Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Future Group
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CHAPTER 2
CORPORATE IDENTITY
Corporate Identity
1) Corporate Credo
• Create a pan Indian model Vs. get something from the west
3) Mnemonic
Since Pantaloons stands for Fresh Fashion, the color green reinforces the
same. The green leaf on shopping bags, membership cards, signages, shelf
talkers such as sales and discount notification, promotional offers etc.
4) Mascot
The mascot of Pantaloons Retail (India) Ltd. comes from the logo of the
mother company – the Future Group which has an orange bird which
signifies optimism, growth, achievement, strength, beauty, rewards and
perfection.
5) Collateral Design
Any form of communication like faxes, e-mails, direct mailers has the logo
of Pantaloons as given below.
6) PR / Promotional kits:
a) Marketing Calendar
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d) Mission - We share the vision and belief that our customers and
stakeholders shall be served only by creating and executing future
scenarios in the consumption space leading to economic development.
We will be the trendsetters in evolving delivery formats, creating retail
realty, making consumption affordable for all customer segments – for
classes and for masses. We shall infuse Indian brands with confidence
and renewed ambition. We shall be efficient, cost- conscious and
committed to quality in whatever we do. We shall ensure that our
positive attitude, sincerity, humility and united determination shall be the
driving force to make us successful.
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e) Stationery - The price tags, letter heads, envelopes, visiting cards, cello
tapes, pens, etc. have the element of green incorporated in some way or
the other; all of these also carry the logo of Pantaloons on them.
f) Office design – The Head Office located at Andheri East has orange and
white interiors. This is in sync with the color combination of the logo of
the parent company – Future group. The company follows an open door
policy. This is evident by the office layout which has small cubicles and
very few cabins.
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BRAND IDENTITY
ii)Brand Name
Brand architecture
a) Competitive Environment
Pantaloons has explored new concepts such as aLL, which sells clothes to
plus-sized customers and MeLa, which targets home-owners with furniture and
home textiles. This is in pursuit of its strategy to sell everything to everybody. It
does not, however, seek to be the Jack of all trades. The joint-venture with Liberty
Shoes for footwear retailing, association with Unitech Enterprises for home
solutions retailing, and the stake it has acquired in Planet Sports and Galaxy
entertainment, reflect its efforts to rope in those with category expertise.
c) Target
Pantaloon targets the large and growing upper-middle and middle class of
Indian society. This segment is very price conscious and always looks out for
value for money. Pantaloons, with its focus on ‘fresh look, feel and attitude’
offers, trendy and hip collections that are in sync with the hopes and aspirations of
discerning young and ‘young-at-heart’ consumers.
d) Insights
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We asked a few people who have shopped from Pantaloon the reasons of
preference. The insight thus gained from this was ‘I want to be in sync with the
latest trends and styles’
e) Benefits
Pantaloons is known to have a youthful persona and its own distinct sense
of style that appeals to millions. In accordance with the positioning paradigm of
Pantaloons’ mantra of Fresh Fashion and perpetually reinventing itself with
seasonal fashion wear, Pantaloons is associated with Bobby Deol and Lara Dutta
to endorse its brand. This is the intention to rub off the inherent style-icon status
and turbo-glam allure to forge a better connect with a Bollywood-crazed Indian
GenNext; as quoted by Sanjeev Agarwal, CEO, Pantaloons, “Lara Dutta, being a
Miss Universe, carries her own style statement, while Bobby Deol is a celebrity
who is always well-turned out at social gatherings.” Pantaloons has an association
with The Femina Miss India pageant and an ex-Miss India and Miss Universe adds
its own charisma to the brand.
Pantaloons Fresh Fashion, as it is known, stands for a fresh look, feel and
attitude. Says Agarwal, “Bobby Deol and Lara Dutta, who are very stylish actors
of today, will help enhance the fashion imagery of the Pantaloons brand.”
Pantaloons will leverage the duo’s universal appeal, which is not limited to merely
metropolitan cities, but also extends to smaller cities and towns. The ever-
changing and fast moving fashion pace is a driving force for Pantaloons to come
up with its seasons on a four-six week basis.
