Science National Centre for Performing Arts Tata Management Training Centre Tata Memorial Hospital Tata Football Academy Tata Trusts, a group of philanthropic organizations run by the head of the business
conglomerate Tata Sons[17]
The JRD Tata Ecotechnology Centre The Energy and Resources Institute (earlier known as Tata Energy and Research Institute) -
which is an NPO completely committed to the cause of research in the field of renewable energy.
A comprehensive list is available on the company website.
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3. TATA INDUSTRIES:-
3.1 Energy
1. Tata Power is one of the largest private sector power companies. It supplies power to Mumbai, the commercial capital of India and is the retailer of electricity in the northern suburbs of New Delhi.
2. Chemicals3. Rallis India4. Tata Pigments5. Tata Chemicals, headquartered in Mumbai, India, Tata Chemicals has the largest single
soda ash production capacity plant in India. Since 2006 Tata Chemicals has owned Brunner Mond, a United Kingdom-based chemical company with operations in Kenya and the Netherlands.
6. Advinus Therapeutics, headquartered in Bangalore, Indian, a Contract research organization focused on drug discovery and development for Pharmaceutical, Agro and
3.2 Services
1. The Indian Hotels Company2. Tata Housing Development Company Ltd. (THDC)3. TATA AIG General Insurance4. TATA AIG Life Insurance5. Tata Advanced Systems Limited6. Tata Asset Management7. Tata Financial Services8. Tata Capital9. Tata Investment Corporation10. Tata Quality Management Services11. Tata Share Registry12. Tata Strategic Management Group (TSMG) is one of the largest consulting firms in South
Asia.13. Tata Services
3.3 Consumer Products
1. Tata Salt, i-Shakti Salt, Tata Salt Lite2. Eight O'Clock Coffee3. Tata Ceramics4. Infiniti Retail5. Tata Tea Limited is the world's second largest manufacturer of packaged tea and tea
products. It also owns the Tetley brand of tea sold primarily in Europe.6. Titan Industries manufacturers of Titan watches7. Trent (Westside)8. Tata Sky9. Tata International Ltd - Leather Products Division
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10. Tanishq jewellery11. Star Bazaar
3.4 Information systems and communications
1. Computational Research Laboratories2. INCAT3. Nelco4. Nelito Systems5. Tata Business Support Services (formerly Serwizsol)6. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) is Asia's largest software company with 2008-09
revenues being over US$ 6 bn.7. Tata Elxsi is another software and industrial design company of the Tata stable. Based in
Bangalore and Trivandrum.8. Tata Interactive Systems
Tata Technologies Limited
9. Tata Teleservices10. Tata Communications, formerly VSNL, the Indian telecom giant, was acquired in 2002.
Tata-owned VSNL acquired Teleglobe in 2005.11. CMC Limited12. TATANET, Managed connectivity and VSAT service provider
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4.Tata acquisitions and targets:-
1. February 2000 - Tetley Tea Company, $407 million2. March 2004 - Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company, $102 million3. August 2004 - NatSteel's Steel business, $292 million4. November 2004 - Tyco Global Network, $130 million5. July 2005 - Teleglobe International Holdings, $239 million6. October 2005 - Good Earth Corporation7. December 2005 - Millennium Steel, Thailand, $167 million8. December 2005 - Brunner Mond Chemicals Limited, $120 million9. June 2006 - Eight O'Clock Coffee, $220 million10. November 2006 - Ritz Carlton Boston, $170 million11. Jan 2007 - Corus Group, $12 billion12. March 2007 - PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC) (Bumi Resources), $1.1 billion13. April 2007 - Campton Place Hotel, San Francisco, $60 million14. February 2008 - General Chemical Industrial Products, $1 billion15. March 2008 - Jaguar Cars and Land Rover, $2.3 billion16. March 2008 - Serviplem SA, Spain17. April 2008 - Comoplesa Lebrero SA, Spain18. May 2008 - Piaggio Aero Industries S.p.A., Italy19. June 2008 - China Enterprise Communications, China20. June 2008 - Neotel, South Africa21. October 2008- Miljo Grenland / Innovasjon, NorwayImacid chemical company, Morocco
4.1Targets:-
Close Brothers Group, $2.9 billion
Orient Express Hotels, $2.5 billion January 2008 - T-Systems International (IT division of Deutsche Telekom)
4.2 Revenue:-
Tata gets more than 2/3rd of its revenue from outside India.
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5.The Titan Story
The foundation of the Tata Group was laid in 1868 by Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata He learned the ropes of business while working in his father's banking firm and he established a trading company in Bombay.
Titan, a joint venture between Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) and the renowned Indian business group Tatas, entered the watch market in 1984. Titan changed the watch market in India completely by making quartz watch the centerpiece of its strategy. Titan Company is the unquestioned leader in Indian Watch Industry. Titan is one of the most powerful brands in the Indian market, scoring very high on brand awareness, brand image and brand preference.
The watch market in India recorded an approximate volume turnover of 23 million units (1998-99). It is growing at 9% per annum. The organized sector contributes to half the volume turnover of the industry and rest by the unorganized sector. Titan has 60% share in organized sector
Since its inception, Titan decided that it would be the shaper of the watch industry and not an adapter. The Tatas took two decisions that paid them well as and changed the face of Indian watch market. They decided to manufacture only quartz (analog and digital) and not mechanicals and they projected as fashion accessory. Titan was first in India to introduce the style concept and was successful in projecting its watches as more than a time keeping machine.
Titan initially pioneered the concept of "Gifting watches". The ads captured the essence of gifting and along with the trendy music, easily caught the imagination of the market.
Customers who were fed up with ugly time machines welcomed the brand and Titan had a dream run for many years.
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Titan entered the watch market as a premium watch. But the unorganized sector and low priced options from HMT gave Titan serious competition. With the import duty reduced to 25% (earlier 50%) and with the import license for watch movement being easy to obtain, many smalltime players cropped up. These small players offered competition to Titan on the price front. 10.
Early 2001, when Indian consumers rated Titan ahead of all other brands as the Most Admired Brand in India across all product categories (the first ever such survey done by Brand Equity), it did not surprise people that a 13 year-old had managed to upstage many older and more well-known brands: it was expected of Titan to achieve such things, it was so natural.
It was also a fitting tribute to a brand, which had not only revolutionized the Indian watch industry, but also brought in world-class benchmarks in product design, quality and retailing into India.
Back in the early eighties, the Tata Group had identified the watch category as a potential consumer market for the Tata’s to enter. Xerxes Desai, a Tata veteran and the then MD of Tata Press, was chosen to lead that venture.
In those days of pre-liberalization the watch market, like most consumer markets in India, was way behind the rest of the world. The technology in vogue was the reliable, but outdated "Mechanical" technology, which used the unwinding of a mechanical spring to tell time. Not only was the accuracy of time-keeping not good enough, but the bulky mechanical movement did not permit the creation of sleek products. The industry was dominated by the public sector which had brought in watch manufacturing into India, enjoyed tremendous goodwill in the market, but had not really invested in evolving itself and its consumers: styling still remained basic, choice was limited.
The watch shops were narrow, dingy and typically located in the older, traditional markets of the city. You went there only to buy a watch, never to browse, never to simply check out. Visual merchandising was very much at the stage of "decoration" if any, and neither the brands nor the retailers saw it as important. The companies themselves did not have much contact with retailers, preferring to sell through wholesalers, doing well that way. There was hardly any need for consumer contact or research. It was a sellers' market.
All this affected the consumers. Watches remained a time-keeping device, so one watch was enough, thank you. Since the quality of the watch was quite good, it lasted quite a while, and the consumers did not change it for 10, 15, 20 years. And when they did change it, they did not pay a high price for the new piece because, what the hell, they were buying another time-keeping device.
Xerxes Desai's vision was to dramatically alter this perception of consumers, and make Titan a fashion accessory. He knew that that was the only way that this new brand would explode the market and wrest control from the dominant HMT.
So he and his team went about breaking all the rules in the category:
Mechanical technology was the norm - Quartz had not really taken off in India. Titan would go against that and build its line based on quartz. Accuracy would become a selling-plank.
Styling was basic - This was a constraint imposed by the technology as well the outlook of the manufacturers. Titan decided to make style a table-stake.
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Choice was limited - You had 200 models to pick from, that was it. Titan decided to inundate consumers with a wide choice in style, functions and price. The initial range was 350 models.
Shops were dark, dingy and uninteresting - There was no importance given to presentation, and therefore no attempt made at it. Titan brought in the concept of retailing into the watch market, established a network of fine showrooms which would later become the world's largest network of exclusive watch stores. These stores not only helped Titan to gain leadership substantially, but also irrevocably altered the retail landscape of the watch market through a demonstration effect on the traditional dealers.
Advertising was expenditure - Titan saw this as a vital investment. Right from Day 1, Titan invested significantly in advertising and in that process created a set of memorable and effective properties over the years.
So Titan, backed by world-class quality created at a world-class plant located just off Bangalore, backed by the Tata name, was launched into the Indian market on the back of these new rules. It created waves right in the early days, mesmerised consumers, demolished competition and rode into the sunset with panache.
What is truly amazing about Titan is the sheer scale of its offering and the consequent choice it offers to multiple segments across taste, age and economic background. Titan saw this approach as the foundation of its leadership strategy in the early days. Even the early range had distinct offerings for different requirements: formal watches (gold plated cases with fine leather straps) for the executive, dress watches (gold plated cases with ornamental gold plated bracelets) for those with a preference for jewellery, rugged watches (all steel watches with a skew to functionality) for those whose usage demanded a certain durability.
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6.Area of Business
Titan's main products are:
6.1 Watches : The four main watch brands include Titan for the mid-premium segment, Fastrack focused on the youth and trendy fashion space, Sonata for the mass market and Xylys for the premium market. The Titan brand architecture comprises several sub-brands: Titan Edge, Titan Raga, Nebula and several other collections like Wall Street, Heritage, Regalia, and the Aviator series.
The company manufactures over 10 million watches per annum and has a customer base of over 100 million. Today, the Titan portfolio has over 60 per cent of the domestic market share in the organised watch market. Watches are sold through exclusive 'World of Titan' showrooms and at 12,000 outlets in more than 2,500 cities in India and internationally in over 30 countries, primarily in the Middle-East and Asia Pacific. Its after-sales-service is itself a benchmarked operation with service centres and amongst the world’s fastest turnaround times. The company has a world-class design studio for designing watches and accessories.
On a busy street in one of Mumbai’s western suburbs lies one of the biggest watch retail showrooms in India. Launched in the first week of March 2010, the glittering new Titan outlet in Bandra is what the company calls its flagship store, this in spite of the company having 290 other Titan retail outlets spread across India and overseas.
So why is the 291st store attached to a ‘flagship’ tag? Simply because this Titan store, spread over 2,500sq ft, stocked with over 1,500 models and designs, and loaded with a bouquet of customer services, represents the new face of Titan Industries. It is this store that best establishes the Titan identity — as the purveyor of unique and niche retail experiences.
Titan is going all out to create and present a watch-buying experience that is beyond the ordinary. Apart from the stylised and luxurious ambience of its stores, Titan has designed an array of customer services such as personalised laser engraving, a full service watch care centre, gift delivery facility, gift vouchers, and so on, all aimed at converting footfalls into satisfied customers.
The new store is just the latest in a number of unique retail experiments that Titan has undertaken. Take, for instance, Helios, the classy watch store that Titan opened in Bangalore to market about 40 premium and international brands in an upmarket ambience. Then there is Zoya, a line of exclusive and luxuriously-fashioned boutiques launched last year that cost about Rs.150 million each to set up, and is aimed at the designer jewellery market.
At the other end of the spectrum, Titan is setting up teen-oriented stores for its Fastrack brand; the stores are small (400-500sq ft), located near college campuses and cater to the college crowd by selling youth
accessories such as watches, sunglasses, bags, belts, wallets and wristbands.
