CARDIFF METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSAL BUSINESS SCHOOL

MBA7003 Marketing Assignment 1 (Writ 1) on Zodiac Clothing Company
Ltd.
Submitted to : Dr. Raja Roy Choudhary

Submitted by:

NAME: ALOLIKA DUTTA ROY

ROLL NO: CMBA2Y3/1909

BATCH: CMBA2Y3

1|Page
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………………....3

2. INDIAN FASHION INDUSTRY………………………………………………………....……..3

3. EVOLUTION OF INDIAN FASHION INDUSTRY…………………………………………....3

 ANCIENT CIVILIZATION………………………………………………………....……..3
 IMPACT OF BRITISH RAJ…………………………………………………………..........4
 1920’S…………………………………………………………………………………....…4
 1930’S………………………………………………………………………………………4
 1980’S AND1990’S………………………………………………………….......................4
 THE 21st CENTURY…………………………………………………………………...…..4
 THE CURRENT ERA OF BRANDS…………………………………………………...….4

4. CUSTOMER PSYCHOLOGY…………………………………………………………..………4

5. MALE FASHION INDUSTRY………………………………………………………….……....5

6. COMPANY HISTORY…………………………………………………………………………..5

7. The principles of organizational and environmental audits to inform marketing strategies, decisions and
objectives……………………………………………………………………………………..……6

8. MARKETING ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS……………………………...…………………6

 INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT…………………………………………………………....6
 EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT…………………………………………………..……….6
 PROCESS OF ANALYZING A MARKET ENVIRONMENT…………………………..7
 QUESTIONNAIRE ……………………………………………………………….……....7
 SWOT ANALYSIS………………………………………………………………………..8

9. STPD STRATEGIES …………………………………………………………………………...8

10. CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………….…..……...9

11. BOBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………………10

DYNAMIC FASHION INDUSTRY OF INDIA

2|Page
 -A critical analysis

INTRODUCTION
Fashion is that language which helps a person writes his or her own story through their cloths. Fashion is
something everyone deals with everyday of their life. When a person chooses to wear a particular dress it tells a
lot about their mood on that day. Fashion and style is the statement of uniqueness of every person. Cloths can
depict so many things about a person. Several factors can also influence what we wear at a given point of time.
Those are: 1. Protection from heat, rain and snow, environment has always played a vital role while choosing
the outfit of the day such as mountain climbers wear high-tech outerwear while mountaineering to avoid
frostbite and over-exposure, 2. Physical attraction as we all know fashion is one of the main attributes of
attraction between two people. Cloths are often used as a tool to inspire attraction, 3. Emotions can also depict
our outfit of the day as we spice up our costume when we're glad and let the fashion go when we're upset, 4.
Religion: Every religion comes with some specificity in the dressing of its followers Orthodox Jewish men can
be taken as an example as they wear black long suits and Islamic women cover their whole bodies except the
eyes. (Durcanin, 1999)

INDIAN FASHION INDUSTRY

As said by Diana Vreeland, the editor-in-chief of Vogue Magazine and special consultant at the
Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art fashion can be a part of the daily air and it changes all the
time, with all the events. The approaching of a revolution can also be seen in clothes. You can see and feel
everything in clothes. Fashion is an ever-changing phenomenon. In India it has gone through a tremendous
change. Being influenced by different western countries Indian has seen a drastic change from ethnic to modern
fashion industry. India is a country with a traditional and ancient clothing style, yet emerging in a modern
fashion industry. Clothing in India varies depending on the different topography, ethnicity, atmosphere and
culture.. (Sandhu, 2015)

EVOLUTION OF INDIAN FASHION INDUSTRY

Indian fashion has some significant features like cultural heritage, elegance, and colourfulness. The
fashion industry in India covers a wide range of dress from fancy garments intended for wedding services to
easygoing wear. Crewel, Chikhan, Zardosi are some of the Indian tradition embroidery that have entered the
international market of fashion runway portraying Indo-western trend. There are different stages through which
Indian have evolved. Those are as follows –

 ANCIENT CIVILIZATION – The first

evidence of clothing was found in a statue of
an ancient Goddess wearing a piece of cloth.
In ancient India the cotton industry was well
developed. Then bone made needles and
wooden spindles were used as tools.

