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y Have you been to Chitale Bandhu Shop in Pune?, First day, first class in B School, our mar eting teacher as ed us to chec whether we are familiar with Pune or no t. Few handswent up, Sir its a very famous sweets shop in Pune, one of the students replied, Sir theyhave RFID System in their shop and their Ba arwadi is a hot sel ling item. I was surprised tohear that whether it is regarding a Sweet shop or so mething else?We heard this name Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale from our faculties while telling us aboutsuccess story. It created a curiosity and we could not resist v isiting Chitale BandhuMithaiwale shop.We (Deepa Mehta & Abhinav Mishra) planned to visit the shop. We were not familiar withPune, so we had to as for directio n at many places. We were amazed to see that almosteveryone new the address to this shop. Finally we reached the shop; it was li e any other simple shop from o utside. When we reached the main entrance of the shop, we had to standin queue. At the entrance a security guard gave us a plastic card (RFID Card) and instruct edus to carry this inside.Inside the customers were ubiquitous. It too us some time to understand the contour of theshop. We approached one counter and as ed f or different variety of sweets available. Wewere bewildered to now the varietie s they had. We went ahead to the Ba arwadi counter.There was big queue and we th ought if we do not purchase now, it might get over. When wereached the counter, man behind the counter as ed for the plastic card and we gave it to him. Next qu estion, how much do you want? we said, 500 gm. He put the card on a machinewhich was ept behind, pressed few buttons, pac ed Ba arwadi and gave it bac to us along with our card. Next we bought amba atali and cornfla es chivda.Then we approach ed the counter person and as ed if we could meet the manager. He too usto the m anager who was sitting behind the counter with computer and in front of CCTV. We introduced ourselves and requested him if we could now about the insight of the operation.He introduced himself as Kedar Chitale, one of the proprietors of Chi tale Bandhu and told usto call Mr. S. R. Chitale and fix an appointment to get t he insights. We than ed him andreached the exit where we were as ed for the card , the cashier put this card on machines andtold us to pay Rs. 200. Next day we c alled Mr. S. R. Chitale and fixed an appointment for Thursday Afternoon. We reac hed the shop on time, as ed for Mr. S.R. Chitale and we wereta en inside and int roduced to a very simple gentleman. Mr. S. R. Chitale offered us seats. 1 Mr. Chitale started unwinding the secret of Chitale Bandhus Success. Bac ground: Mr. B. G. Chitale started dairy business at Bhilawadi in the Sangli district of Maharashtrastate in 1939. Late Shri. Raghunathrao (Bhausaheb) Chitale, his eldes t son, promoted the firmof Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale in 1950 in Pune, Maharashtr a. The firm began its operations inthe heart of the Pune city at Bajirao Road. O ne more principal outlet at Deccan Gym hana,Pune was opened. The inspiration beh ind venturing into a dairy based food products businesswas of course, Shri. B. G . Chitale.When they started this business, prime focus was on quality product an d fair price. Gradually people started li ing the products of Chitale Bandhu, es pecially Ba arwadi and Peda and became habituated. Customer started flowing in a nd Chitale Bandhu realised that they couldnot meet the demand of few products li e Ba arwadi. Another problem was no. of customer visiting the shop was quite hi gh. To solve this they stated with Chit system and increase the production of Ba arwadi. But the two problems instead of getting solved becamecomplicated.To sol

ve this problem, they did in-house R&D and travelled to various exhibitions abro ad(Holland & Germany). They saw a machine for Cream Roll production in Food & Be verageExibition, Anova, Germany. They chec ed with suppliers for designing a sim ilar automatedmachine for producing Ba arwadi. One of the suppliers showed inter est and visited their factory in India. Finally with lots of changes German supp lier could develop one for producing Ba arwadi at Chitale Bandhu. In 1980 the a utomated machine was imported toIndia and spent around Rs.10 Million., which was a huge investment. Mr. S. R. Chitalewhen as ed about this investment responded: It was high investme nt, but as per ourfinancial planning we were sure that brea even point will come within a year & thatswhat happened. This machine could produce 350 g of Ba arwadi per hour, which was sufficient eno ugh tomeet the customer demand.Later in 1995, they were first to implement RFID System in their shop, which could controlthe transactions and made billing proce ss easy. Under this system small machines were eptnear every counter, where RFI D plastic card of customers were fed with the price of sweets 2 bought and finally this card was read at cash counter, where customer could pay the fullamount.These innovations created curiosity. Chitale Bandhu products wer e of high quality, better priced and now were integrated with technology thereb y creating huge success. Today: From a very small beginning which saw food items being produced manually withdom estic help under a limited physical space, Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale today boast sof state-of-the-art use of technology in production and end-cycle management of business.A comprehensive infrastructure, in terms of s illed manpower, automat ed manufacturingunits situated at easily accessible points, distribution hubs at ey locations and a wide &strong agent & distributor networ in place to ta e c are of all the business needs of concern.There are a total of 6 different manufa cturing units owned by the firm that supply thefood products. Of these, the unit located at Ranje, Shivapur near Pune has two automatedmanufacturing lines speci fically devoted for manufacture and export of Ba arwadi, theunique and monopoly fo od snac item from Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale. Sweet itemsli e the Gulabjamuns, the Pedhas and the Rasgullas are also manufactured onmachines imported from Japan.Besid es manufacturing, Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale owns two huge and modern shops at ey locations in Pune city. It has appointed 10 franchisees within the city and pla ns toincrease this number to 15 shortly. Besides Pune city, a wide networ of au thorisedagentsanddistributorsis placed all over Maharashtra and outside states. Chitale BandhuMithaiwale provides employment to about 300 people at all its esta blishments.Today they have grown into Rs. 5 Billion business, and are ably handl ed through a strongdistribution and franchisee networ in Pune and across the co untry. Having built a brandidentity for itself through the sheer range and quali ty of food products over the past fivedecades & more, Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale today is a household name associated with theeating habits, for not just the res idents of Pune but all over Maharashtra. Chitale Dairy produces about 200,000 li tres of mil per day and manufactures products such as cream, butter and yoghurt . 3