The fact of the matter is that Titan today is one of India’s largest retail networks with over 530 stores in its sphere of influence, covering a range of watches, gold and precious stone jewellery, and
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eyewear extending across the highend, mid-range and low-budget spectrum. And, more to the point, the company is now consciously building on its retail strengths.
“In all of our new stores, we are focusing on enhancing the customer’s retail experience,” says Titan managing director Bhaskar Bhat.,”
SUB- BRANDS OF TITAN
Sonata:
This is Titan’s most basic range, offered reliable, everyday working watches reasonably priced between Rs 350 – Rs 900, a case of socio-economic segmentation and this brand is perhaps HMT’s most direct competitor, offering more or less similar attributes to those offered by HMT’s watches.
Edges:
These ultra-slim watches are marketed as being “Truly World Class”. This offering from Titan is more sophisticated and elegant looking watches for the urban class of people who are more image and status conscious .Titan has used psychographic segmentation to identify the market for ‘EDGE’. Ultra-slim watches are a growing trend in the international watch market today, with quite a few brands such as “Swatch”, “Citizen” and “Rado” offering their variations of the concept. Titan is no less.
Nebula :
Originally part of the Tanishq line, Nebula became part of the Titan line when Tanishq was made exclusively a jewellery line. One of the Titan’s most expensive range of watches, they are still marketed as solid golden watches under the ad-line, “ The Jeweler’s Collection”, a case of Geo-clustering technique of segmentation. Priced between Rs. 6000- Rs 13,500 these watches are rather obviously targeted at upper-most end of the market, in competition with brand such as “Rolex” and “Cartier”.
Dash ! :
These are bright, colorful watches aimed at children aged 6-14 years, offering the advantage of a recognized, high quality brand, economically priced at Rs. 250 onwards. These watches are marketed under the ad-line “Wow watches from Titan” thereby making them instantly appealing to their target audience. Dash! Has created an entirely new market segment in the watch industry and dominated it. Recently however, with the entry of Swatch, with their child- oriented “Pop-Swatch” watches, Dash! Finally has some competition. Dash! Is still likely to dominate this segment however, as no other brand is quite ready to offer such competitive prices.
Fastrack:
These are Titan’s youth oriented, “Style” watches, priced between Rs. 550-Rs. 1500. incorporating the all new international frosted look, these watches offer contemporary styles that are fresh and vibrant, for both men and women ( Geo-clustering segmentation). The all-steel body comes in variety of frosted finishes-steel, gold ion plated and black ion plated with PVC, leather and cool Page | 18
metal straps. All watches are highly water resistant, ranging form 50m to 100m. their ad-line, “Cool Watches from Titan” speaks volumes about the segment it is targeted at. Fastrack recently launched it’s digital range as well, and now counts among it’s main competitors “Sitco” and “Casio” (in digital range) and “Espirit” and Swatch” (in the analog range).
Classique:
These watches are targeted at the older male segment of the market, and profess timeless elegance through a combination of fine leather straps, clean classic dials and sleek cases, thus making it, “A perfect fit for formal wear”. Classique is the embodiment of everything that is everlasting yet contemporary. These watches tend to be generic in their simplicity, and find no real competitors, save for perhaps HMT. These watches are priced between Rs. 550 to Rs. 3000.
Insignia:
This “World Watch” priced between Rs. 4000 – Rs. 7500, is an eloquent fusion of design, craftsmanship, and precision engineering. An Insignia is 10 times more complex than a regular Titan watch, incorporating the best of materials, high graded anti-allergic steel, scratch resistant sapphire crystal and special hard gold plating. Individually numbered, each Insignia comes with a two-year international guarantee.
Psi 2000:
A range of contemporary sports watches aimed and marketed as a tough, outdoor, adventure brand (Psychographics segmentation). Made from non-allergic stainless steel, these watches have such authentic sports features as luminous dial marking, rotating timer rings, upto 100m water resistance, and screw in crowns to withstand pressure while swimming. As is evident from their advertising, Psi 2000 is positioned in direct competition with similar foreign brands such as the Swatch “Irony”. These watches are priced between Rs. 800 to Rs. 7500
Raga:
These are exclusive watches for women, with design elements that are first of their kind. An exciting collection that incorporates traditional Indian motifs, with such innovation as interchangeable straps and a unique three in one watch. Designed exclusively for use with Indian women’s formal wear such as sarees and salwar kameezes, this range is truly one of a kind and has no competitors in its segment. These watches are priced between Rs 1400 to Rs 4000
Royale:
This stunning collection comprises of alluring gold plated cases matched with exquisite gold plated straps, and including designs to suit everything from simple to dressy evening wear. These watches are priced between Rs 960 to Rs 3000.
Regalia:
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Priced at Rs 5000 upwards, and marketed as “Incredibly eye catching … magic in gold”, these finely crafted watches combine sleek cases and pattered dials with special appliqués flowing in to intricately designed bracelets. This is Regalia… a special watch for a special occasion. With a unique combination of all gold and bicolor looks, this range represents the essence of dress wear ( Geo clustering segmentation ). Competitors include foreign “ Dress Watch” brands such as “Tissot”, “Piaget” and “Rado”.
Spectra:
A truly unique collection of watches, which combines the sturdiness of steel with the richness of gold. International in its styling, this range is for those who look beyond the ordinary. These watches are priced between Rs 650 to Rs 1900.
Technology:
These watches merge classic elegance with technology mastery. This unusual combination gives rise to multifunctional chronographs using space age technology and the timeless essence of the sun in order to produce contemporary solar powered machine in competition with brands such as “Citizen’s” – Eco Drive. These watches are priced between Rs 2350 to Rs 8170.
Titan has also slightly diversified beyond it’s core product of wrist watches by entering the clock market. It has done so in the form of the two following brands;
Synchrony:
These are analog table clocks, offered in over a 100 different models, and available in both plastic as well as steel. They are marketed under the ad-line “Center of Attention” and are priced at Rs 425 upwards. This line finds itself in combination with predominantly Indian brands such as “Ajanta”, “Jayco” and “Prestige”.
Cyber:
One of Titan’s newest brands, cyber offers small digital alarm clocks priced between Rs 400 to Rs 600. in keeping with its image, the cyber line of clocks even has it’s own website: [email protected]
6.2 Transition time
After some years Titan moved into the jewellery-making business with its hugely successful Tanishq brand. When asked whether Titan is changing to become more a retail-led organisation than a manufacturing one, Mr Bhat says, “It’s an evolution of sorts, a journey. Titan has always been a customer- focused organisation and we have to change along with her.”
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Her? The reality is that nearly 70 per cent of Titan’s customers today are women. “Almost all of jewellery business, a third of the watch business, and about 35 per cent of the eyewear business comes from women,” says Mr Bhat.
Apart from gender, Titan has seen the Indian customer profile changing dramatically in other ways as well since the country opened up its economy. For one, watches are now style accessories rather than timekeeping devices. Another factor is that the Indian watch market has seen a deluge of foreign brands, both highend premium names and cheap Asian imports.
Titan hopes to cater to the new customer and counter the competition by building its brand equity and reinforcing customer experience. “Titan is in a unique position where, unlike other retailers, we own the product brands and the retail space. In our own retail space, we need to control and enhance both the product and the buying experience. We are now interacting with our customers at one level deeper than before,” says Mr Bhat.
The benefits of being a retail-led organisation go beyond connecting with the customer. According to Mr Bhat, Titan is able to cash in by retaining both the product margins and the retail margins, which add substantially to the bottom line.
This equation may explain the huge impetus to Titan’s retail drive last year, when the company experienced the largest expansion in its retail network — as many as 135 new stores were added across all business lines, making the total 487 stores at the end of 2008-09. The current financial year will see the numbers going up even more.
6.3 Time Have Changed:-
The focus on retail is the latest stage in Titan’s business history. Over its 25-year existence, Titan has undertaken several pan-organization changes — it started out as a watch company, and then moved into the jewellery-making business with its hugely successful Tanishq brand. A couple of years ago Titan further extended itself as a lifestyle company by entering the eyewear industry with its brand Eye+, a business that is making its mark in the prescription eyewear space. A smaller operation is the precision engineering division that manufactures components for industries.
The new business lines have made a tremendous difference to Titan’s balance sheets. Last year, jewellery contributed nearly 65 per cent (Rs.27.63 billion) of Titan’s turnover, making a much larger contribution to revenue than the older watch business (Rs.9.08 billion). The rest of Titan’s business lines —
eyewear, accessories and precision engineering — brought in another Rs.1.36 billion, taking the total to Rs.38.47 billion.
Titan’s net profits stood at Rs1.59 billion in the same period, with jewellery bringing in the majority share at 55 per cent. The numbers reveal the fundamentals of both the watch and the jewellery business lines — volumes are higher in the jewellery business but the volatility of gold prices squeezes margins. Watches, account for a smaller component of revenue but add more to the bottom line on a per piece basis. This fact underscores Titan’s strategy of increasing its penetration of the watch and jewellery markets through a focused and targeted retail drive meant to attract customers across the value spectrum. From a business perspective, Titan has transitioned completely from being a manufacturing company to a brand-led company, to its latest phase — that of being a retail-
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led organisation. “The manufacturing side of our operations will continue to be critical — it gives us width and depth in our portfolio, and ensures our quality standards. Retailing allows us to capitalise on both brand loyalty and store loyalty,” explains Mr Bhat.
6.4 Good Times:-
Titan’s retail story could well be the reason why the company, in spite of operating in the consumer durable business, a segment that was hit badly by the economic slowdown, showed a remarkably upbeat performance in 2008-09 with sales and profitability actually going up by 26.6 per cent and 14 per cent respectively over the previous year. “This year we have done even better,” twinkles Mr Bhat, in a modest
statement that is backed up by the jump in profitability shown in the half-yearly results released by the company.
The retail transformation has meant that Titan has had to change more than the face it shows its customer. Internally, the company has had to develop new capabilities in the business of setting up new stores. One such development is the formation of the integrated retail services group, a new support function created last year that provides expertise on locating new sites, handling negotiations, creating interiors, training sales staff, etc. Once up, the stores are linked to a management information system (MIS) that keeps senior management updated daily on which products are selling, and more importantly, which are not. “At the end of each day, the information from all our stores is collated and we get a sales update by SMS or an email,” says Mr Bhat.
All three of Titan’s consumer-oriented divisions (the fourth is the B2B precision engineering division) are going all out to increase the retail numbers. Fastrack alone is expected to open in 50 more
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franchised stores this year. Titan’s flagship store format will be replicated in Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai in the coming fiscal year. Eye+ is planning to open over 50 stores this year, eventually scaling up to hit the 300 mark. Helios is slated for 15 more outlets in the next fiscal year.
It is obvious that Titan hopes to leverage its retail presence to push real growth, in terms of both volume and value. When asked what is Titan’s biggest challenge, finding markets or deriving margins, Mr Bhat is unequivocal – “Markets! Margins are not an issue at all, we can command our price. But we need to find the markets and pull in the customers.”
Finding markets is indeed a business imperative. Though Titan sells watches in 25 countries apart from India, it has not fared well in retail expansions overseas. Last year’s economic meltdown in the US meant that the company had to close down its two Tanishq showrooms in that country. This year’s obvious signs of economic revival have led Titan to reopen plans of expansion into the Asian markets.
With the customer and her buying habits at the core of Titan’s operations, the name of the game is customer experience. And that is what Titan’s retail thrust is expected to do — pull in the customers. And keep them in.
7. Looking to new frontiers:-
Titan Global Design, set up by Titan Industries in October 2009, plans to leverage the company’s well-established expertise in product design and take it to the global market
Titan Industries has built itself a formidable reputation as a design powerhouse in the jewellery and watch design space in India. Its efforts at innovative use of design to create products that are aesthetically pleasing and yet functional have been recognised in multiple forums and it has won Page | 23
several awards for the same. The company now plans to take this design expertise overseas with Titan Global Design (TGD).