Image source- Slideshare

3|Page
  INFLUENCE OF BRITISH RULE - Almost 200 years of British Rule in India had an immense
impact on Indian clothing. Then Indian fashion market was bombarded with British material and
styles.
 1920’s – The 20’s was the roaring years of fashion. These years were also known as Charleston
Era’ in the Fashion world. Lace, satin, cotton or silk came in this era. Long sleeves or mid length
sleeves were the trends of this era.

 1930’s- This era was post The Wall Street Crash

era. Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut
Barrow were the American Criminals who
influenced the fashion industry of US then as well
India in those days. Their style signifies a daring
and flamboyant attitude.

Image source- Pinterest

 1980’s and 1990’s- This era was the enlargement of style schools in India. 80’s brought the disco
hence shimmer and glitter came into clothing. In this era full-sleeve salwar kameez, long skirts,
denim, floral dresses, dungarees, and shades arrived. This era was the Bollywood inspired era of
fashion.
 THE 21st CENTURY- This is the era when Indian fashion became bold and stylish. Shorts, skirts
are the specialties of this era. The draping style of saree also started to evolve. Different kinds of
blouses like halter-neck, back-button blouses, high-neck blouses, Katori style and puffed sleeve
blouses have become the principal inclination of ladies as opposed to the conventional style of
blouses in that time.
 THE CURRENT ERA OF BRANDS- Now-a-days Indian men and women are very much inclined
towards different brands. Liberty shirts were the principle association to offer shirts under its image
name in India amid 1950’s. But now there more brands in the market than ever before Allen Solly,
Van Heusen, Louis Philipe, Charagh Din, Raymonds, Arrow being some of the popular names.
(Bhattacharjee, 2018)

CUSTOMER PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology plays a crucial part amongst the youth customers of India. Different cluster analysis
differentiated all the buyers in four clusters those are: "Get Moving Adopters", "Uninvolved Introverts",
"Confounded Followers" and "Autonomous Life Lovers". What's more, the contrasts between these sections
were seen as factually huge. "Autonomous Life Lovers' can be depicted as that group who consider attire
shopping as a recreational action while "Get Moving Adopters" are the individuals who give lesser time
available. These two fragments can be driven by format, mood and the accessibility of the most recent
4|Page
structures and styles in clothing store. "Confounded Followers" are the individuals who battle to keep up a static
styling explanation think about accommodation, diversion and proposals from companions or family members
to be significant in store support, while "Uninvolved Introverts", the fashion‐ resistant gathering, are tricked by
appealing deals advancement systems and the accessibility of favored brands.. (Narang, 2011)

MALE FASHION INDUSTRY

The relationship between realism and association with fashion garments is moderately influenced by the
gender of the buyer. Young men and women differ in their choice of brands with respect to the quality and price
with women reporting a greater level of participation in both cases. (Handa & Khare, 2013) (Workman, 2005)

The fashion brand chosen by me to evaluate Indian Fashion Industry is -

ZODIAC CLOTHING COMPANY Ltd.

COMPANY HISTORY

Zodiac, an Indian brand, which is identical with the best nature of men's dress and array, is the only
Indian organization to fare shirts under its own mark. Zodiac Clothing Company Ltd (ZCCL) has been in the be
counted of giving exceptional gadgets going from shirts to add-ons for more than forty years.The organizations
marked business containing driving brands ‘Zodiac’, 'ZOD!’, and ‘Z3’ keeps on profiting by its plan quality and
item quality. The top managements of this company are Dr.Naushad Forbes, Mr.A Y Noorani, Mr.Bernhard
Steinruecke, Mr.M Y Noorani, Mr.S R Iyer, Mr.S Y Noorani, Mr.Vaman Apte, Mr.Y P Trivedi, Ms.Elizabeth
Jane Hulse. The company has a total of 22,477,677 shares outstanding. (Anon., 2019)

