The Titan Way !

Come diwali and there is one brand along with others that wud have its hands full this festival season ie Titan .. over years Titan has built its Segments , thru a great degree of thought and have been built on trust ,retail , marketing and design ..all the segments have been led by the undercurrent to redfine the market

Redefining the market in fact is pretty much core to Titan's success since its inception in 1987. At that time, the watch market comprised primarily mechanical watches, and the government-owned Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) was the only significant branded player. HMT's watches stood for accuracy and robustness -- and for the consumer, the sturdy watch was just a functional time-keeping device.

Titan entered the market with two key differentiators: One, it brought in quartz watches, which it promoted aggressively, and two, it introduced the element of style -- which until then was missing in this segment. There were other firsts, too, that Titan introduced in the watch market: It ushered in a completely new retail experience, brought out advertising with aspirational value and offered after sales service in a showroom environment.

With the entrance of Titan, the watch got transformed from a humble time-keeping device to a style statement and a fashion accessory.

The Brand also built upon the greyness in the market on the gold buying process and entered the jewelry market in 1994 with its Tanishq brand. Tanishq not only brought a wide design expertise and a plush retail environment to a segment which until then was limited to local family jewelers and small set ups, but by being the first to introduce the karat meter to measure the exact purity of gold, it brought the element of trust to the forefront.

In the past three years, it has doubled the number of Tanishq showrooms from 60 to around 120. Simultaneously, it is also reaching out to the semi-urban and rural markets through a separate mass-market brand called GoldPlus, which it launched around three years ago. Titan currently has 30 GoldPlus stores in South India.

Meanwhile, Titan is now looking to bring the power of the brand to yet another unorganized category: Last year it entered into prescription eyewear with Titan Eye+. The prescription eyewear market in India is estimated to be around 25 to 30 million units per annum with revenues of US$300 million and growing at around 15% to 20% per annum. As per industry statistics, only around 25% of the people who need prescription eyewear are actually using them.

Despite its size and growth potential, however, this is another industry that is largely fragmented. While there are some strong regional branded players like GKB and Lawrence & Mayo, there is no large national player in this space. It is this opening that Titan is aiming to fill with its Titan Eye+.

Like in watches and jewelry, Titan's play in eyewear is based on trust, design and retail. In the year-and-a-half since it has entered this space, Titan has opened 30 stores across 12 cities, and over the next three years it plans to open around 250 stores across the country. Unlike traditional 'across the counter' optical stores, the Titan Eye+ stores are styled on a browse, select and buy format where the customers are offered a wide range of frames and lenses comprising both in-house as well as global brands like Gucci, Armani, Essilor, Bausch & Lomb and so on. Each store also has a style consultant and a state-of-the-art optometric clinic that promises zero error prescriptions free of cost.

So watch this space , its any ones guess on which category wud Titan foray into next ,it wud have to be in the lifestyle space , or segments where the consumer is grey , cant think of many though say autos , taxis ,wines , where you don't really know what you are paying for maybe a Titan wine ! :)