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g) Essence
The core value of the store is the experience it offers to the customers in
terms of latest trends in fashion apparels and accessories with a visually
stimulating environment.
h) Product Design
i) Packaging design
The shopping bags are plastic, green in color and carry the logo of
Pantaloons printed on them thus increasing the recall value of the brand. These
bags are available in two sizes.
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Environmental Identity
I. Apparels
i. Men’s Wear
o Casual Wear
o Ethnic Wear
o Formal Wear
o Club Wear
ii. Women’s Wear
o Casual Wear
o Ethnic Wear
o Formal Wear
o Lingerie
iii. Active Wear
iv. Kid’s Wear
v. Non-apparels
II. Perfumes
III. Jewellery
IV. Toys
V. Footwear
VI. Timewear
VII. Mobiles
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VIII. Pens
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Floor Product Category Brands
Ground Timewear Citizen, Fastrack, Fossil,
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Floor Giordano, Guess, Oakley, Police,
Titan,Tommy Hilfiger
Bags In-House: Meow and Pick-me-up
Other brands: United Colours of
Benetton, Baggit and Fiorelli
Perfumes Chanel, Calvin Klien, Davidoff,
Ralph Lauren, YSL, Azzaro,
Escada, Mont Blanc, Dunhill,
Cartier, Paco Rabanne, Versace,
Burberry, Police, Adolfo, Agua
Brava, Antonio Banderas, So,
Jennifer Lopez, Joop, David
Beckham, Lanvin, Bvlgari, Hugo
Boss, Luciano Soprani
Cosmetics Revlon, Maybelline, Lakme,
Neutrogena, Ponds, Chambor,
Loreal, H2O, YSL, Dalton, Toni
& Guy
Pen Parker, Cross, Waterman,
Sheaffer
Fashion Jewellery Sarah, Jazz, Flip, Tribal Zone
Diamond jewellery D’Damas, Sangini, Cygnus,
Nakshatra, Nirvana, Sparkles,
Gili, Ishis, Sia, Ola, Infinity
Ladies Western Wear Annabelle, Bare, Honey, Umm,
Rig, Scullers, Jealous21, Urban
Yoga, Akkriti, Ajile, AND, 109
degree F, Remanika, Lee Cooper,
Levis, Pepe, Spykar
First Floor Kids Wear Bare, Chalk, Akkriti, Provogue,
Id, Lilliput, Gini & Jony
Ladies Ethnic Wear ALL, Taal, Kavitas, Krishangs,
Ananya, Kavisha, Trishaa, Payal,
Chitralekha, Krsna, Anmol
Kakad, Rangmanch, Isvarah,
Biba, Etam
Lingerie Etam, Lovable, Jockey, La Senza
Sports Section Black Panther, Converse, Adidas,
Reebok, Nike, Puma
Toys Hot wheels, Fisher-price
Footwear Provogue, ID, Catwalk, Lilliput,
12 Kittens
Second Mens Wear John Miller, Lombard,
Floor T2000, Ajile, Bare denim, Umm,
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Floor Plan
The floor plan demarcating the different sections and their placement is
made by the concept, design and visual merchandising team at the head office and
is implemented by the zonal are made according to the revenue per square foot of
each section and brand. The revenue per square foot shows which section and
which brand is giving the most business to the retail outlet. For example the Men’s
Denim section gives an average of 1500 Rs. per square foot per month while
Men’s Formals gives 1800 Rs.teams. The plan changes after each End of Season
Sale (EOSS) i.e. the Autumn-Summer ( August) and Autumn- Winter (February)
sales. Changes
The Perfume section is always kept at the entrance in every Pantaloons store
because the fragrances tap the olfactory senses of the customers passing by and
enhances their shopping experience. The Brands are placed according to the
expected sales. The new brands or the brands that relatively slow moving are
placed at the focal points near the aisles and the trial rooms where there is a higher
chance of the consumer browsing through the merchandise. For example in the
Lower Parel store brands like Remanika and AND which are more contemporary
and designer in their look are placed at focal points to help sales.
Apart from these focal points, there are highpoints which aim at attracting
the consumer by displaying the latest and “in” merchandise. These highpoints
have mannequins dressed in the garments or accessories recommended by the
design team to the visual merchandising team. The mannequins could be stand
alone or may have a backdrop to increase the appeal of the display. For example
currently the store displays blazers in case of John Millers.