Mr. M. Y. Noorani, the founder chairman of Zodiac, then a small trader, stood surveying the rolls of
scarf fabrics that was lying in front of him on a late evening in early fifties. A client had recently dropped a
large order. Mr. M Y Noorani, with regards to his elevated requirements of honesty would not like to renege on
his pledge to his providers in France and had no real option except to convert the fabrics into ties, which he at
that point he decided to sell. This slowly yield into a victorious necktie business, and in the early sixties, Then
this ties were branded as ‘Zodiac’ by Mr. M Y Noorani. This was sustained by a distinctive and vigorous
maneuver centered on the “Zodiac Man” – a unshaven model who proceeded towards becoming the most
noticeable male model in India after the Maharaja of Air India as said by Kushwant Singh. (Facebook, n.d.)

Zodiac set up a 100% EOU at Umbergaon, Gujarat, to make and fare of Men's dress including shirts, sea
shore wear and pajama suits with a yearly authorized limit of 100,000 units in Dec. 1984. At first, it focused on
the recent Soviet Union by offering to the Central Buying Organization.65 years on, the passion has not
decreased even by 1%. While being one of the largest professionally run companies , the team at Zodiac
believes it is more a progressive , passion-driven , and product-focused organization -- about clothing, about
design and about perfectionism. They believe success follows perfection. (Facebook, n.d.) (Anon., n.d.)

Zodiac has a chain of 130 stores, besides selling its brands through organized retail chains and more than
1500 independent retailers. Zodiac has won several awards including Images Fashion Award (IFA 2000), Apex
Awards 2004, Texcellence Award, 2003. With the latest fashion line Z3 in this age of eco renaissance Zodiac
keeps on increasing current standards with #SustainableFashion for the millennial who will become the grown-
ups of tomorrow settling on educated choices.Z3 is the line for casual wears and it follows the eco- friendly,
"Trademark Vintage Wash" resulting in a super- soft hand feel. (Anon., n.d.) (Facebook, n.d.)
5|Page
 The principles of organizational and environmental audits to inform marketing strategies,
decisions and objectives –

Marketing audit is an apparatus for execution assessment and control of promoting, was presented in
writing in 1977 by Kotler, Gregor and Rogers, and was later trailed by different writers with various and
important individual commitments, Brownlie (1996), Parmerlee (2000), Wilson (2002), Baker (2008), who
attempted to incorporate also the idea, highlights, and substance of showcasing review.

Organizational audit is designed to improve the operational value of an organization. It is an

independent, objective assurance and consulting activity that helps an organization to meet its goals and to use a
more systematic approach towards improving the risk management. This is the tool by which an organization
can evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. The main two factors that organizational audit use to evaluate the
company’s strengths and weaknesses are its – Customers and Competitors.

Environmental audit is the tool that is used to identify the opportunities of improvement of an
organization and the threats that can be avoided. The factors that mainly influence environmental audits are
Economic factors and Technical factors. (Jasch, 2000)

ANALYSIS OF MARKETING ENVIRONMENT

Marketing Environmental Analysis is strategic analysis tool from the viewpoint of economical
advancement associations, and benefit expansion by minimizing utilization of assets, appraisal of
exertion/impact can likewise be accomplished through the assessment and control of advertising proficiency
and showcasing profitability of the association. The need to get upper hand powers organizations to spend
numerous assets to offer unexpected items in comparison to their rivals and to fulfill purchaser needs also. With
regards to ongoing years' direction towards economical improvement, usage of a feasible promoting is basic.

Market environment are mainly of two types:

Internal environment:

Perseverance of a business depends on its characteristics and adaptability to the earth. The internal
characteristics address its inward condition. It contains budgetary, physical, human and inventive resources.
Financial resources address cash related nature of the association. Resources are doled out over activities that
increase yield at any rate cost, that is, perfect dissemination of cash related resources. The segments of interior
condition are individuals cash apparatus and so on.

External environment:

The outer condition includes lawful, political, socio-social, statistic factors, etc. These are wild factors
and firms change in accordance with this condition. They modify internal condition with the external condition
to capitalize on the common possibilities and attempt against natural perils. Business decisions are affected by
both internal and outside condition.

Micro environment consists of the customers, suppliers, competitors, public and market intermediates.
Micro environment are the factors that are immediately external to the organization. These factors influence the
performance of an organization and its capacity to serve the customers.