Set up in October 2009, TGD emerged out of a need, a need to address the gap in supply and demand in the global design industry. “We have been providing design services to our internal clients and saw the scope of extending our services to the rest of the world, which would create an opportunity to leverage our design skills beyond watches,” says Revathi Kant, head, Titan Design Studio.
7.1Beyond the familiar:-
Coming from Titan Industries, TGD draws upon a strong knowledge base in the watch, eyewear and accessories segment. Undoubtedly TGD will build upon this foundation. Ms Kant adds, “With this venture, we are also looking to spread our
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footprint in non-competing categories such as consumer goods, corporate gifts, lifestyle products, trophies and graphics and visual merchandising both in India and abroad.”
Products that stand out for their cutting-edge design in multiple sectors are not the only thing on offer from TGD. The studio will also offer clients end-to-end design solutions – starting with research, conceptualization and ideation, technical design and prototyping, and handing over detailed technical inputs to clients.
7.2 Making it work:-
The Indian design industry is still in a nascent stage and that is why design studios continue to encounter teething problems. One problem is the concentration of design firms in four-five cities, which makes it difficult for companies to interact with the designers on a regular basis during the design process. Another issue is the lack of transparency of costs, which makes it difficult for companies to assess the “cost of design”. A third obstacle is the lack of professionalism especially in terms of timeline commitments.
Most designers are more focused on the aesthetics of the product rather than innovating new ones with a problem-solving approach. Indian designers are yet to embrace the in-depth understanding of consumer insights, which is a critical aspect of the design process and one that global design firms take very seriously. But with TGD, Titan is hoping to promote talent that understands the nuances of design as well as respects consumer needs, and bring in a fresh approach in processes, thus helping the company stay innovative.
The response since the launch has been very encouraging. At present, TGD has clients from industries as diverse as consumer products, financial institutions, event organizers, advertising and event government bodies. A lot of the credit for this goes to the trust and reputation that Titan and Tata group have earned over the years.
7.3 People’s power:-
So how does the studio encourage innovation and ensure that the workspace is creatively charged? “We make sure that designers work on diverse project categories and sufficient time is allocated for background research and conceptualization,” says Ms Kant.
The designers are also exposed to the latest trends in design by attending various national and international fairs, summits, conferences and design workshops.
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Another tool TGD uses is to rate every project on an IQ metric, where the innovation quotient of the project is measured on a scale of 1-10. Titan’s 3I process ensures immersion, ideation and implementation.
At TGD, consumer understanding plays a key role in the design process. While formal training and workshops are conducted to sharpen the skills of the designers, working on different product categories increases their knowledge about the segments as well as builds greater awareness about the consumer requirements. “Extensive market research and consumer understanding is an integral part of any design project we undertake,” notes Ms Kant.
A design is more than just the aesthetics. It is providing the right design solution, which is both cost-effective and technologically sound. And that is the goal that the team at TGD has set for itself as it aims to be among the leading global design studios such as Design Works USA, Porsche Design studio, Philips Design, Alessi, Sony Design.
8. Making it on their own:-
Titan's enlightened policy of employing people with disabilities has paid dividends for the company, while helping these children of a lesser god turn their lives around.
Among the multitude of barriers that the disabled in India have to navigate, the most debilitating is the lack of employment opportunities. There is enough sympathy going around to make a lame man walk, but precious few jobs. Part of the blame for this rests with employers, but, as Titan Industries has shown, there are exceptions.
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The disabled are more than capable of delivering the goods in the workplace, provided companies take the trouble to identify areas where the abilities of the handicapped can be put to productive use. In the case of Titan, one of the world's largest timepiece manufacturers, it began with an inclination to help the handicapped. By the early 1980s the company had started introducing 'disabled' employees in its workplaces, becoming one of a handful of Indian enterprises attempting to reverse the job-market bias against people with disabilities. Currently, the disabled constitute about four per cent of Titan's total employee strength. This includes 32 employees with physical disabilities, 87 with hearing and speech impairments, and three with vision impairments.
Titan understood that the watch industry provides several employment opportunities for those with disabilities. Tasks with low levels of body risk, the least physical movement and minimum verbal communication were identified and categorised ability-wise. The physically impaired were set down to polish watch cases and assemble components and the hearing impaired to strap watch heads, while the vision impaired found a place in the company's packaging and despatch division. About 25 per cent of ‘differently-abled’ employees are also employed across production departments as machine operators in areas such as sorting, buffing and ornament making. Titan's unique recruitment strategy meant combing the countryside in search of capable candidates aged between 18 and 24. Appropriate selection procedures were adopted, depending on the nature of the disability. The company arranged counseling sessions with the families, to make the transition into the factory smooth. "Titan was
clear that these people are an intrinsic part of our society and need understanding, support and opportunities, not charity or misplaced compassion," says RN Elangovan, manager, learning and Development, who has been closely involved with the initiative. Hiring was but one component of Titan's plan; ergonomically designed workspaces were just as important. For example, the provision of handrails makes walking within the Titan factory effortless for physically challenged employees. Several steps were taken to address their special needs: training to enhance technical competence, computer literacy, non-discrimination in all policies, creating a conducive work environment by effective grievance handling, counseling to tackle problems like exploitation, marital conflicts and emotional problems. Those with disabilities were housed with regular employees, which contributed to their integration with the rest of the workforce. Even work areas were made common. Fortnightly meetings sensitised the company about issues concerning the disabled and their families. Supervisors who interacted with the hearing impaired were trained in sign language. Today, in the strapping department, it's nearly impossible to distinguish the hearing impaired from the others, as everyone uses sign language. The introduction of employees with disabilities early in the life of the company contributed to their acceptance as equal members of the workforce, promoting cohesion in the working environment. Apart from providing employment and financial independence, the disabled at Titan have improved their social standing and boosted their self-esteem. Around 96 of them are married, with Titan playing matchmaker for eight couples. Most own
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homes in the Titan township and their children study in the Titan school where some are top performers. With time, Titan has realised that the disabled members of its family are more loyal and far more focused on the job. Despite the physical shortcomings of these employees, productivity and quality have never been issues, with most performing on par with normal employees. Titan's children of a lesser god are no longer classified as disabled, merely 'differently-abled'.
8.1 Putting people first:-
“A host of skill and talent development programmers along with processes that encourage and nurture employee involvement is what makes Titan Industries a great place to work in.”
Titan Industries is not a brick and mortar company. It is built on the passion and emotion of its proud employees. Titan can be best described as a huge living organism pulsating with highly motivated and dedicated employees. Every employee is treated with care and concern and is allowed to grow and blossom. No wonder then that the company has won the ‘India’s Best Companies to Work For - 2009’ award, having bagged the 24th position across all industry categories and the first position in the Retail Industry category in the 'Great Places to Work' study instituted by The Economic Times.
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The company has been recognized for many “firsts” both in terms of its products as well as employee initiatives. Some of the noteworthy contributions are a state-of-the-art Titan township in Hosur, designed by renowned architect Charles Correa. Over 600 families reside in this well-planned township. It also boasts of the Titan School, which is open to all the residents’ children.
S Ramadoss, vice president, HR and Administration, says, “Titan has always believed in the concept of Human Capital. Putting people first comes naturally to us.”
The company provides a host of welfare measures such as a crèche facility at the manufacturing units, gymnasium, canteen, medical, transport, etc. Loans for marriage, house deposit allowances, an interest subsidy on housing loans, vehicle loans, internal and external accident benefits, death relief fund, etc are offered to unionized and non-unionized employees.
A culture of camaraderie is evident in the enthusiastic celebration of all Indian festivals and special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, long service awards, cultural programmes, sports competitions, business meets, etc. The company also extends medical facilities and provides highly subsidized food to workers who are not on its rolls, an act of kindness that goes beyond statutory requirements.
Family members are also made to feel welcome at Titan by including them in awareness programmes, factory visits, family picnics, and celebrations such as Father’s Day, Spouse’s Day, and Children’s Day and community initiatives. Mr Ramadoss says, “More than 1,000 children participate in the Children’s Day programme each year to display their talent in drawing, painting, music, etc.”
These occasions are used by the management to communicate the goals and aspirations of the organization. Company representatives also visit newlyweds at their residence to congratulate them and give them gifts, a practice that has helped cement ties between the organization and employees and their families.
But it isn’t all play at Titan. The company has established a structure consisting of small group activities, suggestion schemes such as SEED and Idea Plus, and cross-functional teams to enable employees to express their ideas for making things better. This enables employees to play a more active role in their work lives. Employees are recognised and rewarded for going the extra mile through a well drawn out three-tiered recognition programme, namely, Moment of Fame, Outstanding Titanian, and Dream Team awards. Titan has also instituted a special recognition programme for frontline employees, namely, ‘Face of Titan’, ‘Super Stars’ and ‘Look for Stars’.
8.1.1 Apart from this:-
The company has formed several committees through which employees can express their talents. These committees are related to the canteen, safety, sports, cultural
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activities, etc. While the sports committee enables sportspersons to participate in local, regional and national events, the cultural committee hones employees' talent and encourages them to perform at special events within and outside the company. Employees with a flair for writing are encouraged to contribute to in-house newsletters such as NEWS BOX, Glitter Buzz, Retale, Champions.
The company also has a strong culture of volunteering. Over 300 volunteers participate in blood donation camps, eye camps, AIDS and environmental awareness, and other community initiatives. The efforts of volunteers are actively supported by the management too.
Titan’s HR structure is designed so as to understand and cater to the needs of employees at every level. At the local level, there are regional HR executives and Unit Personnel Executives (UPE). The UPEs are entrusted with the task of taking care of specific units within the company and acting as a single point of contact for employees. Mr Ramadoss adds, “The UPEs communicate with employees, enable deployment of welfare measures and larger HR initiatives, resolve grievances and counsel employees.”
The UPE system, which is well entrenched within the organisation, combines with the biannual open house interactions to instill confidence in employees that their opinions and views are important to the company. The open house interactions are typically presided over by the MD and heads of key functions.
Employees are free to directly communicate with the MD via email or phone. They can also approach other managers to discuss official and personal issues.
Mr Ramadoss says, “Titan has a formal documented grievance redressal procedure. Often the management forms committees which specifically focus on understanding and resolving employee grievances. [email protected] is another formal e-channel, which encourages employees to express their concerns and complaints in a non-invasive manner. These are centrally monitored by HR. There are other formal structures that deal strongly with issues such as ethical conduct, sexual harassment, etc.” In addition, the presence of a formal union, with designated office bearers and executive members representing various units, ensures that employee needs are catered to. The growth and development of its people is very important to Titan. “We have a formal structure to impart knowledge and skills through in-house as well as external training programmes," says Mr Ramadoss. "All categories of employees go through an average of two to five man days of training each year.”There is a structured Talent Management process in place at Titan, which is meant for grooming future leaders in the organisation. The programme ensures that the organisation has a continuous supply of high-potential individuals. The focus is to recognise high performance, address the aspirations of the talent and provide opportunities for career growth, which will help them take leadership roles.
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Training is also provided on stress management and yoga, personality development and grooming, English and Hindi speaking, etc. Additionally, Titan encourages its employees to participate in public events, seminars and competitions by providing additional training and mentoring. The company also encourages employees to take up higher studies.
The Tata philosophy is quite evident in Titan’s approach towards its employees. Titanians, in turn, have acknowledged the approach by naming it ‘a great workplace’.
8.2 Face of Titan:-
The Company also runs a one of a kind contest in the retail industry called the Face Of Titan (FOT) contest to identify the most talented Sales person, Manager & Service personnel Technician & Cashier.] The contest recognizes the best based on a set of parameters that give a measure of the overall development of the individual in each of the categories mentioned above and is not solely on sales.
