Pantaloons pants ahead in retail chain race  ( February '13,2001, ET)

EVEN as retail chains across the country make a low key entry into 2001, reeling under the impact of a retail slump led by the ongoing economic slowdown, one such chain seems to be defying the trend. That chain is Pantaloons.

Pantaloons (Retail) India Limited has recorded a 47 per cent growth in sales during June-December 2000 compared to last year. The chain’s success is being attributed to its innovative BAAN-backed Category Management System. Kishore Biyani, managing director, Pantaloons Retail (India) Limited said, “Unlike the claim that retail sale has slowed, we are recording consistent retail sales growth across the country.”

Pantaloons owns 12 megastores apart from 40 franchisee outlets. Substantiating his claims, Biyani said the Mumbai Crossroads store had registered a 48 per cent growth, whereas Nagpur sales went up by 45 per cent. Kolkata recorded a smart 21 per cent increase, while its outlet at Thane saw sales balloon by nearly 54 per cent. Though not so spectacular, Hyderabad and Pune saw sales increases of 17 and 16 per cent, respectively. It is not surprising that Biyani sports a confident smile even as most retail chains continue to feel the pinch. So as Pantaloon continues to chalk up impressive sames, competitors seem to be churning out innovative schemes for luring back the customers. Hefty discounts are commonplace.

Apparently, life is a bed of roses for Pantaloons. But looks can be deceptive. Defying the general trend of a retail slump has not exactly been a cake walk, Biyani explains. “I believe the big difference in our performance is in adopting a completely new strategy - category management and BAAN. Thus, while other stores may have been struggling to get their forecast right, ours has been matching our requirement,” he added.

The result, Pantaloons hasn’t till now lost any sleep over accumulating stocks. CM is a two way approach. The top management takes a macro view and forecasts the sales for each store and category, based on which targets are set for the sales, gross margins, inventory turnover, discounts, mark-ups stock levels for each store and category. The category manager, on the other hand takes a micro view and analyses the category’s past performance in the perspective of the ongoing trends in the market to arrive at the range plan, procurement plan and distribution plan of each category.