An interview with Mr H. Ramanathan, Managing Director, Lifestyle International (P) Ltd., Chennai.

Can you tell us what prompted a Lifestyle store in India?

We have been researching the Indian market for the last five years and realised the potential for growth in the upwardly mobile income group who seek, and are beginning to afford a better standard of living.

This was around the time when many internationally known fashionable brands were also becoming accessible and affordable to people. Hence, we decided to enter the market and establish an organised large format fashion showroom, where people can find different brands and a wide variety of products under one roof. We also had in mind the critical mass required to achieve the required walk-ins and conversions for the viability of our showroom.

We were planning to set up our first store in Bangalore but it so happened that we got the right property in Chennai and hence we started from here.

What kind of homework did you do before launching Lifestyle?

Before the launch, we conducted an in depth study to understand people, their lifestyles, shopping behavior, the product availability, supply chain etc. Regarding the variety and range of products that we wanted to retail in our showrooms, we relied more on our international experience. We had to do minor variations to our product ranges / categories based on our actual experience of retailing in India.

How is Lifestyle different from the other retail stores in the market?

We have a structured yet very involved management team looking after each of our business groups and territories where we currently operate. We have five business groups specialising in five product categories like garments, children, footwear etc. Each business group has a senior buyer who is responsible for sourcing and merchandising.

Our buyers are well trained in understanding fashion, styling and product ranges. This training is provided by our international buyers who are abreast of the global fashions and products. This helps us be very different from the other stores. Also, our store design, layout and display systems are very different and more in tune with international standards.

Our employees are also well trained in merchandising techniques, competition review, customer service and inventory controls.

A combination of all these factors enables us to be very different from the other retail stores and helps us to offer value added services to our customers.

What are the career growth prospects at Lifestyle?

We have young graduates joining us and growing with us after they have learnt about merchandising / products they retail, the organisation and structuring of the retail showroom, the processes and functions, customer service etc. They have an excellent opportunity to learn all about the retail processes and systems and also specialise in any of the product categories in the first two to three years. Depending on their administrative and managerial capabilities and understanding of the product categories, they are given additional responsibility either on merchandising or on day-to-day administration of a department.

We also have fashion graduates directly joining us as merchandisers.

We have a flat structure and each of our sales personnel gets to directly interact with our buyers on matters relating to product movements, customer feedback etc.

What are your future plans for Lifestyle?

Our objective is to make Lifestyle the most desired shopping destination. We had to make it a happening place, which adults, teens and children would like to visit frequently and also do their shopping. We will like to emerge as the most preferred retail store for fashion in all the major cities of India.

MALINI SURYANARAYANAN

maalini.mds@cxknetworks.com