"Raymond 2.0" to shift focus to customer, increase growth

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Feb 19, 2018

As the textile and men’s apparel brand Raymond enjoys a consistently strong performance, the brand aims to capitalise on this with expanding its product ranges and shifting its focus from product to customer.

Last month, Raymond presented their autumn/winter collection to trade partners and the collection comprised 6,000 styles of apparel and accessories.

“There were almost 25,000 articles at the recently concluded trade show,” Gautam Singhania, Raymond’s Chairman and Managing Director, told the Economic Times after the show. However, remaining critical he said, “We need to do more.” Although the brand recently reported promising quarterly results, top management is seeing this as a reason to push harder to further expand rather than sit back.

One way the brand plans to capitalise on its current strong performance is to continue to expand its product range to cover all aspects of a man’s wardrobe. Focusing on the aspiration section of the market is proving profitable and Harish Bijoor, the company’s Brand Strategist, said: “Raymond is now making more money at the end of desire and aspiration.”

Raymond’s Chief Executive Officer for Lifestyle Business, Sanjay Behl, said: “Raymond is moving away from being a product-centric company to a customer-centric organisation. That’s Raymond 2.0.” As the Indian retail landscape changes and adapts to the rapid increase of e-commerce, brands are increasingly searching for a way to keep customers visiting their stores. By focusing on the customer experience and selling an aspirational lifestyle, Raymond aims to do just that and the brand’s financial results indicate that, so far, the strategy is working. “Quarter-on-quarter performance has improved and the company is on right lane,” attested Singhania.