11

Retail Management Project

World of Titan and Fossil


Kshitij Varma
Roll No. 39




8/6/2014


ABOUT THE COMPANY
Titan Company Ltd. (formerly Titan Industries Ltd.) is an Indian designer and manufacturer
of watches, jewellery, precision engineering components and other accessories including
sunglasses, wallets, bags and belts. It is a joint venture between the Tata Group, and
the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation.

Titan is the world's fifth largest wrist
watch manufacturer and exports watches to nearly 32 countries around the world. Some of
the well known brands of Titan include Fastrack, Sonata, Raga, Edge, Octane, Xylys, Titan
Eye+ and Tanishq, Goldplus, Zoya.
With a retail footprint across 177 cities, 26 states, 3 Union Territories and a total retail area
of 1395712, Titan Company has stores for Watches under World of Titan, Helios and
Fastrack; Jewellery under retail brands Tanishq, Zoya, GoldPlus and Eye Plus for multibrand
eyewear.

WORLD OF TITAN
With over 320 stores and presence in over 130 cities, the World of Titan is India's largest
watch retailer. The world of Titan stores offer customers the finest and largest range of
Titan watches under the same roof. It has an offering for everyone - across different styles
ages, price points and brands. The wide range of watches, delightful store ambience and
unmatched service ensure customer satisfaction. In keeping with the rapidly evolving trends
in retail, Titan has also opened flagship experiences in Mumbai and Delhi. Its amongst the
largest chains in its category backed by over 700 after sales service centres. The company
has a world-class design studio that constantly invents new trends in wrist watches.

EVOLUTION OF TITAN
Back in early eighties Tata group entered the watch segment with Xerxes Desai to lead the
team of this consumer durable goods segment. Visual merchandising and store layout were
very much at the stage of "decoration" if any, and neither the brands nor the retailers saw it
as important. The watch store was narrow and not designed properly and the location
basically was in traditional markets of the city. There werent excusive showrooms,
company preferred to sell through wholesalers. Titan entered and radically changed the
retail scenario for this industry.
Accuracy of time and technology was changed lot to sell the product. Titan expanded from
200 models to 350 models for customer to choose from. Company decided to make watch
segment also a lifestyle by making different unique styles for its watch.

Back then there was no importance given to presentation, and therefore no attempt made
at it. Titan brought in the concept of retailing into the watch market, established a network
of fine showrooms which would later become the world's largest network of exclusive
watch stores. These stores not only helped Titan to gain leadership substantially, but also
irrevocably altered the retail landscape of the watch market through a demonstration effect
on the traditional dealers. Company saw Advertising as an important tool of creating sales
and brand and from day one it is been on toes and been advertising its product.