The store also has clusters at entry and exit points. Clusters usually consist
of 2 male and 2 female mannequins which are dressed in a variety of garments.
Sometimes if a promotion is going on the cluster may be altered. For instance
since Pantaloons was sponsoring Femina Miss India Pageant the cluster consists
only of female mannequins.
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Floor Layouts
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Ambience characteristics
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o All Hanging
Visual Merchandising
2) Window Display : The windows in each store are segregated and have
different themes for display. One of the windows is dedicated to “Fashion
Friday”. Fashion Friday is a concept by Pantaloons since they believe in
fresh fashion and say that they bring something new to the customers every
week.
The display always follows a color theme. The maximum time for which a
display may be put up is a month though usually they try and change it every
fortnight.
a) Point of Sale
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c) Shopping Bags: The bags are green in color with the brand
name and the customary leaf design. There are no immediate plans to
change the design though Pantaloons is planning to change to paper
from plastic.
Service Identity
The staff at the store is trained to interact with the customers by giving a
thorough knowledge of the products and the brands that they handle. The
Department Manager is responsible for the training of a new team member. This
training takes place on the job. They ensure that the fresher gets an overall
exposure to all the sections of the department that he has been assigned. Under the
guidance of the Store Manager the staff gets trained in four specialized areas:
sales, product knowledge, grooming and customer query management. Soni Jha,
HR Manager shares with us the procedure for sales training for Akruti, an in-house
brand which has formal and casual wear. The Management trainee is shifted from
one section of Akruti to the other for a better understanding whereas the training
for Visual Merchandising is done through handing over experience from a senior
level to the lower level.
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i. Team member
At the Lower Parel store, there is one Store Manager who handles the store
targets and to whom two Assistant Store Managers report. The responsibility is
divided between the ASMs floor-wise. One team comprises of team members and
leaders. Team Leaders are seniors with more experience and Team Members
report to them. The Team Leaders report to Assistant Department Manager.
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The Lower Parel store has a Funzone at the terrace for recreational activities
of the staff. Employees can watch TV, play carom, avail the facility of a pantry.
On Saturdays there is a staff meeting where in employees are updated on the
progress of the store. This is then followed by games like open house
d) Medical benefits
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Merchandise Management
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is to create products, which are traffic builders and margin managers within the
store, rather than brands that compete with each other The Pantaloon system does
not lay any emphasis on the brand and does not require the creation of shops in
shops. Therefore, excessive building or spending on brands becomes unnecessary.
Instead, the company stresses on promoting a product category, thus making brand
marketing a secondary function.
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The lines are developed in such a way that they appeal to all age groups. In
womenswear, Pantaloon’s in-house design team’s forte is western wear for ethnic
clothing; the company mainly depends on external labels. Sometimes, the category
manager for ethnic wear may offer suggestions on the type of merchandise
required and the vendors develop this for the store. The company does not have
any brand in this segment and the goods are sold under the vendor’s labels. This
saves on the double excise levy, which it would have had to pay if it used its own
name.
Before
moving on, let us
first understand
how the
merchandise
functions are
monitored at
Pantaloon (see
chart ‘Down to the
Last Detail’). It
has nine
departments,
representing the
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To keep a track of the performance of the SKUs, the company has evolved a
coding system. Each SKU is allotted a 14-digit code. The first 4 digits represent
the department and the sub-department, the next 2 stand for the price point the
next is the season’s collection and the last 7 digits symbolise the design, shape,
colour and size of the product. The company now plans to replace this code by the
Universal Product Code (UPC), which is followed internationally.
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PLANNING PROCESS
First, the design team develops the design or a new pattern. The team is led
by the visual merchandising head and has 20 designers for product development.
