Executive Summary
À La Marte is a chain of retail stores across India primarily dealing in fresh foods and vegetables, staples, groceries, dairy products, and meal solutions, which will expand to include various product segments according to the growing needs of people. Mission Statement: To create quality, variety, value and accessibility for a home to cater to its everyday needs in ways that help people save money and live a simpler, better and a more convenient life. Objectives and Goals: The core objectives of À La Marte’s business through which revenue will be generated can be broadly classified as: ? Selling of consumer goods at lowest prices with reasonable profit. ? Increase in customer base through market expansion and product expansion strategies, expanding into multiple retail formats. ? Building a robust supply chain through innovation thereby reducing operations costs, wastage in transit and increasing efficiency. Indians are known to be traditional homemakers. Today, most of the city-based grocery supermarkets roll out formats where they purchase stock from the middlemen and sell to the consumers, thereby lengthening the chain and reducing profit margins. The fruits and vegetables (F&V) segment in organized retail faces a lot of problems like uniform supply, spoilage (as high as 35 – 40%) and often political opposition. Local vegetable vendors are uncomfortable with retail chains that eat into their share of customers. There exists a delicate line between complementing the local vendors and trespassing into their livelihoods, which needs to be balanced in order to avoid sticky situations thereby incurring the risk of exiting the major markets. This case will look at implementing the “Farm-to-Table” theory in the current setup, removing middlemen from the chain by sourcing directly from farmers. This will aid in substantial reduction of costs and time period. Although traditionally, food dominated the shopping basket in India, consumers in the contemporary age go for a holistic shopping approach, where they would like to enter a store and come out equipped with everything they require, along with a sandwich for lunch. À La Marte aims to target this market by expanding its product portfolio to include (but not limited to)
electronics & office, apparel, shoes, jewellery, sports & fitness, health & beauty, pharmacy, movies, music, books, home, furniture, and home improvement. According to Census of India, about 72% of India’s population lives in villages, where there is huge untapped potential. À La Marte would target the rural retail sector by opening up new stores in tier 3 and tier 4 cities. The true challenge would lie in revamping the supply chain network as rural India is not well-connected. In the small towns where the traditional kirana stores (local grocery shops) have a sole majority in terms of presence, the introduction of hypermarkets or supermarkets would still be a faraway possibility. However, a market penetration strategy could be chalked out by entering into tie-ups with these local grocery shops, thereby building a brand image in the minds of the rural population and then capitalizing on it in the long run.
doc_136701383.rtf
À La Marte is a chain of retail stores across India primarily dealing in fresh foods and vegetables, staples, groceries, dairy products, and meal solutions, which will expand to include various product segments according to the growing needs of people. Mission Statement: To create quality, variety, value and accessibility for a home to cater to its everyday needs in ways that help people save money and live a simpler, better and a more convenient life. Objectives and Goals: The core objectives of À La Marte’s business through which revenue will be generated can be broadly classified as: ? Selling of consumer goods at lowest prices with reasonable profit. ? Increase in customer base through market expansion and product expansion strategies, expanding into multiple retail formats. ? Building a robust supply chain through innovation thereby reducing operations costs, wastage in transit and increasing efficiency. Indians are known to be traditional homemakers. Today, most of the city-based grocery supermarkets roll out formats where they purchase stock from the middlemen and sell to the consumers, thereby lengthening the chain and reducing profit margins. The fruits and vegetables (F&V) segment in organized retail faces a lot of problems like uniform supply, spoilage (as high as 35 – 40%) and often political opposition. Local vegetable vendors are uncomfortable with retail chains that eat into their share of customers. There exists a delicate line between complementing the local vendors and trespassing into their livelihoods, which needs to be balanced in order to avoid sticky situations thereby incurring the risk of exiting the major markets. This case will look at implementing the “Farm-to-Table” theory in the current setup, removing middlemen from the chain by sourcing directly from farmers. This will aid in substantial reduction of costs and time period. Although traditionally, food dominated the shopping basket in India, consumers in the contemporary age go for a holistic shopping approach, where they would like to enter a store and come out equipped with everything they require, along with a sandwich for lunch. À La Marte aims to target this market by expanding its product portfolio to include (but not limited to)
electronics & office, apparel, shoes, jewellery, sports & fitness, health & beauty, pharmacy, movies, music, books, home, furniture, and home improvement. According to Census of India, about 72% of India’s population lives in villages, where there is huge untapped potential. À La Marte would target the rural retail sector by opening up new stores in tier 3 and tier 4 cities. The true challenge would lie in revamping the supply chain network as rural India is not well-connected. In the small towns where the traditional kirana stores (local grocery shops) have a sole majority in terms of presence, the introduction of hypermarkets or supermarkets would still be a faraway possibility. However, a market penetration strategy could be chalked out by entering into tie-ups with these local grocery shops, thereby building a brand image in the minds of the rural population and then capitalizing on it in the long run.
doc_136701383.rtf