Growth, Glory & Glamour, It had all
Opportunity India Desk
Sep 29, 2017 -
18 min read
The one destination for potential business buyers/franchisees, entrepreneurs, corporate CEOs, SME owners, property owners/realty investors, brand owners & licensors, franchisors, manufacturers/ wholesalers/ distributors, women entrepreneurs and young investors, retailers and E-retailers was jam-packed on Oct 19-20, 2013 as business enthusiasts flocked to Pragati Maidan to bask in the franchise glory!
The show started with the blessings of the Almighty, mesmerizing religious chants, amidst which the Chairman of Franchise India Group, Gaurav Marya lit the lamp and inaugurated the two day affair.
Entrepreneurship summit 2013
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Saluting the spirit of entrepreneurship, day one of the summit began with a welcome address by the Editor-in-Chief of Franchise India Ritu Marya. Sachin Marya, President, Franchise India Holdings Ltd, welcomed all the guests of the inaugural session with bouquets. After which, the lamp of wisdom was lit. In her keynote address, Ritu Marya talked about the transformation of the business scenario over the years, and how it has been a journey of consumption and business growth in the past few years. She stressed on the fact that the coming era will see a rapid growth in the services sector, with the need transforming from specialised to personalised.
Building a new India
The inaugural session titled 'Building an entrepreneurial ecosystem' talked about various policies and factors that make the environment conducive for the growth and working of the entrepreneurs.
The session saw an impressive panel of speakers that included BH Anil Kumar (IAS), Joint Secretary to Govt of India, Ministry of MSME; Charles Riotto, President, LIMA Worldwide; AK Mittal, Chairman & Managing Director, NSIC; Sanjay Bhatia, Managing Director, Hindustan Tin Works Ltd & Chairman, MSME Committee FICCI AND Manisha Sud, Director, SMB, Microsoft India. The speakers focussed on topics like economic trends that will benefit the Indian business environment and how the country can be made a more lucrative place for foreign businesses. It was interesting and informative to hear the speakers talk about bringing in environmental and policy reforms that will help young Indians turn entrepreneurs. Also, 'How the economic power of the SME's can be increased by strengthening the investment climate' was taken up and discussed at length.
Evolving franchise relationships
The inaugural session was followed by the first session of the day, on 'New Age franchise entrepreneurship' that saw the likes of. C. K. Kumaravel, Founder & CEO, Naturals, Vikas Gutgutia, Founder and MD, Ferns N Petals Pvt. Ltd., Chandrashekar D P, COO, The JGI Group, Om Manchanda, Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Lal PathLabs, Mahesh Gupta, Chairman & Managing Director, Kent RO, Mr. Sanjoy Roy, VP-DP - Sales Intl, DTDC, Jawed Habib, Chairman, Jawed Habib Hair and Beauty Ltd and Pushpa Bector, Sr. Vice President, DLF Malls India take the stage. The panel touched upon topics of emerging trends in the franchise start-up scene, high growth sectors and new opportunities, low-capital, scalable and high return consumer products and services. Also, franchise opportunities – big and small for the start-up and how Generation Y has the best potential to emerge as franchisees were taken up.
A knowledge packed discussion
Session two, titled “Rethinking return on education” focused on the education industry. On the dais were present Vijay Mishra, Chief Executive Officer, Birla Edutech Ltd., Rajiv Chawla, President, Faridabad Small Industries Association, Rajeev Katyal, Country Director, GIIS K12 Education & Global Indian Foundation and Mr. Raj Grover, Chief Mentor, Kangaroo Kids Education Limited.
Your footprint on the net!
Post lunch, the session on 'Getting started in e-commerce business' was very informative as Lakshmi Potluri, Senior Executive, Shopify took the audience through the do's and don'ts of e-commerce and how to make it work for them.
Building a beautifully fit business
Thereafter, it was time for some 'Health, beauty & wellness business makeover' that saw a curious audience indulge in healthy dialogue with the panel that comprised Atul Ahuja, Vice President – Retail, Apollo Pharmacy, Prashant Tandon, Founder & Managing Director, HealthKart, Chackochen Mathai, GM – Business Development, Trends In Vogue Pvt. Ltd., and G. Ramachandran, Director, Gold's Gym.
