Case III: Tanishq: Positioning to Capture the Indian Woman’s Heart

Before suggesting Mr. Bhaskar and Mr. Venkat, the brand to go ahead with, let’s take a look
into the following-
Drivers of Choice in Jewellery-
1. Assurance of Purity
2. Traditional Trust of a relationship built over years
3. The range and designs of jewellery available
4. Provider of core jewellery as part of family legacy
5. Along with purity and designs, factors like weight, craftsmanship (finish) and polish
(shine) are also important factors.
6. Price sensitiveness
Analysis:

Customer:

• Indian women segmented in 4 profiles (The bride, the young mother, the settled
woman, the bride’s mother). The confident matriarch and the balancer who are more
investment-oriented constitute 57% of the market.
• Customer preference remained of 22 karat gold over 18 karat gold as a notion of
purity; however, with time customers started looking for different styles for different
occasions.
• Customer awareness about the price of gold which included the basic price of gold,
labour and wastages
• Gold consumption in 2003 in India increased approximately 300 times as compared to
the year 1990.
Product:

• Gold perceived as an investment and is strongly associated with women as ‘streedhan’

• Tanishq focussed gold as adornment and not only as an investment.
• Gems, diamond, pearl are complements
• GoldPlus, also a TATA brand, can cannibalize the share of Tanishq sales if promoted.
• Packaging: A red bag which was quite recognisable was introduced for customers to
carry out purchases
Company:
Capabilities and expertise-

• Known for purity and quality

• Better quality, high efficiency, quick delivery, reduced lead times and lower logistics
costs.
• Combined tradition and heritage.
• Expert in making Indianized, innovative designs and weaving a story around their
collections.

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 Distribution Channels-

• Boutiques- which were as precious as Tanishq jewellery.

• Eliminated middlemen and set up a karigar park.
Collections-

• Daytimes, Colors, Aarka, Aamra.

• Diva, Lightweight, Gold, Hoopla, Lightweight Diamonds, Collection G.
• Bandhan, Lightweights, Solo, Platinum.
• Other wedding and festival collections launched.
Competition:

• Presence of large number of local houses and family Jeweller. Possibility of entrance
of Major Business Houses in retain business of gold jeweller selling.
• Big barrier to new entrants: Trust factor is the most critical aspect. It has wide variety
of products. Increase in depth and width of product variety gives it a competitive edge.
However, small player or local houses can enter with relatively low cost.
• Supplies Concentration: Presence of its own Karigar Park and easy availability of large
no. of skilled jewellery maker.
• Industry Regulation: Possible increase of tax to 6% for Brand in Gold Jewellery which
will also reduce the possibility of entrant of new Brand as lower price.
Let’s have a glance at the following table to justify the decision of “Tanishq” over “GoldPlus”
in detail-

TANISHQ GOLDPLUS
1) Jewellery for adornment 1) Jewellery for investment
2) It has a better supply chain. 2) Needs time to build a supply chain.
3) Product Differentiation: traditional 3) Product Differentiation: Focuses on “plain
designs, western designs, diamond & pearl gold wedding jewellery”
jewellery
4) It has a good brand name and is trusted in 4) It will be a new brand and hence will take
the entire country. time to establish its name.
5) Projected Return on Capital Employed in 5) Projected Return on Capital Employed in
2010-11 is high at 90.6% 2010-11 is comparatively low at 66%
6) It has an independent standing in the 6) It leverages the brand name of TATA.
market as far as brand name is concerned.
7) It has a strong and loyal customer base, 7) The potential customer base of GoldPlus is
which includes modern Indian women. rapidly evolving and would soon merge with
that of Tanishq.
8) It is fighting the competition very well by 8) No such innovation can be seen as there is
coming up with campaigns like Karatmeter. excessive reliance on Tata’s name for
everything.

IIM Ranchi PGDM 2018-20 Page 2 of 2 Marketing Management (Group 3)