Today Titan watches account for more than 60% share of the total Indian market and are
also sold in about 32 countries through marketing subsidiaries based
in London, Aden, Dubai and Singapore. Titan offers various brands including Steel, Regalia,
Raga, Nebula, Sonata, Fastrack, Zoop, Orion, Purple, Obaku, Automatic, Tycoon, Bandhan,
Octane and the HTSE series. Titan has claimed to have manufactured the world's slimmest
wrist watch branded as Titan Edge with a total thickness of 3.5 mm and a movement of
1.15 mm.
In July 2011, Titan launched the HTSE (High Tech Self Energized) collection of watches which
run on light. According to Titan, these watches can be charged with as low as 200 lux of
light, which makes them chargeable with light even from a candle. On 16 November 2011,
Titan Industries acquired Swiss watch maker Favre-Leuba for Euro 2 million.
RETAIL FORMATS
The World of Titan is a Speciality Store selling watches however the product offering also
includes Fastrack Sunglasses, wallets and leather belts. Titan launched its first retail format
for watches in 1987, which is now called World of Titan; the company operates 475 retail
formats across watches and jewellery. Besides the new formats, Titan operates Tanshiq,
Gold Plus, World of Titan and Titan Eye+.
Further, in each category, the company has catered to every consumer segment by
launching different retail formats. For instance, in watches, World of Titan outlets cater to
mass-middle class segment, Helios will cater to premium market and Fastrack is for the
youth.
STORE POSITIONING
The World of Titan store has watches for every segment: Titan for the premium segment,
Fastrack for the trendy youth, Sonata for the mass market and Xylys, the Swiss made watch
for the top-end market. The store also sells two international fashion watch brands, Tommy
Hilfiger and Hugo Boss, along with the Fastrack range of sunglasses.
There are watches of every possible style from those featuring the latest Swiss designs to
those with an Indian heritage pattern, to those intricately set with gemstones and gold. The
amazing range of watches and eyewear, the store ambience and the knowledgeable
customer relations officers ensure that not only do you buy what you need but also leave
the store feeling good.
Over the past two decades, the World of Titan chain of exclusive watch showrooms has set
new standards in retailing. It has midmarket stores with wide appeal, catering to middle-
class and upper-middle-class Indians. The store stocks the finest and largest range of
watches. The company is very innovative in presenting new products and launches new
collections from time to time. In the past one year, it has brought out the Heritage
collection, inspired by heritage buildings of India; the Aviator series, inspired by World War
II aircrafts, and the Octane series, the chronograph, multifunction and retrograde watches
with international styling. Older collections such as Edge and Raga continue to have a strong
presence.
VISUAL MERCHANDIZING
Visual merchandising can be defined as the display of products in order to sell the products.
Visual merchandising includes various aspects to be effective such as store floor plan, store
windows, merchandise display, space design, hardware fixtures and many more. Visual
merchandising helps in educating, attracting and informing the customer about the
product/service being provided in an effective and creative way. It makes a customer roam
around the store to find novelties. It helps in building a store image. The arrangement gives
easy access to merchandise.
The shoppers are affected by the atmospherics created at a store. The customer can be
displeasured if he/she did not like the atmospherics created. The customers sometimes tend
to decrease their arousal for buying a product based on factors like music played in the
store. So the retailers have to be extremely careful while creating store atmospherics. In the
service environment the interior colours of the store create great deal in the nature of
mood to be created. Visual merchandising may sometimes tell too much about itself making
the customer form his own opinion towards the product. In order to avoid such things a
retailer has to be very careful on the visual display based on the product or service.
The coverage of VM can be divided into four main segments, which are:
Exterior Presentation: If we talk about Exterior Presentation, most World of Titan
stores use exterior signs, billboards, Awnings and Displays as it can be seen from the
image below.

Store design and layout: If we talk about store layout, it is using Angular, Geometric
and Mixed floor plan for most of the stores.
Store Interiors: As a store theme, World of Titan is characterized with light music
background, odour, lightning and colour scheme.
Interior Display: As an interior display, Titan is using Fixtures & Hardware and
Mannequin.
Although the visual merchandising done is self explanatory the company has to concentrate
on making it easy for the customers to differentiate each series and sect of products which
will be based on various factors. We could find from the analysis that the customers were
not able not able to understand the differences.

ADVERTISEMENTS
Through the 1990s, the company introduced several collections and sub-brands for different
segments of the market. Though innovative and appealing, the marketing and
communication efforts of these sub-brands were not integrated. Initially, they were
advertised under the mother brand, but with the development of the market, it became
necessary for TIL to develop separate communication and marketing campaigns for its sub-
brands.
When the first Titan quartz range was launched in March 1987, it was accompanied by
heavy advertising. The first advertisement described the Titan quartz as the international
watch one could pay for in rupees. Later campaigns emphasized that to find such watches it
was not necessary to go to Europe, Japan, America, or a duty-free shop.
Titan's advertising campaign has complemented its products. The company advertised
watches as a style statement and was the first to publish their prices. The campaign brought
home the fact that people need not go abroad and pay in dollars to buy a good watch. Titan
also made the shopping experience for its customers exciting and interesting by introducing
well-designed showrooms. This was a retail innovation which has helped protect the
company against competitors.
To a large extent, Titan has been successful in enhancing the presence and acceptance of
most of its sub-brands. The varied offerings to diverse segments with a clear cut positioning
strategy have been instrumental in sustaining the market share of the brand. Titan's
strategy to project watches as part of one's personality, and not just as a functional product,
had also gone down well. Titan has always followed a strategy of serving the entire watch
market by offering different variants/sub-brands to each market segment.