This program was conceived as an assessment centre for frontline staff - by Aparna Ponnappa, inspired at that time by staff who expressed their desire to 'perform' and 'be recognised' for what they do. This program enabled the retail wing of Titan to empower staff to take charge of their own skill development and provided them with a healthy and fun environment to compete and showcase their own talent.Page | 31
The contest leapfrogged into the digital era from the year 2006-07 with the introduction of IT in the capturing of survey data across all of its 200+ stores,that year also saw the introduction of the data gathered at the store level being used to profile the staff at various levels using a custom built web based software developed by I.GEN Labs TITAN company has good reputation in Indian stock market(NSE).Each share cost 3198 rupees .titan is a Lombard company in India.one of the finest watch manufacturing company.
9. Analysis of Titan watches’ company
9.1Introduction;Titan watch is a joint venture of Tata Group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development
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Corporation (TIDCO). It was established in 1984 and setup its production facility in 1987 for the manufacture of quartz analogue electronic watches at Hosurnear, Bangalore.
9.2Expansion and Growth:-
Within three years of launch Titan appeared as the leader in Indian quartz watch market. And it had 60% share of the quartz watch market in the 4th year of launch. Titan’s watches are sold in from more than 6000 retail shops spread throughout the country covering 1200 towns. Titan has 140 exclusive showrooms (world of Titan) and 150 multi-brand showrooms (Titan Time Zones). The company’s watches are also currently sold in about 40 countries of the world through marketing subsidiaries based in Landon, Dubai, and Singapore. Titan is the sixth largest global player in the manufacture brands category.
9.3 Condition of the watch market before the Titan entered the market:-
HMT was the leader of the watch market and was producing mechanical watches. And the mechanical watches dominated the watch market. HMT was producing 5 million mechanical watches per year. So it was a tough time for Titan to make a good decision whether to go for mechanical watches or for quartz or for both mechanical and quartz. It finally decided to go for quartz.
9.3.1 Why did Titan choose quartz route?Due to the changing world trend towards quarts;It was the right time to go for quartz because the globe was already changed toward quartz and quartz was the right product to conquer today’s watch market as well as tomorrow’s watch market. Making a wise decision helped Titan to dominate India’s watch market and, in addition it enabled Titan to go global.
Setting up a quartz watch plant required less investment comparing to mechanical watches plant, Titan has made a very sensible and rational decision to go for quartz; Hence Titan could invest heavily on the effective promotion, advertising, huge product distribution, a high quality product, and etc, instead of investing too much money on the plant. In fact from the very beginning Titan showed its wisdom. Because in every start up an understanding is required this has been done by the Titan. At the end of the day no regret can compensate the damage or destruction of any wrong decision taken by anyone with the fruit of success.
9.3.2 How did the company succed?
Through Effective Strategies: The Company put on the market a wide and attractive range of quality watches and they were also contemporary in style. The company developed new watch movements including dual time, world time, alarm and long-bettery-life watches. Titan set new trends in which new designs and innovative and the best technology was used. Titan offered a choice of over 1000 designs long product line and wide range of models. And Titan also offered jewelry watches. Titan
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launched digital watches and an exciting brand for children (Dash). Titan also targeted semi-urban and rural customers.
9.3.3 Why and how the company did so many things?
In simple words; the company did not leave any vacancy that required to be filled. It was always seeking for opportunities. In fact it attempted to conquer all the segments in the market according to demographic en, social and culture en, economical en, psychological factors and etc. the company knew all the changing environments through research and carefully watching the market. All these efforts could help the company to increase its market share in the long-run. Even the children were targeted in order to bring them into the Titan fold at an early age.
9.4 An effective positioning strategy;
Variety in product offer was Titan’s real trump card and Titan built its positioning strategy.Watch is not a time telling device anymore; it can be an ornament, a gift, a fashion wear or a style.Why? Titan studied consumers’ behavior. Consumers were giving more attention to dress, ornament, and even footwear. So Titan decided based on psychological factors of the consumers to attract and target customers through effective positioning.
Titan made the product available at locations like bookstores, gift shops, boutiques, and opened counters in restaurants, photography shops and in fashion wear shops.The company knew that if its product is an ornament or gift so it should be available every where rather than a watch shop. It definitely helped Titan’s product to be sold, because a product is always preferred and sold due to its availability and different varieties with different price-range. Titan also voted for the showroom idea and started franchising a network of trendy Titan showrooms. As the product was positioned as a fashion wears so the store image was also too important to be in tune with the overall product positioning.
9.4.1 How did Titan go global?
The next logical step was to move into the world market. And Titan’s first step in its internationalization journey was the Middle East.
Why the Middle East? The decision was based on market research and one simple indisputable fact that the region had a large Indian population for whom Titan was already an established well-known brands.
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In addition entry into the global market fortified Titan’s position at home.Why? In simple words, customers now recognize Titan as an international producer.And in fact customers always perceive that the products from abroad are better than products at home. So going global give a fresh edge to Titan’s marketing strategy at home. In customers’ view now Titan is more reliable because the world has accepted it.
In brief overall;
In my points of views the key elements of the Titan success are proper and accurate appraisal, well formulated marketing strategy and decision making due to the changing environments such as; social and cultural environments, demographic en, economical en, psychological factors and technological en. The company built a powerful brand and developed an efficient retail strategy within a short time.
Titan has continued to seek out ways to meet customer’s changing needs. The company has been making changes in its strategies. It proves that the company is always concern about its profitability. And from the very beginning the company is concern about the evaluation of the market segmentation whether; is it sizable? Is it growing? Is it profitable? Is it accessible? And is it compatible with the firm’s resources and capabilities? Going global was another logical step as I have mentioned above. The company has a wide distribution network, attractively designed retail outlets, efficient after-sales service and focused advertising. These are issues that Titan had already and successfully addressed at home.
The very idea of using the melodious first movement of Mozart's 25th symphony in its advertisements makes the Titan Watches, a class apart. The company, which started as late as in the year 1984 with a manufacturing unit in Hosur, Tamilnadu, Titan is now the leading manufacturer of wristwatches in India with a fast expanding overseas market that makes it the sixth largest wristwatch brand in the world. Over the years, Titan has become a household name in every section of the society by offering watches for all occasions of life. Each of these has some distinctive feature on offer.
10 Titan has built on principle over the last 15 years, almost year after year:-
In 1989, it was Aqura, the trendy range for the youth, colourful, smart and affordable plastic watches for the youth: The other side of Titan for the other side of you.
In 1992, it was Raga, the ethnic range, with striking symbolism from ethnic India, for the sophisticated India woman who appreciated such things.
In 1993, it was Insignia, very distinctive and international-looking top-end watches, for those seeking exclusivity and status.
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In 1994, it was psi 2000, rugged, sporty and very masculine watches with serious sports features (200-m mater resistance, high precision chronographs) for those with the penchant for adventure.
In 1996, it was Dash, the cute and colourful range for kids.
In 1997, it was Sonata, the affordable, good quality range for the budget-conscious.
In 1998, it was Fastrack, the cool, trendy, funky range for the young and young-at-heart.
In 1999, it was Nebula, the sold gold and diamond-studded range of luxury watches for those affluent people to whom gold is a precious acquisition.
In 2001, it was Steel, the smart and contemporary collection for the young 21st century executive.
And in 2008, the brand has collections like the Octane, Diva, WWF and Zoop - each of them unique and fascinating.
The underpinning of this entire market development and segmentation is Innovation. Titan has kept innovation core to its strategy, realising fully that the only way to sustain the fashion accessory perception is by continuously coming out with collections that make the current ones somewhat dated, thereby creating a certain discomfort in the consumers' mind, which leads to another purchase. This impact has shown up in every one of the collections spoken of earlier. They were fresh and distinctive, unlike what consumers had seen before, and thus created curiosity, walk-ins and sales.
A stellar example of Titan's Innovation is Edge, the slimmest watch in the universe. Titan's R & D talent created a wafer-thin quartz movement, a mere 1.15mm thin, over 4 years of development work. The immensely talented Design team collaborated with the Manufacturing group to create Edge, a 3.5-mm watch, a gem of elegance, with water-resistance to boot! Edge was launched in India early 2002 to tremendous market acclaim and sales success. It is a design and technological marvel, which justly received the Best Design Award in the Lifestyle Product Category in the first annual design contest organised by Business World and NID.
Titan also chose to invest heavily into showcasing all this innovation to the consumer through advertising. From Day 1, the 'catalogue" advertising of Titan became its trademark as it was used regularly and effectively to merchandise new models. The catalogue ads also helped customers to shop off the page and almost decide which model they wanted to pick. Retailers also became used to seeing customers walking into shops with newspaper "cuttings", asking for the models shown there. This approach continues to this day, with mostly the same effect.
In the early nineties, Titan chose to develop the "Gifting" market. Watches had always been favourite things to gift, and Titan had benefited from that. Titan was convinced that there lay a greater potential in that segment. A set of 3 films were developed in 1991 around 3 relationships, where the gifting of a Titan culminated in a moving personal moment and a strengthening of the bond between the protagonists. These films became a big hit and created a genre of advertising films which lasted a good 8 years. During those years, a series of films involving a variety of characters (father, daughter, teacher, boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, thief!) and with local flavour (for Onam in Kerala, Puja in Bengal) were created and released. These not only helped build a good-
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sized gift segment for Titan, but also became Titan's Theme Campaign, building strong emotional values for the brand. One of the films in the series, where a man and his younger daughter conspire to give his older daughter a Titan as a surprise gift at her wedding, released around 1994, went on to become the most popular Titan film ever, even voted by the viewers of Zee Television as the second most liked TV commercial on the channel.
The most enduring part of the Titan advertising has been the music track. Chosen by Xerxes Desai and the creative head of O & M in 1987 for its class and western vibes, the segment from Mozart's 25th Symphony has arguably become Indian Advertising's most memorable track (incidentally, and perhaps not coincidentally, this was the most liked advertising track in the same Zee TV survey). Starting in 1987 in its pure classical versions, with a single violin playing the melody, this piece has been rendered in countless innovative versions over the years: Indian Classical, Indian Folk, Operatic, Rock, Funk,.And has become such a powerful audio mnemonic for the brand.
Another successful customer-facing aspect about Titan has been its stores. Organised retailing did not exist in the late eighties. The concept of exclusive brand stores was almost non-existent. In a pioneering effort that dramatically altered industry standards, the World of Titan was born. Located in the newer parts of a city, with a good frontage and layout, the showroom immediately stood out on the street and attracted walk-ins. Once inside, you were totally impressed with the presentation. You walked along the wall, where recessed "mood windows" showcased specific collections in the appropriate context with the help of visuals, decorative props and word (the place looked almost like an art gallery). You could get a better idea about that collection through such a contextual presentation and could make up your mind which collection was right for your requirement. Then you would walk along to the selling area, where the entire range was displayed in style. Smart and helpful salespeople waited on you there and helped you choose the best piece by giving you information and suggestions. You walked away overwhelmed.
This experience now has over 255 branches and has penetrated the width and breadth of India. Helping the brand increase sales, increase price premium, sell the more expensive watches, improve image, keep competition at bay and keep the brand name salient on the high streets of the country. Refurbished with a contemporary look in 2001, this chain has become even more integral to the brand's destiny today.
Doing all this in style has earned Titan enormous goodwill and respect. Titan was voted the Most Admired Brand (across categories) in India by consumers, in the first such study by Brand Equity done in 2001. Titan was voted the Most Admired Consumer Durables Marketer by industry professionals, 8 out of 9 times (the ninth time it was No 2), in A & M's annual survey done between 1992 and 1999. Titan was voted the Most Respected Consumer Durables Company in a Business World Survey in 2003. Consumers and professionals alike have resonated equally to Titan's successful efforts in bringing international standards to India. And in 2008, it emerges as the 24th Most Admired
Brand in the ET Most Admired Brands survey done annually, it was also the most admired Consumer Durable brand.