Expanding the franchise horizon
Then it was time for 'Building a scalable distribution business', a session which witnessed discussion on opportunities for building a scalable and profitable distribution engine, tips on planning high returns in a low margin distribution business, future of multi-product, multi-sector distribution and tips on achieving long term sustainability in distribution.The illustrated panel included Suresh Pansari, Managing Director, Rashi Peripherals Pvt. Ltd., Anuj Sawhney, Managing Director, Swiss Military India, Vineet Kanaujia, VP – Marketing, Safexpress Private Limited, Neeraj Bhalla, Sr. Director, Whirlpool, Kumar Bimal, Vice President – Marketing, Sonalika International.
Day Two:
Family that works together, grows together!
Day two started with a very interesting discussion on how to 'Grow a family business: to inherit and initiate.'
Dr. Mukesh Batra, Founder - Chairman, Dr. Batra's, Rituraj Sinha, Group Chief Operating Officer, SIS India, Sanya Dhir, Brand Director, Karol Bagh Saree House, Pyush Lohia Director and Co-founder, Lohia Warehouse gave interesting insights into the workings of their businesses and the challenges that they face.
The next big thing
Second session of the day talked about 'Franchising in retail' where latest expansion, localisation and partnership strategies for retail models were discussed. Speakers talked about location strategy to create a win-win for the landlord-franchisor-franchisee and also broached upon the topic of how to ensure multi-channel strategy does not conflict with franchisee's business.
Eminent panel comprised Asheeta Chabbra, Head Business Development, Chabbra 555, Balachandar R, Founder & CEO, Laundry Project India Pvt. Ltd., Ashutosh Garg, MD, Guardian Lifecare Pvt. Ltd., Gopalakrishnan Sankar, Chief Executive, Reliance Footprint and Jurgen Wolf, MD, Hafele India Pvt. Ltd.
The fusion of taste and profits
Session three came up with 'The right recipe for food service business' where food business trends of 2013 and factors that make western F&B brands successful in India were taken up. Kailash Goenka, Chairman & Managing Director, Sankalp Recreation Pvt. Ltd., Dheeraj Gupta, Founder & MD, JumboKing, Sharad Sachdeva, COO, Lite Bite Foods, Murali Krishna Parna, COO, Sagar Ratna, and Eric Ho, Founder, Yo Yo Group, Nottingham, United Kingdom enlightened the audience.
The 'real' growth story
Session four on 'Real estate: a business for every Indian' focused on the future of real estate and new business avenues for investors, brokers, developers and professionals in the industry.
Moderated by Sanjay Dutt, Executive Managing Director- South Asia, Cushman & Wakefield India Pvt. Ltd.; the panel included Sandeep Katiyar , CEO, Century 21; Avdesh Goel, Jt. MD, Earth Group; S. K. Sayal, Director & CEO, Alpha G: Corp.; Sushant Muttreja, MD, Cosmic Group; P. N. Misra, MD, Ansal API; D. K. Mandal, President, ILD; who educated the audience.
The way forward in retail
Session fifth on 'Retail 2020: Rethinking growth and revenue' gave an insight into the new retail landscape. It talked about creating a 360° brand experience and building a tier-II and tier-III model and striking the right balance in supplier-retailer collaboration for the best omni-channel experience.
Prof P.K. Sinha, Professor in Retailing and Marketing, Chairperson, Centre for Retailing, IIM Ahmedabad; Sundeep Malhotra, Founder & CEO, Homeshop 18; Rajesh Jain, CEO & Director, Lacoste India and Sanjeev Agrawal, MD, Skechers South Asia enlightened the audience.
Funding your franchise
The Entrepreneurship summit concluded with the session on 'The capital connection' that dealt with sectors and businesses that are in demand. It also saw a discussion on debt vs. equity and what is right for each stage of business. The session was chaired by Rajesh Srivastava, CMD, Rabo Equity Advisors Pvt. Ltd.; with Sanjay Bansal, Founder & MD, Aurum Equity Partners LLP; Vikram Gupta, Founder & Managing Partner, IvyCap Venture Advisors Pvt. Ltd.; Sumit Tayal, Director, Helix Investments Advisors India Pvt. Ltd.; Sunil Goyal, CEO & Fund Manager, Your Nest Capital Partners; Mousum Pal Choudhury, VP, Avigo Capital Partners Pvt. Ltd.; Vikram Upadhyaya, Co-founder, BizSol Advisors Pvt. Ltd.; forming the esteemed panel.