The design department depends on fashion forecast magazines, exhibitions and
may also visit leading retailers in the city to understand the latest styles. Designs
are developed not only for the fashion and collections category but also for the
classic segment so that there is something new every season, The new designs are
presented to the category management team, which consists of close to 40 people
handling 16-17 categories of merchandise. The category captain and his team is
given the entire year’s budget and sales target for the category based on which he
decides whether to experiment with a new design or not. If yes, then the category
manager will first establish the total purchase quantity of that design and the stores
in which this should go. This is the most crucial stage where the category manager
prepares the merchandise control chart (see table ‘Keeping a Tab on Tags’).
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This chart gives the details to be ordered from each vendor and the total cost and
revenue it would generate. It also puts out the style code for the design for all
future reference. This code gives information on the style, brand, the season for
which it is ordered and the vendor. The merchandise control chart is attached to
the catalogue which describes all the styles and designs, colour options, visual
merchandising and mood of the merchandise and all the categories within which
the given style has to be manufactured. For Desert Song, for example, the
catalogue gives the various colours and fabrics to be used, the number of blouses,
trousers, skirts, capris and so on which would be made under the collection, the
visual merchandising plan and the mood plan. The mood for the line comes from a
single dried out tree standing in the midst of the desert with major use of earth,
brown, beige and maroon colours and big prints. Thus, the entire selection of
colours, designs and patterns revolves around this mood.
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Then the merchandise team comes into the picture. Each category team has a
merchandiser who helps in sourcing the right kind of material as per the
specifications given by the category manager and is responsible for the quality and
timely delivery of the merchandise. They also negotiate for prices with the
vendors. At Pantaloon, almost 70 per cent of the menswear and 50 per cent of
womenswear merchandise is produced by Pantaloon Industries - a group company.
The company has 25-35 private vendors. The category manager is involved in the
negotiation process with external vendors whereas for in-house vendors,
merchandisers handle the entire deal.
Along with the details on the products to be manufactured, the category manager
also has to give the time and place of delivery to the vendor, which emerges from
the micro-merchandising chart. This chart details the product category, description
of style, style number (reference number), category of merchandise - story or
classic or fashion, ratio of sizes, colour, store of allocation, time and place of
delivery to the warehouse or the store. The column listing total number of pieces
helps in tracking the movement of merchandise across the stores (see table ‘How
Much of What Goes Where & When’). The micro-merchandise chart is the
allocation plan of the company and is based on the ratio of sizes in each
merchandise category (see table ‘Sorting out Sizes’). For example in womenswear,
Pantaloon has 4 sizes - small, medium, large and extra large. The merchandise
control chart is the basis of opento-buy (OTS), which defines the month-on-month
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The company makes the 0Th for the season on which the micro-
merchandising chart is based. The basis of OTS is the merchandise control chart
which, in turn, is derived from the inputs received from the designers for the
forthcoming seasons of the year and the analysis of past performance.
The table ‘Sorting out Sizes’ shows the OTB for the past season. Here the key is
the analysis of the closing stock of merchandise. Pantaloon follows a principle that
the closing stock of the merchandise should be equivalent to, at least two-month’,
sales. This rule is based on the past studies of the merchandise mix and the
average requirement of stock. So if the season was for 4 months then the “two-
month” sale for each size is given. The table clearly shows that while small size
has the right proportion of closing stock, the medium and large sizes are under-
stocked and the extra large size is over-stocked. This implies that Pantaloon may
have missed out on some potential sales in the medium and large categories
whereas the buying decision for the extra large size was totally wrong. This forms
the basis of next season’s ratio between sizes. Now, the company would see to it
that it buys higher quantities of medium and large sizes and lower quantities of
extra large sizes in ladies’ blouses, irrespective of the story it is presenting in the
store. So the design team decides which design will sell whereas the quantities that
should be purchased are calculated by the category management team based on
their analysis of past sales performance across various styles and sizes. This
analysis is also done on month-to-month and store basis so that the company can
generate the revised OTB for every month and every store based on the movement
of each style. The revised OTB is then matched with the original merchandise
control chart OTS and the original micro-merchandising chart to check:
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Vendor Management
Marketing channels are often conflict ridden as manufacturers haggle to get the
most for their goods and services and retailers pit vendors against one another to
get the lowest possible prices. In recent years, this process is changing.