Titan has also done the seemingly impossible reverse thing: taking Indian quality to international markets. Since starting export operations in a small scale to the Middle East in the early nineties to exploit the resident NRI population, Titan has come a long way. Moving into the European market in the mid-nineties and Asia Pacific in the late nineties, Titan today sells in the UK, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Singapore, Dubai, Malaysia, Oman, Philippines and many more countries. The customers Page | 37
are no longer only NRIs. They are the Thais, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Filipinos - through a combination of Contemporary Style, Great Quality and Great Prices, Titan has put together an irresistible proposition for the people of these countries. With over 100 million satisfied consumers and a track record of breaking the rules, Team Titan faces the 21st Century with a mix of passion, excitement and energy.
11 .THE TATA BUSINESS EXCELLENCE MODEL (TBEM):
Titan Industries has signed up to implement the compliance plan laid out by the TBEM.Beginning July 2000, it will be evaluated on 7 parameters that constitute the TBEM: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, process management, human resources focus, and business results. The goal is to reach a score of 600 in next five years. Titan currently stands second in the Tata group, with a score of 450, after Tata Steel.
11.1The objectives of TBEM are:
To provide a framework for the group to become competitive.
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To work as a competition to ensure participation.
To acquire competitiveness using quality as the route.
To monitor the progress through ratings.
To become a transformational tool for every company.
11.2 The TBEM drives excellence across functions in the following manner:
1. The Leadership criterion checks how senior leaders create leadership system based on Group values. With the able leader in form of Mr. Xerxes Desai at the helm of affairs, Titan has become a dynamic, vibrant and pro-active organization.
2. The Customer and Market Focus checks how the company determines customer groups, key Customer needs, and complaint-management issues. Titan has always been a customer centric organisation and always has focused on satisfying the customer demands.
3. The Strategic Planning criterion examines how the company develops strategic objectives, Action plans, and resource-allocation. Since its inception, Titan has been the shaper of the watch industry. It has identified the future trends well in advance and taken appropriate steps in the right direction to emerge as the leader in the industry.
4. The Information and Analysis criteria check whether the organisation has key metrics in place To measure and analyse performance. Being market-driven, Titan has its information systems in place and has its hand on the pulse of the watch market.
5 . The Human Resources Focus checks the appraisal system, the work environment, and the Training and development of the employees.
6 . Process management examines the product design, production and delivery process, and Supply chain management. Titan has pioneered the style concept in the watch industry and is the undoubted leader in design.
11.3DEVELPOMENT OF THE TITAN INDUSTRIES (2009,2010 YEAR REPORT OF NSE AND BSE)
Titan Industries Limited
Sector:Gems, Jewellery and watches Gems, Jewellery and watches - Gems, Jewellery and Watches
BSE:500114 NSE:TITAN Bloomberg:TTAN@IN Reuters:TITN.BO
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Market Lot: 1 Face Value: 10 ISIN Demat: INE280A01010
11.3.1Recent Developments
17-DEC-08 The company has announced the launch of Orion, a unique range of watches inspired by the astral wonders of the universe. 01-DEC-08 The company has India`s leading watch manufacturer announced that it had unveiled an extraordinary collection of watches specially made for the visually impaired called Braille Watches. ...
Latest News
Titan Industries: Hold -Business Line 15-Aug-10
Brief Financials (in Rs. Mn.) Detailed Quarterly
Period ending (months)30-Jun-2010(3)
31-Mar-2010 (12)
31-Mar-2009 (12)
Net sales 12527.60 46744.20 38033.80
Other Income 80.20 112.80 43.60
Total Income 12607.80 46857.00 38077.40
Cost of goods sold 11415.00 42794.60 35068.90
OPBDIT 1192.80 4062.40 3008.50
PAT 812.80 2503.20 1589.60
Gross Block - - -
Equity capital 443.90 443.90 443.90
EPS (Rs.) - 56.39 35.81
DPS (Rs.) - - -
Price Charts
ADDRESS
3, SIPCOT Industrial Comple
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BV (Rs.) - - -
P/E range (x) - 12.75 - 33.78 18.65 - 37.62
Debt / Equity (x) - - -
Operating margin (% of OI)
9.5 8.7 7.9
Net margin (% of OI) 6.4 5.3 4.2
11.3.2 RECORDS OF NSE AND BSE
x
Hosur
Tamil Nadu-635 126
PHONE
(04344) 6641 99
FAX
(04344) 2760 37
NSE 27-Jul-2010
Press Release Titan Industries Limited has informed the Exchange regarding a press release dated July 27, 2010, titled "Titan Industries Ltd. - Income grows by 42% and net profit up by 76.5% in Q1".
BSE 05-May-2010
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Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that at the Board Meeting of the Company held on March 29, 2010, the Board of Directors of the Company pursuant to an independent valuation Report submitted by M/s. John Thomas & Co., approved the sale of 40,030 equity shares held by the Company in Titan Mechatronics Ltd, a subsidiary Company at Rs. 29.90 per equity share and amounting to Rs. 11,96,897/-. The Company has received the full consideration for the sale of shares as aforesaid.
NSE 06-Apr-2010
Book Closure Titan Industries Ltd. has informed the Exchange that the Register of Debenture holders of the Company shall be closed from April 23, 2010 to May 10, 2010, both days inclusive, for the purposes of determining the eligibility for payment of interest @ 6.75% on the Non-Convertible Debentures to eligible debenture holders, due on May 11, 2010.
BSE 05-Apr-2010
Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on March 29, 2010, noted the appointment of Mr. A. R. Rajaram as Head - Legal & Company Secretary and Compliance Officer of the Company effective March 03, 2010.
NSE 15-Feb-2010
Voluntary Delisting Titan Industries Ltd. has informed the Exchange that "In response to the Company's application for voluntary delisting of the equity shares and debentures of the Company from Madras Stock Exchange Ltd, the admission granted to the Company for dealing on that Exchange for the equity shares and debentures has been withdrawn and the name of the Company has been removed from the list of Listed Securities of the Madras Stock Exchange with effect from 08th February 2010."
BSE 11-Feb-2010
Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that CRISIL has upgraded the rating assigned to the Company's long term rating from AA- Stable to AA Stable (pronounced as AA Stable) which indicates high degree of safety of the long term instruments.
BSE 01-Feb-2010
Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that the Board of Directors of the Company have appointed Mr. Rajeev Ranjan, IAS, Secretary to the Government of Tamilnadu, Industries Department and a nominee of Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd as Director and Chairman of the Company, in place of Mr. M F Farooqui, With effect from January 29, 2010. Mr. M F Farooqui, IAS, nominee Director, Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd has resigned as Director & Chairman of the Company. The Board of Directors of the Company have also appointed Mr. Sunil Paliwal, IAS, Managing Director, Tamilnadu, Industrial Development Corporation Ltd., as a Director. Mrs. Anita
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Praveen, IAS, nominee Director, Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd has resigned as Director of the Company.
NSE 01-Feb-2010
Appointment/Resignation Titan Industries Ltd. has informed the Exchange that "The Board of Directors of the Company have appointed Mr.Rajeev Ranjan, IAS, Secretary to the Government of Tamilnadu, Industries Department and a nominee of Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd. as Director and Chairman of the Company, in place of Mr. M F Farooqui, with effect from 29th January 2010. Mr. M F Farooqui, IAS, nominee Director, Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd has resigned as Director And Chairman of the Company. The Board of Directors of the Company have also appointed Mr. Sunil Paliwal, IAS, Managing Director, Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd. as a Director of the Company, in place of Mrs. Anita Praveen, with effect from 29th January 2010. Mrs. Anita Praveen, IAS, nominee Director, Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd has resigned as Director of the Company".
BSE 13-Nov-2009
Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that ICRA has upgraded the rating assigned to the Rs 528.30 Million 6.75% Non-Convertible Debentures and the Rs 1 billion bond programme of the Company to LAA (pronounced as L Double A) from LAA- (pronounced as L Double A Minus) earlier. The Long term rating assigned to the Rs 15 billion fund based limit and the Rs 500 million term loan programme has similarly been upgraded to LAA from LAA- earlier. ICRA has also reaffirmed the A1+ (pronounced as A one plus) rating assigned to the Rs 100 million commercial paper programme and the enhanced Rs 10 billion (enhanced from Rs 8 billion earlier) non-fund based facilities of the Company. The rating reaffirm the high credit quality of the debt instruments and factors in the consistent improvement in the Company's financial risk profile, driven by healthy profitability, strong cash accruals and a conservative capital structure and sustained market leadership in the organised watches and jewelly segments and the favourable future potential for both these divisions.
NSE 13-Nov-2009
Credit Rating Titan Industries Ltd. has informed the Exchange regarding Revision in Credit Ratings. The details of the same shall be available on the NSE website (http://www.nseindia.com) under: Corporates > Latest Announcements and on the Extranet Server (/Common/Corporate Announcements).
BSE 28-Jul-2009
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Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that the members at the 25th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Company held on July 27, 2009, inter alia, have accorded to the following: 1. Adoption of Accounts : The Directors' Report the Auditor's Report, the Audited Profit and Loss Account and the Audited Balance Sheet for the year ended March 31, 2009 was approved. 2. Payment of Dividend on Equity Shares : The dividend on equity shares for the year ended March 31, 2009 was approved at the rate of 100%, with the dividend being Rs 10.00 for every equity share, free of tax 3. Re-appointment of Directors : Mr. Ishaat Hussain, Mr. Nihal Kaviratne and Ms. Vinita Bali, Directors who retired by rotation and eligible for re-appointment were re-appointed as Directors. 4. Appointment of Directors : Mr. V Parthasarathy, Mrs. Hema Ravichandar, Mr. R Poornalingam and Mrs. Anita Praveen were appointed as Directors of the Company and are liable to retire by rotation. 5. Appointment of Statutory Auditors : M/s. Deloitte Haskins & Sells were approved as Statutory Auditors of the Company to audit the Accounts of the company for the Financial Year 2009-10, on a remuneration to be agreed upon by and between the Board of Directors of the Company and the Statutory Auditors.
NSE 28-Jul-2009
Outcome of AGM Titan Industries Ltd. has informed the Exchange regarding the outcome of Annual General Meeting of the Company held on July 27, 2009. The Shareholders accorded their approval to the following business conducted:
1) Adoption of Accounts: The Directors' Report, the Auditor's Report, the Audited Profit and Loss Account and the Audited Balance Sheet for the year ended March 31, 2009 was approved. 2) Payment of Dividend on Equity Shares: The dividend on equity shares for the year ended March 31, 2009 was approved at the rate of 100%, with the dividend being Rs. 10.00 for every equity share, free of tax. 3) Re-appointment of Directors: Mr. Ishaat Hussain, Mr. Nihal Kaviratne and Ms. Vinita Bali, Directors who retired by rotation and eligible for re-appointment, were reappointed as Directors. 4) Appointment of Directors : Mr. V. Parthasarathy, Mrs. Hema Ravichandar, Mr. R.Poornalingam and Mrs. Anita Praveen were appointed as Directors of the Company, and are liable to retire by rotation. 5) Appointment of Statutory Auditors : M/s. Deloitte Haskins and Sells were Appointed as Statutory Auditors of the Company to audit the Accounts of the Company for the Financial Year 2009-10, on a remuneration to be agreed upon by and between the Board of Directors of the Company and the Statutory Auditors.
NSE 27-Jul-2009
Press Release Titan Industries Ltd. has informed the Exchange regarding a press release dated July 27, 2009, titled "QTR I Results 2009-10; Titan Industries Q1 Net profit at Rs.46 crore". A copy of the press release shall be available on the NSE website (http://www.nseindia.com) under: Corporates > Latest Announcements and on the Extranet Server (/Common/Corporate Announcements).
BSE 03-Jun-2009
Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that Mrs. Anita Praveen, IAS, Chairperson & Managing
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Director of Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (TIDCO) has been appointed as an Additional Director of the Company with effect from June 01, 2009.
NSE 03-Jun-2009
Appointment of Director Titan Industries Ltd. has informed the Exchange that Ms. Anita Praveen, IAS, Chairperson And Managing Director of Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (TIDCO) has been appointed as an Additional Director of the Company with effect from June 01, 2009.