Brand Licensing India 2013
Brainstorming on brand licensing
Brand Licensing India Conference 2013 was held at the Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, on 19 October, 2013. The show has been leaving its mark for being India's only show in licensing.
The Brand Licensing Conference 2013 kick started with licensing dignitaries, both national and international, exclusively speaking on the science of brand licensing, its recent trends and the future prospects. The conference that was sponsored by Green Gold Animation and Bradford License India, commenced with Charles Riotto, President, LIMA, delivering an inaugural speech to introduce the objective of the day and offered a global perspective to brand licensing.
This year, the BLC saw licensing professionals and experts from all genres and experiences and gave the audience a healthy mix of licensing related knowledge and answered their questions. Charles Riotto chaired the sessions along with Robert Ridder, Partner, Bradford Licensing LLC while Rolf Blaser, Country Head, Safilo India delivered the keynote address.
The first session saw seasoned licensing professionals such as Samir Jain, Director, Green Gold Animation, Antti Ohrling, Country Director, Rovio Entertainment and Robert Ridder while Charles Riotto moderated the session. The panel spoke about the important question of whether it is feasible to launch an international brand's licensing program in India. Antti Ohrling cited Angry Birds' successful licensing activities and highlighted the good response the brand has garnered from audience. Praising their Indian partners in India, Ohrling said, “We do not look at the size of the partners as such, but the scalability is important along with innovation and creativity too. The quality of our experience with the (Angry Birds) fans must reflect on the products.” Highlighting licensors' problems Charles Riotto commented, “India is a very promising licensing market. But retail distribution is the biggest concern for foreign licensors.” Samir Jain too cited the example of their own brand Chhota Bheem which offers a big opportunity for both small and medium entrepreneurs and larger, established enterprises.
Rolf Blaser of Safilo India delivered the keynote address and explained how licensing is a good opportunity for big brands as they can enter new markets without having to set up manufacturing units or pay custom duties too. “At the same time, the licensor can depend on the licensee to have better knowledge of the local market” said Blaser.
The sessions discussed all genres of licensing and the challenges that are faced by the industry today including a session on how to be a successful licensee. The conference was concluded after a talk on one of the most challenging areas in licensing: brand licensing and law.
Entertainment
One of the most interactive sessions at the conference was on entertainment licensing. The panelists included Divya Pathak, Director – Marketing, Sony Pictures, Nagarajan Subramanian, Managing Partner, En Theos Consulting, Nitin Kalra, Director – SAARC Region, AI Licensing India Pvt. Ltd., Sid Shah, President, The Wild East Group, and B. D. Nathani, CEO, G&D Trade Zone Pvt Ltd, (Authorized Licensee of Disney Shoes). The panel discussed the different sources of licensing content along with their own experiences in licensing. Highlighting that organizing the licensing market has been a long and tough road, Nagarajan commented that today entertainment is the biggest genre of brand licensing in India, especially character licensing. As Anand Singh, Associate Director – South Asia, Turner International put it, “Licensing not only helps the top brands like a Cadbury or Kraft but also helps the B category players, the challengers enabling them to take on the bigger player as the brands are well known in the consumer's mindset.”
Corporate and Sports
After entertainment licensing, the panelists discussed other forms of licensing such as corporate and sports licensing. Anuj Sawney, MD, Swiss Military Worldwide, who was one of the exhibitors at the show, spoke on corporate licensing along with Jason Sutton, Director, Poloroid and Sid Shah who also represents Playboy. Praising the conference, Sid said, “Platforms like Brand Licensing are extremely important for the whole ecosystem. It gives the opportunities to share ideas, discuss challenges, brainstorm ideas, and build a network. My expectation is that I will meet new and interesting people that I can do business with.”
The day was concluded after a session on brand licensing and law, which saw senior lawyers and advocates answering the audience's questions and clearing all doubts.
Franchise Knowledge Series
Day two saw the Franchise Knowledge Series (FKS) take up on 20th October, 2013 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. The turnout this year was more than expected. The opening of the first session at FKS was started by Mike Adams, Managing Director, Franchise Asia Pacific, Sydney Area, Australia where he spoke about 'Building a franchising strategy' and highlighted points like the building blocks of a strategic franchise business plan, setting standards & creating a value proposition for franchisees in the business and understanding initial capital outlay for franchise expansion.
Post this session he took a session on 'Tactical Franchise Format for your Business' and the key points discussed in this session were single-unit franchising vs multi-unit franchising, area development vs area representative franchising, master franchising, conversion franchising & refranchising models and retro-franchising.