6|Page
 The macro environment consists of the economic and non- economic variables of a company that
influence the opportunities and threats of an organization.

PROCESS OF ANALYZING A MARKET ENVIRONMENT -

1. Understanding PEST Factors: Scan the environment to find and understand as many factors and
forces that effect the market as possible.
2. Identify Opportunities: Scan and watch any progressions that are certain for your future business
condition.
3. Identify Threats: To what extent these changes will affect your organization negatively.
4. Take Action: Take advantage of identified opportunities and take appropriate measure to minimize
threats. (Farooq, 2018)
I personally visited a Zodiac store in Kolkata Bidhannagar and had some talk with the staff and some of the
customers. It was very much evident that their sale has increased after introducing two new sub brands ZOD!
and Z3. The crowd was mainly pulled towards ZOD! that have some funky printed shirts and bow ties. The
following data was collected from the visit.

An image of the store I visited.

QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Being a male oriented brand was there any challenges establishing the brand in the market?
The young Indian men are very much driven towards fashion and trends today and we had
established the brand for the formal wears from the beginning and now with the sub brands Z3 for casual
wear and ZOD! for club wear is taking the market by storms.
2. Which age group of men is the target audience of Zodiac?
The office goers and party lovers are our frequent buyers aged between 25 to 40. But with the
new sub brands we are also targeting the youth of India i.e. the teenagers and college students.
3. Have pricing ever been a challenge? I mean have it ever happened that high price made the sale go
down?
Not really. We have always tried to keep the price reasonable and shuttle .We have always
considered the value of the product. Customers must think the price they are paying for a shirt is worthy.
4. According to you what is the basic difference selling offline and online?
Marketing strategies are definitely different for both of them. A lot of digital marketing is needed
for online selling. A particular amount of trust needs to build amongst the customers so that they can

7|Page
 order online without any hesitation. Comparatively selling offline is tough as customer can see and
touch the actual product and give their actual feedback.
5. Which of your product is sold mostly?
Shirts are sold the most but our ties are our specialty is tie. Guinness Book of World Record
enlisted us for longest ties so our ties are quite famous.

From the viewpoint of economical advancement associations, and benefit expansion by minimizing
utilization of assets, appraisal of exertion/impact can likewise be accomplished through the assessment and
control of advertising proficiency and showcasing profitability of the association. The need to get upper hand
powers organizations to spend numerous assets to offer unexpected items in comparison to their rivals and to
fulfill purchaser needs also. With regards to ongoing years' direction towards economical improvement, usage
of a feasible promoting is basic. These tools are specifically used to analyze the strength, weakness,
opportunities and threats of an organization that is commonly known as SWOT analysis.

From the information collected from the store we can do a SWOT analysis of this brand.

Strengths: Weaknesses:
 Brand value  Costly because of supreme quality.
 Quality is supreme  Less variety
 Online selling increased the sells

Opportunities: Threats:
 Can enter new markets of women and  Emerging new brands becoming
children clothing. competitors.
 Can introduce more variety of clothing

STPD STRATEGIES

Market Segmentation is the path toward parting a market into specific social affairs of buyers who have
different needs, characteristics or practices, and who may require separate things or promoting programs. A
Segment is a gathering of shoppers who react in comparable path to a given arrangement of promoting
endeavors (demand is affected by similar factors).There are some factors that influence the segmentation of a
particular company. The bases of segmentation are Geographic, Demographic, Psycho- graphic,
Behavioral.Zodiac Clothing Company Ltd. segmented their market mainly demographically and psycho-
graphically. As the number of working male are quite high and now-a-days working dress code is also very
important. Hence the formal cloths provided by Zodiac are perfectly segmented. (Blattberg & Sen, 1974)

Targeting is tied in with assessing each section's drawing in quality and picking at any rate 1 part to
enter. Targeting is mainly based on factors like gender, age, customer needs, market trend etc. The main target
audience of Zodiac is men and mainly working male of the age group of 25 to 40.