NSE 02-Jun-2009
AGM/Book Closure Titan Industries Ltd. has informed the Exchange that the Annual General Meeting of the Company is scheduled to be held on July 27, 2009. The Register of Members and Transfer Registers of the Company will be closed from July 14, 2009 to July 27, 2009 (both days inclusive). The aforesaid book closure will be for the purpose of determining eligibility for payment of dividend on equity shares for the year ended March 31, 2009. The dividend on equity shares, if declared at the Annual General Meeting of the Company.
BSE 14-May-2009
Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that Mr. S Ramasundaram, IAS, nominee Director, Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd has resigned as Director of the Company, with effect from May 11, 2009.
BSE 15-Apr-2009
Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that Mr. F K Kavarana, Director of the Company has resigned from the Board of Directors of the Company with effect from March 31, 2009.
BSE 06-Apr-2009
Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that the Company will publish Audited Financial Results for the year ending March 31, 2009 within a period of three months of the close of the accounting year i.e. on or before June 30, 2009. Further the Company has informed that the Company will therefore not publish unaudited financial results for the forth quarter of financial year 2008-09.
NSE 06-Apr-2009
Publish Audited Results Titan Industries Ltd. has informed the Exchange that the Company will publish Audited Financial Results for the year ending March 31, 2009 within a period of three months of the close of the accounting year i.e., on or before June 30, 2009. The Company will therefore not publish unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter of financial year 2008-09.
BSE 01-Apr-2009
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Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on March 30, 2009, inter alia, has appointed Mr. R Poornalingam and Mrs. Hema Ravichandar as Independent Directors on the Board of the Company with effect from March 30, 2009.
BSE 27-Feb-2009
Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that the Company has received order of the High Court, Karnataka in connection with the Scheme of Amalgamation of Company's subsidiary company viz., Titan Holdings Ltd, with the Company. With this, the 'Scheme of Amalgamation' of the three domestic subsidiary Companies, viz., Samrat Holdings Ltd, Questar Investments Ltd and Titan Holdings Ltd (transferor Companies) with Titan Industries Ltd (transferee Company) is complete and implemented.
BSE 28-Jul-2010
Titan Industries Ltd has informed BSE that the members at the 26th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Company held on July 27, 2010, inter alia, have accorded to the following: 1) Adoption of Accounts: The Directors Report, the Auditors Report, the Audited Profit and Loss Account and the Audited Balance Sheet for the year ended March 31, 2010 was approved. 2) Payment of Dividend on Equity Shares: The dividend on equity shares for the year ended March 31, 2010 was approved at the rate of 150% with the dividend being Rs. 15.00 for every equity share, free of tax. 3) Re-appointment of Directors: Mr. N.N.Tata, Mr. T.K. Balaji and Dr. C.G Krishnadas Nair, Directors who retired by rotation and eligible for re-appointment, were reappointed as Directors. 4) Appointment of Statutory Auditors: M/s. Deloitte Haskins & Sells were re-appointed as Statutory Auditors of the Company to audit the Accounts of the Company for the Financial Year 2010-11, on a remuneration to be agreed upon by and between the Board of Directors of the Company, and the Statutory Auditors. 5) Appointment of Director: Mr. Rajeev Ranjan IAS, Principal Secretary to Government of Tamilnadu, Industries Department was appointed as a Director of the Company. 6) Payment of Commission to Non-Executive Directors: The shareholders approved the payment of commission to Non-Executive Directors pursuant to the Section 309 of the Companies Act, 1956 and further computed in the manner referred to in Section 198 (1) of the Companies Act 1956.
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11.3.3 Titan Industries Limited
Sector: Gems, Jewellery and Watches
BSE:500114 NSE:TITAN Bloomberg:TTAN@IN Reuters:TITN.BO
Market Lot: 1 Face Value: 10 ISIN Demat: INE280A01010
A]Financials (Standalone)
Latest Quarterly/Halfyearly Detailed Quarterly
As On(Months) 30-Jun-2010(3) 30-Jun-2009(3) % Change
Sales of Products/Services 12527.60 8828.00 41.91
Other Income 80.20 8.80 811.36
Total Income 12607.80 8836.80 42.67
Total Expenses 11415.00 8035.20 42.06
OPBDIT 1192.80 801.60 48.80
Interest 25.30 75.90 -66.67
Depreciation 81.90 89.60 -8.59
Exceptional & Extraordinary Items 0.00 0.00 --
Prior Period Adjustments 0.00 0.00 --
Provision for Tax 273.50 176.90 54.61
After Tax Profit 812.80 460.40 76.54
Equity Capital 443.90 443.90 0.00
Reserves 0.00 0.00 --
Notes to Accounts Click here Click here
B] Income Statement
31-Mar-10(12)
31-Mar-09(12)
31-Mar-08(12)
Profit / Loss A/C Rs mn %OI Rs mn %OI Rs mn %OI
12 HOW DID THE TITAN MUSIC ORIGINATE:-
The idea of using the flamboyant third movement from Mozart's 25th Symphony in G minor, written when Mozart was only 17 years old, came from Suresh Mullick who was O & M's creative head in 1986 when Titan's first TV campaign was being planned. Mozart's symphony had already been immortalised for contemporary non-cognoscenti in one of the greatest movies of our time, AMADEUS, which was released in 1984.
The music was such a resounding success that it was never ever dropped, and no thoughts were ever entertained of making a change.
But the original score did go through numerous metamorphoses as it was rendered with musical instruments that Mozart could not have even heard of, leave alone heard. Perhaps it is in the nature of great and enduring music that it can be adapted to such a variety of powerful visual images united only by a single mood and message.
The music was singularly appropriate: it exuded enthusiasm and energy, flamboyance and power, tenacity and triumph. It was young and full of zest, typical of the composer himself. Yet it was classy and elegant. And, of course, it was very European. Both the music and the man who wrote it perhaps the greatest musical genius of all time had all the right connotations and fitted so very well with the character of the brand and of the organization that we were seeking to create.
Titan Industries is the world's fifth largest and India's leading manufacturer of watches. The company has manufactured more than a 100 million watches till date; and has a customer base of over 80 million. The umbrella brand Titan is one of India's leading watch brands that brought about a paradigm shift in the Indian watch market, offering quartz technology with international styling.
The brand Titan is committed to offering its consumers watches that represent the compass of their imagination. Titan's customers are therefore consistently introduced to exciting new collections, which connect, with various facets of their deep−rooted yearnings for self-expression. The new brand philosophy of Titan, encapsulated in the words "Be More", touches this as well as all other aspects of the brand.
The Titan brand architecture comprises several collection and sub−brands, each of which is a leader in its segment. Notable among them are: Titan Edge The world's slimmest watch which stands for the philosophy of "less is more"; Titan Raga the feminine and sensuous accessory for today's woman, Nebula − crafted in solid 18k gold and precious stones. Several other popular collections like Heritage, Aviator, Regalia, Octane & WWF also form a part of the Titan wardrobe.
Today, the Titan portfolio has over 60% of the domestic market share in the organised watch market. The company has 247 exclusive showrooms christened World of Titan', making it amongst the largest chains in its category backed by 700 after−sales−service centers. The company has a world−class design studio that constantly invents new trends in wrist watches.
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13. CONSUMER INDUSTRIES :-
Encompassing everything from dish soap to automobiles, the consumer products industry is a vast empire made up of the multitude of material products available to customers, stretching across dozens of related industries. To get a handle on the market, analysts often divide it into two categories, durable and non-durable goods. As the names imply, the former comprises items with (relative) staying power, like cars, home furnishings, jewelry and electronics. The latter category includes more ephemeral merchandise, with a life expectancy of fewer than three years, like clothing, personal care items, and office and cleaning supplies . Others break the industry down into products that are staples and those that are discretionary - the difference between what consumers need and what they'd like to have.
Titan Industries is the world's sixth largest wrist watch manufacturer and India's leading producer of watches under the Titan, Fastrack, Sonata, Nebula, RAGA, Regalia, Octane & Xylys brand names. It is a joint venture between one of India's most respected business organizations, the Tata Group, and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO).[2] Its product portfolio includes watches, accessories and jewellery, in both contemporary and traditional designs. It exports watches to about 32 countries around the world with manufacturing facilities in Hosur, Dehradun, Goa and manufactures precious jewellery under the Tanishq brand name, making it India's only national jewellery brand. It is a subsidiary of the Tata Group.
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13.1 Customer Relationship Management at Titan:
Having now discussed in depth, both the brand building as well as the segmentation techniques of Titan, we would like to briefly touch upon the concept of Customer –Relationship Management (CRM), which has been successfully introduced by Titan in the Indian market.
CRM is an idea that has began to assume growing significance in today’s corporate environment, as it is a vital element in customer satisfaction. As product differentiation decreases (and such is definitely the case in the watch industry) companies will have to increasingly use CRM as a means of differentiating themselves from the competition. It is here that Titan has made headway, perhaps more so than any other Indian company. Apart from the run of the mill customer databases and direct marketing techniques that most companies employ, Titan has implemented a number of small, yet significant measures that go a long way in enhancing customer satisfaction. A prime example of this would be to observe one of Titan’s 55 watch care centers. Here, receptionists make it a point to speak the local language, and standby watches are provided to serve as replacements till a customer’s watch is repaired. Additionally, these service centers are as posh as the showrooms, have 24-hour voice mail facilities, have no lunch hours, are open till late evenings, and even deliver watches at home, if so required. It is measures such as these that enhance a company’s image and build brand and consumer loyalty. It is little wonder then, that Titan is consistently voted India’s # 1 brand.
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WATCHES :-
Titan watch division was started in 1987. At launch it was the third watch company in India after HMT and Allwyn. Titan formed a joint venture with Timex, which lasted until 1998, and setup a strong distribution network across India. As of 2010, Titan watches account for a 60% share of the total Indian market and are also sold in about 40 countries through marketing subsidiaries based in London, Aden, Dubai and Singapore. Titan watches are sold in India through retail chains controlled by Titan Industries.
Titan Industries has claimed to have manufactured the world's slimmest wrist watch - Titan Edge. Produced indigenously after four years of research and development, the Titan Edge has a total slimness of just 3.5 mm and a wafer thin movement of 1.15 mm. Apart from the Titan Edge, Titan also offers Steel, Regalia, Raga, Fastrack, Technology, Nebula, Bandhan, Sonata, Octane, special RHosur, Tamil Nadu.
Fastrack is a popular brand among youth in India. Fastrack watches come in a variety of styles, shapes and colours.
On 4 March, 2010, Titan Industries Announced the launch of its very first Titan flagship store is located at Opposite Shoppers Stop, Bandra Linking Road, Mumbai, India. Store is spread over a spacious 2,500 sq ft (230 m2) and houses more than 1500 watches on display from Titan like Purple, Automatics, Orion, Raga, Edge, Nebula, and many more. Extraordinary things some times make such an everlasting impression on some ones personality that it becomes a symbol of grace. Watches are one of them which not only enhance your personality with their luxurious designs but also provide you necessity in style. Watches have full line of quality and stylish men and women of internationally designed according to the changing trends of the life as well as according to the taste of different people. Earlier watches were used in keeping time as well as measuring the right direction while sailing or mobilizing in a war. Now the watches have become a symbol of status and luxurious necessity of modern life. Watches play a magnificent role in daily life from ordinary purpose to walking on the moon every one needs them. The bridge between the years could be crossed only with design innovation, which is among the biggest differentiators for the watch markets. "Watches are accessories. They are driven by
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13.2 TITANS ADVERTISING TECHIQUES:-
EFFECTIVE BRAND BUILDING AND SEGMENTATION STRATEGY
Introduction:
In 4 continents, 40 countries and 1500 cities around the world, there is a new brand to reckon – “ Titan “, the new world watch.
Established in 1987, titan is a part of the $8 billion Tata group, a diversified business conglomerate with interest in automobiles, steel, information technology, telecommunications, energy, chemicals, hotels, consumer products and tea.