Manufacturers and wholesalers have come to realise that selling merchandise to
retailers accomplishes little if those retailers cannot resell it to customers who will
consume the goods. Thus, their emphasis has shifted to satisfying the customer
and retailers are now less concerned with getting the lowest possible price and
more with maximising the long-term returns for all parties. This new perspective
has fostered a much closer association between retail buyers - the people who
purchase the items - and vendors/salespeople - those who sell the merchandise to
buyers. As a result the consumers now get what they want at the right time and
price and all members of the channel benefit.
This is the driving force behind Pantaloon’s vendor management policy. The key
aspects that the ‘company looks a while selecting a vendor are
1) Price points
3) Quality of goods
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While some of these factors are important in the introduction process, the others
decide the long term relationship with the vendor. Usually, the vendor approaches
the company and if approved the quality control team conducts a survey of its
facilities. The vendor is also asked to fill in a registration form, The lead-time for
any consignment right from the design stage to delivery is 270-300 days. The
company takes six months to develop the design. 45-60 days for procuring the
fabric and 30 days for manufacturing. The company also takes into account 10-15
days for delays in transit. The company is planning a system of order cancellation,
where if the order gets delayed by over 15 days, it can get cancelled or the vendor
would have to shell out 7-15 per cent discount. It is also introducing rules in terms
of excess supplies. Typically1 in case of fashion garments, the vendors tend to
supply more than the ordered quantity due to availability of extra fabric. The
company will now start a policy of accepting only + 5 per cent variance in
quantities. It has also successfully introduced the system of getting shelf-ready
merchandise in 60 per cent of the western womenswear category. This is expected
to help the company bring in concepts like cross docking at the warehouses. The
company is also developing a statistical programme to measure vendor
performance against select parameters and throw up serious deviations. This
would influence the company’s decision on retaining vendors and on training
them.
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On-shelf Strategies
All the planning and strategies undergo the ultimate test when the merchandise
actually reaches the shop floor. The company plans for two major seasons -
spring-summer and festive season. During January-February and July-August the
company has clearance sales, which do not just include unsold merchandise but
some fresh stock too. Thus, Pantaloon makes clearance sales an event for which
special merchandise is planned.
In terms of on-shelf strategies, Pantaloon has a clear policy for each category of
merchandise. The company gets weekly reports on Tuesdays, which it calls dump.
This data is analysed to see the movement of various types of goods. The tracking
is done based on the merchandise category classic, fashion or collection. Every
month, the company identifies the good and bad sellers. According to company
policy, a bad seller is a product that stays on the shelf for more than 60 ways In
case of any slow moving goods, the company analyses the results in context of
price, style, colour and size. The company believes that if the style or colour is not
right no amount of discount will help sales. So if the merchandise does not move
during its shelf life, it is just removed and kept at the warehouse for end of season
sale. If the price appears to be a deterrent, the company corrects it right away and
marks down the price immediately. The company has been able to reduce the
amount of wrong decisions in classics as it has an in-built learning on this range.
But at times it does falter on the fashion and the collections series, in which case it
just removes the goods from the stores and sells these at a discount. To its
advantage, the company is present in three formats — the Pantaloon department
store, the factory outlet and the Big Bazaar. A slow moving good is often moved
to the factory outlet or the Big Bazaar, where it is discounted and sold. The factory
outlet stores also hold sales to dispose off the merchandise. In each of these cases,
the company takes the approval of the vendor and often, the vendors take part in
the sales. The company discounts the goods -- from 10-40 per cent at the factory
outlet to get rid of the stock. Thus the factory outlet acts as a liquidation agency
for the Pantaloon department store.
If the goods move very fast, then the company’s action depends on the timing and
type of merchandise. In the collections range, the company’s sole aim is to get rid
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of the goods. So even if the merchandise does really well, the company does not
reorder the goods. The performance of each story is documented for future
reference, On the other hand, for the classic or fashion categories, if the company
can gauge the demand in the beginning of the season, it immediately increases the
order sizes of future consignments. But if it is end of the season, it just allows the
merchandise to exhaust and documents the earnings for the next season. In any
case, the company follows a policy of base stock levels for classics and so
whenever the stocks touch that point, which is about two months sales, the order
for replenishment is placed directly by the supply chain management team.
