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Lander Lands
A niche US retailer quietly moves in.

UMESH GOSWAMI

Future Groups Biyani: Retail redux

Indo Rama and Biyanis Future

Group, it may be the turn of
Reliance and the Bharti Group to
venture into this segment, if media
reports are right Reliance Retail is
said to be in talks for a JV with
Office Depot of the US . Bijou
Kurien, President & Chief Executive
(Lifestyle & Luxury), Reliance
Retail, says the company is evaluating various international options.
According to a Bharti spokesperson, Wal-Mart will not be the sourcing partner for this particular
segment and the company will
consider other international
alliances for this foray.
Its doubtless a huge opportunity, but retail industry analysts like
Arvind Singhal, Chairman,
Technopak Advisors, arent too
enthused by the low margins in the
office supplies business. Singhals
concern stems from the fact that
the market is already saturated in
the four major divisions of the
businesspaper, stationery, storage & furniture and equipment &
technology. Due to an absence of
aspirational value-add to the products, there is a clear lack of brandloyalty in the segment and the
companies will find it difficult to
enter, warns Singhal.
PALLAVI SRIVASTAVA

000

BUSINESS TODAY

MAY 20

2007

RGANISED RETAIL IS DOUBTLESS

where the action is, and its

not only the likes of Bharti-WalMart, Reliance and the Future
Group that are making the moves.
Smaller global names targeting
niche audiences are also entering
the country. Recently, for instance,
the US-based health and beauty
products major, Ascendia Brands,
the company that owns the Lander
brand, entered into a tie-up with
Sankalp Retail Value Stores (SRVS).
SRVS had earlier brought the My
Dollar store to India. The explosion of modern retail in India is a
huge opportunity for a company
like ours, says Harrie Driessen,
Ascendias Executive Vice-President
and Managing Director. Ascendia
is a company that was founded in
1920 and its Lander brand has a
presence in categories like baby
products, gel, hair care, oral care
and skin care. We are not the
best but we offer high-quality products, adds Driessen.
The reason to be in India is
not hard to understand and the
fact that a mere 3 per cent of total
Indian retail comes from the

Baan,
Born Again
He now wants to be the
Toyota of the IT world.

E HAS BEEN TO INDIA 50 TIMES IN

the last 20 years. He also made

direct investments in Hyderabad
more than a decade ago, and is one
of the early birds. Little wonder
then that Jan Baan, 61, Chairman &
Founder of Cordys, an emerging
player in BPMS (business process
management software), and one
who often gets referred to as a serial

Ascendias Driessen: India on his mind

organised segment is the most obvious factor. Our concept is about

offering great value coupled with a
good product. We will take time to
establish our brand, says Driessen.
For Ascendia, Philippines is the
largest market in Asia; globally it
has a presence in 90 countries.
India will be the most important
country for Ascendia this year.
Over the next five years, we expect to have higher penetration levels and a presence across more retail
outlets. We could also start making
products in India although it will be
important to get the volumes, states
Driessen. The challenge? In India,
space is limited and expensive.
KRISHNA GOPALAN

entrepreneur, says: India has

always been key to me in my global
plans. I have invested in India for
over 20 years and have gained valuable experience of using the talent
pool in India for product development and support. Currently, he is
in discussions with a few Indian
universities to arrive at ways of
working together in areas of SOA
(Service-oriented architecture), BPM
and other areas of research. We are
also looking at setting up labs in
select colleges where students can
work with our products and
participate in projects with us.
Baan, of course, is best known for

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the eponymous enterprise resource

planning software firm he founded
in 1978.
The Netherlands-headquartered
Cordys was recently noted by
Gartner as one of the top five BPMS
vendors to watch in 2007. The
company recently secured $67 million (Rs 281.4 crore) in funding
from Argonaut Private Equity and
$13 million (Rs 54.6 crore) from
Baan himself. The BPMS market,
according to Baan, could well be a
$1 billion (Rs 4,200 crore) global
market by end-2007, and could
touch $2.6 billion (Rs 10,920 crore)
by 2011. BPMS is a class of enterprise
software that is being referred to
as the next generation of business
process management software; it
brings together a broader set of
web services tools to provide a common interface for all business users.
Or very simply, it focuses on software that in a way knits together
applications and people at a business
process level.
We want to see ourselves as
being the McKinseys and Toyotas of
the IT world. The analogies to
these companies, he explains, is
made to set the direction in the
organisation for individuals who

000

BUSINESS TODAY

MAY 20

2007

Spark, the companys foray into

the small car market, and proclaimed that General Motors is
getting serious about India.
Rajeev Chaba, Managing
Director, GM India, believes that
despite production constraints, the
company had to enter this segment
now, before it got too crowded.
Small cars, classified as segment A1
and A2 by the Society of Indian
Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM),
account for 77.3 per cent of the
domestic market for passenger cars
(as opposed to passenger vehicles
which includes utility vehicles), a
segment dominated by Maruti
Udyog (MUL).
The Spark, which is a re-engineered Daewoo Matiz, has been
aggressively priced by General
Motors with a starting price of Rs
3.09 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi) for
a non-airconditioned model, going
up to Rs 3.89 lakh for the top-end
model. While the vehicle is being
sold at a discount to the base-model
of the Zen Estilo, the Maruti comes
with air-con as standard.
GM, whose Indian operations
have suffered from a legacy of poor
service and quality, is offering a
three-year/100,000 km warranty

The New
Spark
GM is getting serious about
Indiaseriously.

OR A COMPANY THAT SOLD

38,875 vehicles last year, less

than 3 per cent of the domestic
market for passenger vehicles in
India, the worlds second largest
automobile manufacturer, General
Motors (for the record, Toyota outsold GM during the first quarter of
the 2007 calendar), is extremely
bullish about the Indian market. So
bullish that GM CEO Rick Wagoner
came down to launch the Chevrolet

RAJKUMAR

A. PRABHAKAR RAO

Cordys Baan: Spotting talent

can offer high value to customers in

terms of effective solutions at
shorter lead times, improve collaboration and increase business agility.
We are seeing the benefits of an
agile development methodology in
our product development efforts;
this combined with principles of
lean manufacturing, which have
been so effectively used in other
domains like automotives, are
examples we wish to emulate and
adopt. These practices combined
with the modern tools available
today to conduct meetings over the
internet and adoption of standards
like SOA create an ideal opportunity for a cyber consultant, that is
a person who is available over the
web to assist in pre-sales, consulting
and support.
Baans focus for the past three
years has been on product development. The next few years will
see us increasing our go-to-market
efforts. The company currently
has 250 people globally in R&D (out
of which 210 are in Hyderabad
alone) out of a total headcount of
around 520 people.
E . KUMAR SHARMA

GMs Wagoner: Gathering speed