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Robert Lobo: 'We envisage a double digit growth'

By FashionUnited

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Fashion

Robert Lobo, President, Group Apparel, Raymond has been an influential leader within the organization. He helms leading apparel brands like Park Avenue, Parx, ColorPlus and Raymond Premium Apparel. Lobo has been instrumental in launching the new retail identity and pushing up their global presence.

In an interview with FashionUnited, he highlights the organizational changes that have been planned in retail and brand play for tapping aggressive growth.



With a

strong brand portfolio, what are your plans for growth?
It’s balancing creativity with functionality. We have challenged every product which needs to get on the shelf. Does it have to be on the shelf or not? What is the purpose of the product? On the other level, all our four brands have a distinct positioning and role to play in the wardrobe of the same consumer.

Now if you look at Raymond’s premium apparel, then with Parx, Park Avenue and ColorPlus, a customer would want to have a piece of everything in his wardrobe. Our job is to make sure that all the four brands complement each other. There are 6,000 unique options which are based on price points, occasions, colours and designs in all dimensions.

What strategic changes are you considering for further Raymond’s further progress?
In the last one year, we have brought all four brands together. Earlier, we were looking at the consumer from four different lenses. The new thought is trying to look at the consumer through these four lenses at the same time. So they have relevance in the life of the consumer, every day. That’s the big change we did. This may appear a small changes but at the back end, the change is big. The supply chain became bigger, so we wanted it to be more agile, efficient and fast. We established a strong supply chain, which enables us to hit the market in shorter time. Today, we are able to bring in our seasons merchandise before the season, providing a longer shelf-life.

What about innovations to stay abreast with the current market scenario?
We have brought in immense innovation in all our brands without losing functionality. The products have enough value rather than just being a piece of garment. Features like pillow shirts, reversible trousers, shirts and jackets have been introduced making them relevant to consumer. The difficult part is how to communicate and educate the consumer about these innovations. Our efforts would be in that direction. While widening our distribution, we are also opening many EBOs apart from extending the number of Raymond Shops, reaching out to large formats and MBOs. So the idea is to make the brand accessible across India by expanding our distribution. We have reorganized sales and distribution across the four brands.

What are your retail expansion plans?
ColorPlus has over 100 EBOs and we would grow the EBOs significantly this year. Park Avenue is in 55-60 EBOs, we would scale this up. Raymond Premium Apparel brand exists in over 700 Raymond Shops. With Raymond Shops, we have been growing the network year on year by 10-15 percent. Parx is a brand where we are sharpening our preposition. It’s over a decade old brand. In the last three seasons, we have sharpened the brand’s appearance, making it more youthful, fun, high energy. Parx is the entry point to all our other brands. We have kept the pricing sharp, so that consumers can find great value. We already have 20 EBOs for Parx. We will observe the Parx EBOs for at least a year before planning to scale up. Right now, our first role is to distribute Parx evenly across channels, be it LFS, MBOs or e-commerce.

What has been Park Avenue’s journey?
Park Avenue can boast to be the largest men’s wear brand in India. If you take this up at retail value, and see the whole equity of the brand between categories like apparel, accessories and men’s grooming products, there is huge innovation possible in these segments. We have kept the consumer engaged and fought global brands in this space.

What about Neckties and More?
We experiment with a lot of formats and will continue doing so in the future. Neckties & More is one such idea. We found that there is a scope for a small format, more like a pop-up store for accessories. The consumer is gravitating to the brand. They go to the best place where they can find the brand. If we give them anything suboptimal, they will reject it. So accessories are being diverted to flagship stores. The idea of Neckties & More may have played its role. Now a particular brand’s accessories would be made available within its EBO. If a consumer wants to buy a Park Avenue accessory, it will be at a Park Avenue EBO and so on. We do not have any grand plans for Neckties & More. We are focused on building the brand experience on a larger platform.

What about a women’s portfolio under Raymond’s brands?
Women’s wear is at an exciting space. We have seen women’s wear brands doing phenomenal work. There has been a transition where Indian women are willing to experiment. But we are also noticing that consumers understand the sharpness of brand preposition. In Park Avenue, we found a space for Park Avenue woman, which runs the same DNA as that of Park Avenue Man. Park Avenue woman has a sharp and defined line. We are not sure whether we can call this a women’s wear brand, but it could be termed a women’s wear line within Park Avenue. We are not going to do a category in women’s wear like others. But nothing prevents us tomorrow.

What about e-tailing?
We are watching how e-retailing is playing a significant role and shifting the way consumers are accessing products. We have also seen how specialized e-retailers have come in. We are utilizing our ability to partner professionals in this space, while building our platform. We will build our architecture, competencies, but will also watch big players in e-retailing.

ColorPlus
Park Avenue
Parx
Raymond
Robert Lobo