Finally, the company completes the season with a strategic review meeting that it
conducts every 6 months. The meeting is attended by the CEO, category
managers, assistant category managers, zonal heads, heads of various departments
and the store managers. The idea of this meeting is to sort out all the
miscommunications and gaps in the functioning of the merchandise department
and the stores. All the performance data for the season is presented to bring out the
reasons for under or over- performance. The highlight of this meeting is the
learning process. New insights on the customer, merchandise or other aspects of
the business are revealed and general issues like competition, international
retailers and world-class practices are discussed. The company plans to have these
meetings on a three-monthly basis. It is also in the process of implementing a
balanced scorecard approach. This would bring out department-specific
performance on key quantitative and qualitative parameters. For example, a typical
scorecard for the category managers would include:
5) label sales (The company has a policy that private label sate
should not be less than 75 per cent of total sales)
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Retail Marketing Towards pantaloon
A rough version of the balanced scorecard was used in the March 2001
strategic review meeting and the company is in the process of further streamlining
this approach.
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The function of the supply chain management (SCM) department starts where the
functions of the category management and merchandise management departments
end The SCM team is given the entire delivery schedule of the merchandise and
the store
allocation
schedules with
exact dates. This
team handles
several regional,
zonal and city
warehouses along
with the store
warehouses (see
chart ‘Taking
Stock’ where the
arrow lines show
the
communication
links between the various warehouses).
Each store has a warehouse, which is around 10- 15 per cent of the size of
the store and holds around 7 days inventory. The stores deal with either the zonal
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This company has a manufacturing warehouse which deals individually with each
of the other warehouses. However, the company is now in the process of
streamlining all communications and plans to link the manufacturing warehouse
with only the central or zonal warehouse. In all, the company maintains one-month
inventory plus the inventory in transit.
This maze of warehouses is not without reason. The company was mainly present
in western and southern India, with a store in Kolkata. Since Kolkata was a very
different market, the company needed to source material from the region and so
had a zonal warehouse. Sangalore was too far to feed the Hyderabad market,
where the company now has major interests. Thus, Hyderabad has its own city
warehouse. The role of the zonal warehouse is mainly to house the goods procured
from the region, so that these do not have to travel all the way to the central
warehouse. Of course, the future plan is to move to a more zone-specific structure.
Here, there may be only one central warehouse to receive common goods and each
zonal warehouse would procure goods from its region to sell not only in stores
based in the zone, but to other stores as well. As of now, the entire structure and
the communication pattern is very fluid and should become more concrete with
more stores coming up. Today, a lot of material is centrally procured - this may
change with time and so would the role of the zonal warehouses.
Bar coding of the merchandise is done at the zonal warehouses. Roughly 50 per
cent of the goods that Pantaloon receives today is pre bar coded - this means that
this merchandise is available in shelf- ready form. In this case, only one entry is
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made at the zonal or central warehouse. The goods are then dispatched to the
respective store warehouse or are held at the zonal or city warehouse. Here, a
quality check is conducted and the goods are bar coded and sent to the stores. This
entire process takes at least 3 days. The company is now moving towards cross
docking and is training its vendors to send shelf-ready goods to reduce the cycle
time. The key sources of merchandise for Pantaloon are:
Almost 70-80 per cent of the stocks in the store is Pantaloon in-house brands and
this makes supply chain management much simpler The SCM team, on receipt of
the delivery schedules (micro-merchandising chart) from the category managers,
receives the goods, checks their quality, bar codes them and sees to it that they
reach the respective stores on time. In case of fashion and new merchandise, the
purchase invoice is raised by the category management department since the goods
are under test of performance. But for regular goods and replenishments, the SCM
team raises the invoice and informs the category management department
accordingly. 60-70 per cent of the SKUs in the store are regular goods. Usually,
vendors for various goods are given the plan 3-4 months in advance. The
merchandise team normally works for three seasons.
