League of Shadows- Group A3- Source- Business standard

Discovery Networks along with India Today Group to launch magazine in India

Divya Gupta                                                                          Business Standard

·         Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific has entered into partnership with India Today Group to launch a monthly magazine in India.

·         Named Discovery Channel Magazine, it will cover a wide spectrum of topics including nature, adventure, marvels, sci-tech, history, the universe, forensics, seekers, survival, info-tech, psychology and the environment, mirroring the different genres featured on the Discovery Channel.

·         At present, the magazine is sold in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

·         India’s growth and the exposure of the average Indian to the world have created a market for globally acclaimed quality knowledge products. Discovery Channel Magazine with its high quality content will fill the void in this space in the Indian market.

·         Discovery said that the magazine will have a contemporary design and feel and will stay true to the DNA of the Discovery brand.

Hypermarket operators tweak models to cut costs, increase margins

Nikhil Narayanan                                                                                         Business Standard

Ø  Hypermarkets, or large supermarkets, run by Tata-owned Trent and RP Sanjiv Goenka Group’s Spencer’s are tweaking their operating strategies to improve store productivity and bolster margins. Both Star Bazaar, the hypermarket chain of Trent, and Spencer’s are chasing profitability after years of losses.

Ø  Star Bazaar is looking at opening stand-alone stores, as opposed to those inside malls, due to high common area maintenance (CAM) charges, built-up charges and rents, which eat into its income.

Ø  They plan on tweaking sizes according to demand and also are considering the compact size model. The chain’s operating entity, Trent Hypermarkets Ltd (THL), has 15 Star Bazaars, and plans to add three-to-four stores every year.

Ø  Trent-run department store Westside is also looking at stand-alone properties to open stores, as CAM charges have hit Rs 50 a sqft against Rs 10-12 a sqft, which are considered viable for department stores.

Ø  Apart from stores, the chain is looking at launching community and ethnic food and global food products in the stores, which will fetch more margins. It is also expected to roll out more of Tesco’s private labels in its stores, he said.

Ø  Consultants say opening large stores can drain operating profits. Since hypermarkets are considered a long gestation business, tweaking models to cut costs and improve margins are crucial, they say.

Ø  Even Hypercity, owned by Shoppers Stop, is reducing the size of its stores from an average of 100,000 sqft to 50,000 sq ft. It has a plan to cut the overall retail space of 12 stores at Hypercity from 1.3 million sqft earlier to 1 million sqft in the next 2-3 quarters.

Ø  “It will reduce rent & operating costs & bring efficiencies,” Govind Shrikhande, managing director of Shoppers Stop, said. However, he said the break-even of the chain may be pushed to FY16 as the process to right size the stores was taking time.

Ø  Though Spencer’s has closed small stores in Pune in Maharashtra and some stores in Tamil Nadu, it is looking at adding 50% more hypermarkets this year, said its chief executive Mohit Kampani.

Ø   The chain plans to add more non-food items such as apparel, general merchandise & so on which will fetch better margins for the chain.

Ø  They plan to invest heavily in customer service for which by reducing the billing time by about 50 %.

Tata Motors' Jan global sales fall 16%, JLR up 30%

Vivek Nair                                                                              Business Standard

·         Tata Motors Ltd said global vehicle sales in January fell 16% to 1,01,112 vehicles, the third consecutive monthly slide, but sales at its key Jaguar Land Rover unit rose 30% to 38,173 vehicles.

·         Overall passenger car sales stood at 53,881 vehicles during the month, the company said in a statement, representing a fall of 19% from the same month a year earlier.

·         Tata, part of the salt-to-steel Tata Group conglomerate, sold 47,231 commercial vehicles in January, down 11%.

Being Human beyond star appeal

Janhavi Satish Patil                                                               Business Standard

·         Being Human Foundation has a unique model; it is a lifestyle brand at the front-end & a registered charitable trust at the back-end.

·       Being human chain of stores was first launched in Dubai, then in India.

·       It has 5 exclusive outlets & 31 shop in shops, handled by Mandhana Industries.

·       TG is 15-40 year-olds. Initially line was only for men, women’s and kidswear will be launched by March.

·       By the end of this financial year, they plan to open 8 exclusive business outlets & another 30 shop-in-shops. By next year, target is 40 exclusive outlets and 200 shop-in-shops as well as another 150 to 200 franchisees,” says vice president, finance & corporate affairs of Mandhana.

·       Four have managed to break even out of 5 stores opened last year October

·       Leading brands are finding the going tough for two reasons – less discretionary spending in the hands of consumers and an over-crowded market.

·       Being Human has been positioned as a lifestyle brand in the mid- to premium range, which has brands such as Zara, Tommy Hilfiger, Woodland and Uni Style Image.

·       Brand experts feel that the initial hype will soon be over after rationality takes over and people no longer come to shops out of curiosity raised by Khan’s Magic.

·       However ArvindSinghal, chairman of Technopak Advisors, says, that TG of brand needs to be made clearer and thus strategy should be made better.

·       Problem of faking Being human t-shirts was thought to be eating their market share but, Mandhana takes it as an opportunity to get free publicity and states that as variations in line occur the duplicity will be reduced.