In a short span of 13 years, Titan has clocked global sales of over 38 million watches and emerged as a world’s 6th largest manufacturer brand with sales last year touching 6 million watches. Currently Titan enjoys a nearly 40% share of the domestic quartz market (more tan three times the size of its nearest competitor) and close to a 50% share among the nationally recognized brands. Titan represents a unique blend of high-end Japanese technology, legendary European design and renowned Indian craftsmanship. It is a product of an extraordinary cooperation between designers, toolmakers and marketers continents.
The Titan watch plant is a US $70 million state of the art integrated facility, set in 40000 square meters of floor space, and employs over 2500 professionals.
A fierce commitment to excellence coupled with some of the most sophisticated manufacturing technologies in the world helps Titan deliver world class products in an incredible variety of designs and styles. Every Titan is powered by robust movement, tried and tested in the hot and humid conditions of Asia and sold with confidence of a unique one year guarantee and an unmatched two year guarantee on the watch.
Titans renowned design skills have helped create an exclusive range of jewellery watches…”TANISHQ”. In India, 35 world-class boutiques exclusively sell Tanishq brand jewellery made by Titan. Product styling, which is truly contemporary matched by superior finish and assured caratage, have helped tanishq establish a leadership position.
Offices in London, Dubai and Singapore and a significant distribution and service base in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Australian drives the company’s business across four continent and forty countries.
It is watches; however that have been Titan’s mainstay and that are perhaps singularly responsible for building Titan industries in to a professionally recognized corporate leader. Titan has been consistently ranked as India’s leading consumer durables marketing company for the past seven year’s (1993-99) by the countries leading advertising and marketing publication A&M.
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Between the years 1994 and 1998, it was also ranked in Asia’s top 200 companies and India’s top 10 by “The Far Eastern Economic Review”. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the readers of the Economic Times also recently voted Titan India’s most admired brand.
All of this has of course only been possible through the use of extensive (and needless to say, effective) brand building techniques. In his book ‘Beyond Branding’, Joe Marconi defines a brand simply as “ a name”, and brand equity as the value of that name. He thus defines brand building as “ the process of creating, managing and marketing brand equity by building brand identification, recognition and loyalty”.
In order to truly gauge the extent to which Titan has built itself into a nationally recognized brand, we need only refer to marketing guru “Al Ries” definition of the word, which is “ a brand is a proper noun that can be used in place of a common word”. By this he means such as Heineken, Rolex and Mercedes, which can be used in place of words such as beer, watch and car respectively. Can Titan be used in place of the word “watch”? we think it can ( in the Indian context ). This is what marks the difference between a mere name of a product, and a brand.
Advertising was expenditure - Titan saw this as a vital investment. Right from Day 1, Titan invested significantly in advertising and in that process created a set of memorable and effective properties over the years.
So Titan, backed by world-class quality created at a world-class plant located just off Bangalore, backed by the Tata name, was launched into the Indian market on the back of these new rules. It created waves right in the early days, mesmerised consumers, demolished competition and rode into the sunset with panache.
Today, in early 21st century India, it is taken for granted that a watch is a fashion accessory. Titan dominates the market, with a 60% share of the organised sector market (the total market, including the unorganised sector, is estimated at around 42 million units). Titan's quality record is impressive, its sales and service network is wide and deep, and its network of exclusive showrooms, The World of Titan, is one of the most prestigious and visible retail brands in the country, offering world-class levels of shopping comfort and customer service.
What is truly amazing about Titan is the sheer scale of its offering and the consequent choice it offers to multiple segments across taste, age and economic background. Titan saw this approach as the foundation of its leadership strategy in the early days. Even the early range had distinct offerings for different requirements: formal watches (gold plated cases with fine leather straps) for the executive, dress watch (gold plated cases with ornamental gold plated bracelets) for those with a preference for jewellery, rugged watches (all steel watches with a skew to functionality) for those whose usage demanded certain durability.
Titan only made people wear sleek watches who were used to wearing watches that looked like
tawas earlier. The customer suddenly discovered he could actually buy his Titan watch in a
relaxed and friendly ambience; one that he had been hitherto unaccustomed to. The customer
also discovered the power of advertising. So much so that he would actually carry the ad with the
model number and shape of the watch he desired, to show the sales person at the showroom.
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Titan had a dream run for several years. Its spirit of innovation guided its fortunes. It pioneered the concept of gifting watches. People gifted watches and only watches to parents, spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends and children. The brand was the market leader by far, and dominated the category. People got used to the stylish faces and looks of the Titan watch. Everybody seemed to possess at least one. People seemed to be traveling more often than not and were exposed to cheaper, and in some cases, better-looking, watches technology butthey make a lifestyle statement.
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13.3 BRAND ACTIVITIES:-
EFFECTIVE BRAND SEGMENTATION STRATEGY :
Before attempting a formal analysis of Titan’s segmentation techniques, the need firstly arises to devote a little time and effort to the proper understanding of the various terms and concepts associated with the with the phase “segmentation”. This phrase can be defined as follows :
“Market segmentation is the process of taking the total heterogeneous market for a product and dividing it into several sub markets or segments, each of which tends to be homogenous in all significance”.
Understanding the Indian consumer's psyche has been vital to Titan reaching its current position of strength.
The company today has a model for every price segment and every market, urban and rural,
regional and international.
It is the rural segment within this diverse market that Titan is now looking to tap. The company’s key
to success is getting into the rural market on a larger scale.
For its many customers Titan has Tata Signet, a 1,36,000-member club that looks to build
relationships through rewards, regular discounts and special offers. Customers can also count on a
service-centre network that’s
550-strong and spread over 30-odd cities and towns across the country. The service centres have
been deliberately kept apart from Titan’s showrooms. The business is different and the customer
is in two different moods at the two places.
Titan is also evaluating the potential to launch a brand priced at Rs 10,000 and above, which offers the
consumers a set of values distinct from Titan and competitive in that space they know that they cant
fight global brands in image and stature. So they are focused on fashion and style with
international quality.
The company has made efforts to ensure that it is present in all product segments, and has thus
shifted its growth strategy from equipment and manpower addition to increased production
through fresh ideas and
greater operating efficiency by adopting the best practices followed globally.
It has started company-owned customer care centers apart from authorised franchisee service points
across the country.
Its after sales service is itself a benchmarked operation with a network of over 616 service centres
and has one of the world’s fastest turn around times.
The franchisee is a critical cog in Titan’s retail matrix. The company organises various programmes for
franchisees, their managers and customer relationship officers. These include training workshops and
seminars on market trends, visual merchandising, store operations and maintenance, and customer
service initiatives.
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13.4 COMMUNICATION TECHIQUES:-
Tweaking the tunes
Ad agencies are modifying jingles to reflect the brand personality and the mood of the
communication. The Titan signature tune - from Mozart's Fifth Symphony - quickly became something of an `earworm': the tune stayed in people's heads, and everyone hummed along when the tune appeared. Today, the Titan tune composed by A.R. Rahman is among the most popular mobile ringtones. Given our inherent love for music, jingles have been used by advertisers to sell everything from detergents to desktops. But ad agencies have begun to have fun with jingles, while also making a serious effort to tie them to the branding.
While any communication is a `multi-sensory stimulus' comprising audio and
visual elements, the audio part essentially enhances the visual element of the
communication. Therefore, its form changes with time, but it is even more of a constant,
and even more intrinsically linked to the brand than the visual element, and so there is a
need to keep it relevant. It shows that a switch to a different musical style makes an ad
more distinct, and changing the tempo or the pace of the music helps catch the attention
of the consumer.
The tune has been used in different ways: for example, in the `gifting' commercials, the music only begins to play at the moment the person - daughter, parent or wife - realises he or she has been gifted a Titan. The tune is so well-known, that when Titan celebrated the milestone of 50 million watches in January this year, consumers could walk into Titan watch showrooms or call in radio stations and hum the tune and win a watch.
13.5 Visual Merchandising:-
Titan, which has retail outlets in 170 locations, has to keep engaging in clever visual
merchandising (VM) to ensure excitement and freshness of the product. Flashing back in 1987
watches as a category was need driven. Retail outlets were very small and extremely poor
presentation of point of purchase (POP) merchandise.
Today, although is a different scenario. Customers of today are driven by desire and latest trends.
Stores have become a lot more glamorous. In the current day and age, VM will become increasingly
significant with more and more international design trends entering the Indian market. Titan also changes its positioning and evolved from 'Titan' to 'The World of Titan' which averred made a world of a difference. Another point in note for store design specifically was that what was correct today might not be relevant tomorrow. Also, showing less did not mean selling less. Clusters of product are a definite no-no. On the display window, it is essential only to showcase a few and the rest to be displayed on the counter. VM in India is going to be the link between brand communication and the product
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13.6 Titan launches off-season discount scheme:-
With a view to riding out the impact of the off-season due to the monsoon,
watchmaker Titan Industries Ltd is launching a hefty discount scheme for its watches
during monsoon season. The scheme has been structured in such a way that higher the
value of watches purchased, greater would be the savings. The scheme would be in
operation across the country. Explaining the logic behind the discount structure, the
company has introduced a multi-tier discount scheme for the off-season. The discount
offer was not applicable on its premium brands - Xylys, the Swiss-made watch offered by
Titan and Nebula, the 18k gold watches that have a different gift scheme.
13.7 Titan Industries joins MTV:- Titan Industries joins MTV to launch trendy unisex watches, which Maps out marketing strategy for sub-brands ENTICING YOUTH. Titan Industries in association with MTV launched the "masala collection" — ten trendy unisex watches, all priced at Rs. 500 each. Titan Industries is looking at a modest Rs. 50 crore this year from the sale of its re-launched Fastrack collection. This would take Fastrack’s share from five per cent to nine per cent in the overall revenues of Titan. The strategy was simple — price positioning and different distribution network, away from the traditional selling points. The points of sale would be youth hangouts such as malls and cafes where the company planned to set up kiosks and promotional activities. The move was clear-cut as "impulse" was the driving point for purchases made by the youth. These watches have been conceptualized and designed by Titan Design studio and endorsed and promoted by MTV. The brand also revealed a new logo, which signifies the spirit of bonding among today's youth.
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13.8 PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES:-
Titan Raga, a brand, which deals exclusively in women’s watches, has Chosen Rani
Mukherjee as their brand ambassador. She promotes the Exquisite collection of women’s watches in
TV, print and outdoor ads.
Titan Raga wants to promote a range of watches that will be affordable to middle class women.
The brand wishes to promote Indianess, sensuality ,beauty and feminity and Rani Mukherjee embodies
all these qualities.
Titan released television commercials for Fast track, the first in months, and planned extensive activities at college functions and other youth-centric activities.
Titan promotes fast track by keeping Low prices i.e. at Rs 500 · Marketing for the Masala series included sponsorships of college festivals, youth events, contests and co-branded products and promotions.
One of the promotional strategies adopted by Titan Xylys was to endorse Actor Rahul Bose,
international supermodel Saira Mohan and tennis star Carlos Moya as their three brand ambassadors.
Titan believed Dhoni's endorsement of Sonata would go a long way towards
establishing the new communication platform for the brand. They were
confident that this association will help them in further strengthening the
connection between the brand and their target consumers. Dhoni would play
a key role in the brand and product communication on television as well as in print and outdoor
media. He would also feature in various promotions and merchandise that have been planned for it.
Titan, besides the franchisees and its own showrooms, it also sells its products through other outlets. Among them are the Time Zone stores, which stock all the leading brands, and the Value Mart outlets, which operate in Bangalore and Chennai and sell surplus-to-export watches at a discount.
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13.9 TITAN’S STRATEGIES:-
In October 2004, Titan Industries Ltd. (TIL), a leading manufacturer and marketer of watches, jewelry, eyewear, and other lifestyle products, appointed Aamir Khan (Aamir) as the brand ambassador for its Titan range of watches. The company decided to use Aamir in brand and product communication on television and in the print and outdoor media.