After the goods are made shelf ready at the zonal or after they are ready for
shipping at - the central warehouse, the SCM department arranges for the
transporters and courier companies. These are decided according to the weight of
the shipment and the destination. The company has a host of transporters
managing vehicles of various sizes. It is usually the transporter’s responsibility to
arrange the entire truckload and the reverse loads as well. Once the goods reach
the zonal warehouses, the company has its own set of vehicles to transport the
goods to stores in the area. If the stores are in different cities, they are transported
through third party transporters. Replenishment is mainly done either at night (at
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Use of IT
Pantaloon has employed ERP software Baan to better manage its merchandising
functions. The aim was to get ahead of the competition by a clear 18 to 24 months
and set benchmarks in (faster) response, lower inventories and (quicker) cycle
time turnarounds. Pantaloons mantra is to build upon its existing retail network by
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adding more space in cities where it already has a presence, as well as moving to
fresh markets. The company used Baan simple, flexible, open-ended software – to
incorporate latest business practices like category I, management. Not easy for a
retailing operation generating two mn transactions per month through 46 retail
shops across the country, totalling a data size of 15GB every month.
The main challenge was tracking dispatch and replenishment of stocks to all
the stores in the country. These weren’t merely challenges, but primary sales
drivers as well, as the company knew it was registering lost sales due to mistimed
stock allocations to various retail outlets and inability to meet customer demands.
Fixing this was critical for Pantaloon.
In Pantaloon, each department was divided into categories; the product lines
too were converted into categories based on the revenue generated by t each of
them. The categories were then mapped to seven levels in the category master in
Baan and 14-digit items were assigned to these. Managing business at the category
level helps the organisation to stay focused, as each category is treated as a
business unit and therefore run as a separate business. The seven levels of category
master capture the attributes of the consumer buying process and the entire supply
chain is linked to these levels (see chart ‘Getting Tracking on Track’).
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Retail Marketing Towards pantaloon
Pantaloon went live on BaanlVS2 in a quick ten months and the systems are
online at the transaction levels. A business transaction at the head office and
central warehouse is effected online in an integrated environment and all modules
- finance, distribution, purchase, sales and manufacturing - have been implemented
in one go. A leased line has also been drawn up from the central warehouse at
Goregaon to connect to the Baan server at the head office in Andheri to enable
online information sharing. This should connect the diverse operations of the
company and makes information easily accessible. In fact, Pantaloon is the first
customer of Baan in the retail LOB to go online anywhere in the world and the
second global Baan customer in garment manufacturing.
DEM Tool
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Retail Marketing Towards pantaloon
Interfaces
Pantaloon operates in a
very complex and
highly processor-
oriented environment.
Currently, it has 46
retail shops across the
country and plans to
open ten more in the
current year. The
company has 65,000
14-digit items in its
item data master
Because of this complexity and usage of various middleware, the company
developed 11 interfaces with Baan that were built in the sales, stock transfers,
delivery, receipts and between the central warehouse and all the retail shops.
These interfaces ensure accurate MIS to top management (see chart ‘Knowing is
Rewarding’).
The company has achieved the following operational effectiveness through Baan:
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Retail Marketing Towards pantaloon
per cent more accurate material allocation after going online with Baan. Other
incremental benefits include:
3. Because of the visibility in data flow, the company now has the
flexibility of reallocating and changing the work centre to meet a
particular demand.
Better Systems: With Baan, Pantaloon understood that it was operating in a high
growth environment and clearly wanted to establish top class systems and
processes to handle moving targets and manage growth effectively. The spin-offs
are many:
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Retail Marketing Towards pantaloon
The company has developed its POS software in house and this has been
integrated with Baan to cull out useful data. Since the ERP software does not help
the company in undertaking intelligent analysis of the vast data generated by the
system, company executives manually analyse all the data to understand the
trends. The company is in the process of implementing business intelligence
software called Adaytum, which it has developed in- house. With this software,
the company will be able to generate custom-made reports. Using Adaytum, the
company claims that it would be in a position to decide the exact shelf to display a
particular product in every store. The software will create a range plan catalogue,
which would help the company to present to the store all the merchandise it can
expect in the next season. The floor staff would be trained accordingly on the
merchandise, its fabric and features so that they are better prepared to assist
customers. This software will enable the convergence of visual merchandising
efforts of the company with its allocation plans. Moreover, it will help in dynamic
planning and would further reduce the gaps between results, actions & plans.
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Retail Marketing Towards pantaloon
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