Positioning of an organization is very important. The main objective of market positioning is to

establish a brand in the market. Zodiac understood the demand of public. Working men needed branded formals

8|Page
to show their worth in the office . To position a brand correctly it is important to understand customer’s
perception and needs. Right pricing strategy is also important for correct positioning.

Differentiating a market can depend on product differentiation, service differentiation, channel

differentiation, people differentiation and image differentiation. Zodiac has differentiated the market according
to product and people. (Kotler & Keller, 2015)

CONCLUSION

Zodiac is promoting world health by going eco-friendly with Z3. With the tagline of a sustainable
brand that respects the planet we live on Zodiac is now placing a benchmark in the trend industry. The
key mastering from this is helping environment with satisfactory and profit. They now extract the warmth
whilst recycling the water and use it to minimize their carbon footprint. Their custom constructed warmth
exchanges extract heat from the effluents which is then used to raise the temperature of the water, fed to the
boiler, thereby lowering the consumption of the boiler gasoline and as a result, the carbon footprint. They
have reduced their water consumption by 98.5% and in doing so they have already attained zero liquid
discharge. (Sachdeva, 2015)

If we go by the reviews of Zodiac products in different social media sites it is evident that Zodiac is one
of the finest quality shirt makers present in India right now. But every review include the high price so we can
learn correct pricing strategy. Revenue goals, marketing objectives, target audience, brand positioning, and
product attributes are the factors that influence pricing strategy. (Smith, 2012)

Indian clothing industry has gone through a lot of changes in the last few decades. Indian fashion
industry is very much dynamic in nature. It is ever changing with new emerging brands and products. This is
the era of fusion and Indo-western cloths. To sustain in this VUCA world every brand need to upgrade their
core strengths. Due to all difficulties a only male clothing based brand Zodiac has made their position very
much strong in the market just by their quality and providing value to customers.

9|Page
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS:

Sandhu, A., 2015. 1. INTRODUCTION: INDIAN FASHION. In Indian Fashion: Tradition, Innovation, Style.
London: Bloomsbury. pp.1-5.

Smith, T.J., 2012. Pricing Strategy: Setting Price Levels, Managing Price Discounts and Establishing Price
Structures. USA: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Kotler, P. & Keller, K., 2015. Marketing Management. 15th ed. France: Pearson.

JOURNALS:

Blattberg, R.C. & Sen, S.K., 1974. Journal of Marketing. Market Segmentation Using Models of
multidimensional Purchasing Behavior, pp.17-28.

Narang, R., 2011. Young Consumers. Examining the role of various psychographic characteristics in apparel
store selection: a study on Indian youth, 20(3).

Handa, M. & Khare, A., 2013. International journal on Consumer Studies. Gender as a moderator of the
relationship between materialism and fashion clothing involvement among Indian youth, 37(1), pp.112-20.

Jasch, C., 2000. Journal of Cleaner Production. Environmental performance evaluation and indicators, VIII(1),
pp.79-88.

Workman, J.E., 2005. International Journal of Consumer Studies. Fashion consumers and fashion problem
recognition style.

ARTICLES:

Durcanin, C., 1999. What is Fashion. 12 October.

Farooq, U., 2018. What is Marketing Environmental Analysis. 19 February.

WEBSITES AND WEBPAGES:

Anon., 2019. ET markets. [Online] [Accessed 1 November 2019].

Anon., n.d. ZODIAC. [Online] Available at: https://www.zodiaconline.com/sf/.

Anon., n.d. ZODIAC FINEST QUALITY CLOTHING. [Online] Available at: https://www.zodiaconline.com/z/
[Accessed 30 october 2019].

Bhattacharjee, S., 2018. Indian Institute Of Art and Design. [Online] [Accessed 21 October 2019].

Facebook, n.d. Official page of Zodiac Clothing. [Online] Zodiac Clothing Company Ltd. Available at:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/zodiacclothing/about/?ref=page_internal [Accessed 25 October 2019].

10 | P a g e
Sachdeva, S., 2015. Zodiac spreads footprint across globe. [Online] Available at:
https://fashionunited.in/news/fashion/zodiac-spreads-footprint-across-globe/2015063011881 [Accessed 2
November 2019].

11 | P a g e