The next session was followed by S.P Parashar, Ex-Director, IIM-Indore wherein interesting facts about 'Mom and Pop Business Valuation' were discussed.
After a detailed session with Mike, all delegates were eagerly anticipating the session regarding 'Auditing franchise system & franchisee performance' by Yatin Chadha, VP Retail business, Mahindra First Choice where he discussed in detail the building and sustaining a culture of accountability by financial satisfaction, best tools to audit franchisees financial performance scorecard and role of internal and external audit agencies in analysing performance.
In the following session laying stress on 'Training in franchising- key to succeed' were Sudheesh Verma, Head – Retail & Franchise, Green Gold Licensing & Merchandising (I) Pvt. Ltd. and Chackochen Mathai- General Manager-Business Development, Trends In Vogue Private Limited.
The delegates were seen quite enthusiastic about a session on 'Technology: the game changer for franchising business ' by Nikhil Sama , Founder and CEO, SnapLion which was followed by an inquisitive question and answer round.
Another informative session on 'Becoming a master franchisor or building conglomerate successfully' was conducted by Prof P.K. Sinha , Professor in Retailing and Marketing, Chairperson, Centre for Retailing, IIM Ahmadabad and the points talked about in the session were creating operational functionality based on the brand architecture, integrating forward and backward operations to maximize franchise support, creating the right brand mix- determining the reach and role of each brand and developing the art of creating or buying new brands.
The last session of the day was about 'Leveraging your status-quo' by Aparna, Mittal, Partner, Luthra & Luthra Law Offices and Kailash Goenka-CMD, Sankalp Recreations Pvt. Ltd. where delegates got a brief on adapting to new market and concepts, granting territorial rights master / area development agreements and renewing franchise law and agreements according to respective target countries and opting for M & A opportunities to optimize and understand the new market.
The one day workshop turned out to be a knowledge gathering platform for the delegates who had flown in across the globe.
Power Breakfast 2013
Powerful pearls of wisdom
The Power Breakfast session which was held on 20th October, 2013 at the Franchise India Show 2013 in Delhi witnessed knowledge packed conglomerates from franchise and retail fraternity. Power breakfast gave a platform to franchise and retail experts to hold one on one dialogue and brainstorm the way forward to carve out an action plan for the industry's growth in 2014.
Recognised as one of the most awaited event in the recently concluded Franchise India 2013 show, Organised by Francorp and Indian Franchise Association – 'The Power Breakfast', was a thought leadership initiative to chart out the best practices and take pioneer solutions and implement the changes in the franchise sector of India. Therefore, Power Breakfast 2013's main objective was to address and understand from industry veterans about strategic questions on their specific industry trends. This is because to Francorp, Retail is franchising & franchising is retail. It has become the most sought after route by companies or even a small entrepreneur to achieve rapid expansion and growth.
During the event, the companies got an opportunity to network with each other. The event had set benchmarks for learning; promoting the best practices, forecasting trends, networking and knowledge sharing amongst the franchise community.
This year session highlighted the current status of franchise sector, a debate was held on potential threat and regarding the “Vision 2014” for franchisors. The distinguished panelists included the best from the franchisor community.
The session revolved around the unlocking of the secrets of stable franchise systems, exceptional growth and above all sharing their experiences, their views and vision.
It was highlighted that in an emerging market like India, the trend of business expansion through franchising is gaining popularity and it has now become crucial to identify various economic aspects of this business model. They also highlighted that a successful franchise business depends on various factors but largely on the support structure offered by the franchisor as well as the mutually benefitting relationship. They also discussed that a few franchises are being used only as a “growth strategy” and not as a “stable growth strategy”.
The entire session was of immense value addition to speakers as well as the audience, helping converge the thinking of organisations and individuals for ensuring novel and innovative solutions for a better franchise community. The session not only gave new dimensions but also the vision that each one of us would carry for 2014.
Speakers: G Sankar, CEO, Reliance Footprints, Ashutosh Garg, MD, Guardian Pharmacy, S.A. Gopalakrishna, CEO, Agrimart, Sandeep Katiyar, CEO, Century 21 India, Mukesh Batra, Chairman, Dr. Batra's Healthcare, Sanjay Cuthino, CEO, Baskin Robbins, Lakshmi Potluri, Senior Spokesperson, Shopify.
Franchise awards list
Special Awards