TIL hoped to promote the latest trends in the industry. The idea was to make watches that would be seen as style and fashion accessories rather than just utilitarian devices.
Titan captures the single-minded objective of increasing the style quotient of watches amongst grooming accessories.
Titan offered consumers quality products that blended classy designs with superior technology; it became a byword for success stories.
Outstanding service, a wide variety of models, and effective marketing has helped Titan consolidate its early gains, to the point where the company is a force to be reckoned with beyond Indian shores.
Understanding the Indian consumer's psyche has been vital to Titan reaching its current position of strength.
The company today has a model for every price segment and every market , urban and rural, regional and international. Titan’s mother brands Nebula,which comes draped in 18-carat gold; the exclusive Insignia; and Raga, which has been designed exclusively for women. Titan’s focus has always been on India.
It is the rural segment within this diverse market that Titan is now looking to tap. The company’s key to success is getting into the rural market on a larger scale.
The company’s Sonata range is targeted at rural customers, and is part of a strategy where the alignment of price and reliability are crucial. The range costs between Rs 495 and Rs 1,200, has showrooms exclusively for it, and is sold mainly in small-towns in India.
Fast Track is a different kettle of fish. This range is broadly aimed at young Indians looking for watche that are fashionable and stylish.
Dash, a range that Titan launched for children. Introduced in early 2000, Dash is priced low, but it hasn’t sold too well. The company plans to change that with enhanced advertising and a different marketing strategy.
Titan had also planned extensive ad campaign during the year for the different brands of watches. The ad spend, would go up from Rs. 70 crore last year to Rs. 100 crore with watches going up from Rs. 50 crore to Rs. 70 crore.
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The Titan umbrella brand had mapped out the marketing strategy for its different sub-brands — Raga (for women), Fastrack (youth) and Tommy Hilfiger (high-end), besides Sonata, the second brand of the company. These products, commanded a share of 50 per cent of the organized market. Of the Rs.1135 crore revenue, exports were Rs. 80 crore and it was a "significantly" growing market.
Titan has come up with a new strategy for Raga, which includes a new brand ambassador, a new
campaign and a huge number of new products.
The company has made efforts to ensure that it is present in all product segments, and has thus
shifted its growth strategy from equipment and manpower addition to increased production
through fresh ideas and greater
operating efficiency by adopting the best practices followed globally.
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13.10 MARKETING RESEARCH:-
Research reveals some interesting facts and figures about this heterogeneous market. The
Indian market is estimated at 25 million watches a year, with 50 per cent being sold by the
organised sector. Titan is the runaway market leader, with domestic sales of 6 million watches a
year. There are 190 million watch-owning Indians; between them they own about 210 million
watches. Urban India accounts for 120 million of these watches and 90 million are on rural wrists.
More men than women own watches in India, and more working women than housewives own
watches.
13.10.1 Titan has segmented the market on the basis of the following variables:
Demographic: The segmentation here is done on the basis of social class i.e. working class, middle income group etc. since marketing is potentially and intimately connected with the “ability to pay” this segmentation is meaningful in analysing buying patterns of a particular class.Age, children, young, adults, Social class: upper, middle and lower come in this category.
Psycho graphic: In Psychographic segmentation buyers are divided into different groups on the basis of lifestyle and personalities. People within the same demographic group can exhibit very different Psychographic profiles. Lifestyle : professionals, affluent Personality: adventurous, “cool”, traditional
Behavioral: Benefits: functional, attractive, reliable, Occasions: gifts, special occasions
Geographical: Region: Europe, Middle-east
Refers to the size of segmented markets. Segments large enough to permit viable market effort directed towards them. In order words demand for one segment must great enough to make the marketing effort worthwhile. Titan has fully satisfied this condition as its model i.e. – Psi 2000, regalia, Classique, Fastrack etc are all large & profitable enough to direct marketing effort towards them.
Accessibility:
Could be attained through the existing channel of distribution. The segments must permit the firm to direct successfully different marketing effort towards the segments. The existing channels of distribution for Titan like exclusive showroom and shop dealers can support titans various segments.
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Representability:Segments should be large and profitable enough to be considered as a separate market. Such segments must be representative in nature and must have individuality of their own.
Response rates:The segments must show difference in responses to the marketing variables. If various segments respond in similar ways to a marketing mix, there is no need to develop a separate marketing mix.
Measurable:The size, purchasing power, and characteristics of the segments can be measured. This has been clearly satisfied by Titan through its pricing and branding policy. To understand Titan’s segmentation policy, the4 need arises to first understand the basis for segmentation relevant to Titan.
Socio-economic segmentation:The segmentation here is done on the basis of social class i.e. working class, middle income group etc. since marketing is potentially and intimately connected with the “ability to pay” this segmentation is meaningful in analyzing buying patterns of a particular class. Socio-economic factors help to locate a market precisely.
13.10.2 Complementing this segmentation Titan is pursuing a three-pronged strategy
Create a separate brand for the lower end of the segment.
Create new (sub) brands for unaddressed segments, like kids.
Re-aim existing sub-brands (Raga, Classique and Regalia etc) to attract specific customer segments, like businessmen, women etc.
Initially Mozart’s symphony number 25 (Titan’s signature tune) imprinted the brand in the minds of consumers, its utility faded as Titan introduced more (and cheaper) watches. As more customers - belonging to very different socio-economic categories - entered Titan’s fold, the brand turned mass market. The chauffeur and the owner, both had Titan on their wrists. This was the major re-emphasise of the sub-brands. Titan’s first attempt at emphasizing its sub-brands didn’t yield the desired results. Instead of targeting different customer segments with different sub-brands (as is being done now), the watchmaker focused on product differentiation as the selling platform With product differentiation being replaced by segment-based focus, Titan’s sub-brands building has got bright chances of creating an identity of their own.
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13.10.3 Sales and Marketing
Titan launched totally a new product, quartz analog watch was an entirely new product for India in 1987. Titan’s marketing strategy was initially built around five features:
A product of international quality;
Indian designs;
Competitive prices;
An intensive advertising and promotion campaign; and
Specialized retail shops to control the presentation, since the general quality of watch merchandising in India was low.
This ambitious marketing program was intended to position Titan watches as high-quality, fashionable timepieces, available in clean and comfortable surroundings, priced higher than other watches then on the market but not beyond the reach of millions of potential purchasers. It was not a program, therefore, that would place Titan watches in direct competition with, say, mechanical watches from HMT. The marketing program would introduce to India the type of promotional effort familiar in most developed countries. In order to be successful, however, all facets of the program had to come together: attractive designs, high-quality products, sufficient inventories, a logistical support system and, a well-timed promotional campaign. Accomplishing these multiple tasks in a timely way was a monumental undertaking for a new, untested company.
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13.11 COMPETITORS ACTIVITIES:-
The Timex Corporation is a privately owned company headquartered in Middlebury,
Connecticut, USA with affiliate offices located throughout North America, South America,
Europe, and Asia. For over 150 years, Timex has been providing innovative, well-designed,
affordable, and reliable timepieces. With hundreds of styles among its Fashion, Sports, Outdoor
and Youth lines, Timex is the largest selling watch brand in America and has sold more than one-
billion watches worldwide. Brand Timex is well-known in India for its sporty, techie and
fashionable watches. Titans average purchase value has had a comfortable lead
over rival brands such as Timex and HMT. The average value of a Titan watch sold is Rs 1,100
cr., while that of Timex and HMT is Rs 700cr. and Rs 550cr. respectively. Interestingly, Timex
claims that its average purchase value has climbed steadily to Rs 1,050cr. from Rs 650cr. two
years ago. There will be some upward movement in the case of Timex mainly because of its shift in
focus to the segment priced above Rs 1,000cr.. Until last year, Timex in India was seen largely
as a player in the mass market, where watches are priced below Rs 1,000cr. And addressed to
budget conscious buyers. The brand recently revamped its portfolio, aiming for a major push in the
price bracket of Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000. Two years ago, about 90 per cent of Timex’s sales in India
came from the mass market. Now, we sell 62 per cent of our volumes below Rs 1,000cr. 35 per cent
between Rs 1,000cr. To Rs 3,500cr. And three per cent above Rs 3,500cr. We expect volumes in the
Rs 1,000cr. To Rs 3,500cr. bracket to be the mainstay of our business in the years ahead. Timex claims
to be present in 5,000 odd retail points, which include 27 exclusive showrooms. The brand is poised
for an aggressive expansion by foraying into nontraditional outlets and expects to add another 300
retail points through this route before the current year ends
Timex made a conscious effort to launch products that met the needs of the younger generation at prices that they could easily afford.
With the entry of several foreign watchmakers into the market, Titan had to counter the threat. Most of the entrants are catering to the upper end of the market- Omega, Tissot, Cartier etc. Titan already had the Tanishq brand in this segment. However, it has tried to reposition this brand by increasing the price range to encourage more customers
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14. CONSULION
Titan Industries is India’s leading manufacturer of watches and Jewellery and the world’s sixth
largest manufacturer brand of watches. Titan has over 60 per cent of the domestic market share in
the organised watch market. Its exclusive retail showroom chain - World of Titan - is amongst
the largest in its category. Titan watches are sold through over 9,000 outlets in over 2,300 cities
and internationally in over 30 countries. Titan’s retail operations are a mix of company-owned and
franchisee outlets, with the idea being to ensure a dominant presence in all market areas through
different kinds of stores, and to assure the availability of every Titan product.
Titan retained its ranking as the 'No 1 Brand' in the Brand Equity. Titan was
adjudged 'Most Admired Brands' as well as ‘Retailer of the Year' by Images Fashion
Forum.
Though being voted India’s #1 company is an honor any company would cherish, we feel that with the surge of foreign entrants into India’s watch market, Titan cannot afford to rest on it’s laurels. Titan should prepare for a war ….A MARKETING WAR.
Before elaborating upon the strategies Titan can adopt in the future, it is important to understand that the best strategy for a market leader is to play defense. However, a defensive strategy should by no means be confused for a passive one. In their famous book “Marketing Warfare”, by Al Ries and Jack Trout Identify 2 major principles of defensive is marketing warfare.
“The best defensive strategy is the courage to attack yourself”
The best way to improve your position is by constantly attacking it. In other words, Titan should strengthen its position by introducing new products that make obsolete its existing ones. It is better to take business away from yourself than have someone else do it for you. This puts the competition in a tough spot, as a moving target is harder to hit than a stationary one. Titan should continuously innovate and introduce new models. The importance of R&D (Research and Development) has been realized only recently. In recent times it has been R & D that has provided the edge to both products and brands. However this strategy can be applied mainly to the lower range or digital range of Titan’s watches, as the concept of ‘class’ remains constant over a period of time.
Attacking yourself may sacrifice short-term profits, but it has one fundamental benefit. It protects market share, the ultimately weapon in any marketing battle. Any company that hesitates to attack itself usually loses market share and ultimately market leadership.
“Strong competitive moves should always be blocked”
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Most companies have only one chance to win, but leader like Titan have two. If Titan misses an opportunity to attack itself, it can often recover simply by copying the competitive move. However, the leader ought to move rapidly before the attacker gets established. There is no room for oversized egos or complacency in marketing. Blocking works well for a leader as it takes time for an attacker to make an impression in the mind of the target customer.
For example it Timex comes out with a new technology watch Titan should counter the move by introducing a similar line of watches. In marketing warfare, psychology is always on the side of the larger competitor. It is thus always better to cover that to undercover.
I therefore feel that it is only through the proper implementation of such defensive techniques that Titan will be able to survive cut-throat competition from numerous domestic as well as foreign brands in the country today.
In closing, I sincerely hope that I have been successful in my endeavor to not only discuss the various techniques employed by Titan Industries on their road to being India’s favorite brand, but to have also shed light on my perspective of marketing in general.
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16. Bibliography
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