The above image is a print ad created for the Titan Raga series for women, by Ogilvy
Bangalore for Titan. This ad campaign was launched in early 2012. The TVC shows Kaif in her
usual vivacious avatar gearing up for a weekend trip when she gets a text from her
counterpart which reads that the trip will have to be postponed since his flight has been
cancelled. Kaif's face turns morose for a bit but she soon gathers herself up, wears a Titan
Raga on her wrist,picks up her luggage and storms out in her car, with much elan. She goes
to her mother's place and asks her if she has any weekend plans. Surprised to see her
daughter at her doorsteps, the mother agrees to accompany Kaif for a road trip where the
two share cherishing mother-daughter moments with a track, 'I don't know where I'm going
but I like the direction', setting the right mood. The car swooshes by, leaving the tagline -
Life is Now!


EXPANSION PLANS
The Indian market is estimated at 25 million watches a year, with 50 per cent being sold by
the organized sector. Titan is the runaway market leader, with domestic sales of 6 million
watches a year. There are 190 million watch-owning Indians; between them they own about
210 million watches. Urban India accounts for 120 million of these watches and 90 millions
are on rural wrists. More men than women own watches in India, and more working women
than housewives own watches. It is the rural segment within this diverse market that Titan
is now looking to tap. The key to success is getting into the rural market on a larger scale.
The companys Sonata range is targeted at rural customers, and is part f a strategy where
the alignment of price and reliability are crucial. The rage costs betweenRs.495 and Rs.1200
has showrooms exclusively for it, and is sold mainly in small-town India.




ABOUT THE COMPANY
Fossil Inc. is an American designer and manufacturer of accessories and clothing,
predominantly into watches and jewellery but also into other complementary products like
handbags, wallets, belts etc. Fossil Inc. has a number of other brands under their umbrella
like Relic, Abacus, Burberry, and Emporio Armani.
Two brothers Tom Kartsotis and Kosta Kartsotis, the founders of Fossil, hold 30% of the
companys stock. They named the company after their fathers nickname. Founded in 1984,
the Fossil brand was the springboard for everything the company has become for more than
a quarter of a century. Fossil has a commitment to American vintage inspiration. This
commitment has allowed for a strong retail presence globally, with more than 400 retail
locations, 4,000 wholesale locations and 13,000 employees worldwide.
Alongside the Fossil Brand, the company is constantly developing its multi-brand portfolio.
Their diverse portfolio of world-class brands gives them a unique position in the global
marketplace. This global foundation has allowed for sustained growth which propelled Fossil
into the S&P 500, marking its place among the 500 leading publicly traded companies in the
United States.
PORTFOLIO BRANDS
The following brands are under Fossils portfolio in its multi-brand operations:
MICHELE
ZODIAC
RELIC
BURBERRY
EMPORIO ARMANI
MICHEAL KORS
MARC BY MARC JACOBS
DKNY
KARL LAGERFELD
TONY BURCH
DIESEL
ARMANI EXCHANGE
ADIDAS ORIGINALS
WATCH STATION
SKAGEN

RETAIL FORMAT
Fossil sells products through a diversified distribution network that includes department
stores, specialty retail locations like travel retail, specialty watch shops like Watch Station as
well as e-commerce/e-tailing. Domestically, they sell their products through a diversified
distribution network that includes department stores, specialty retail locations, specialty
watch and jewellery stores, Company-owned retail and outlet stores, mass market stores
and through the FOSSIL website.
Internationally, their products are sold to department stores, specialty retail stores and
specialty watch and jewellery stores in approximately 150 countries worldwide through 25
Company-owned foreign sales subsidiaries and through a network of over 60 independent
distributors. Internationally, our network of Company-owned stores included 214 retail
stores and 87 outlet stores as of December 28, 2013. Their products are also sold through
licensed and franchised FOSSIL retail stores, retail concessions operated by us and kiosks in
certain international markets. In addition, we offer an extensive collection of our FOSSIL
brand products on our websites in certain countries.

STORE POSITIONING
The Fossil brand has carved a niche for itself in the minds of the consumers as a premium
brand providing high quality watches at affordable prices in multiple locations across the
world. Fossil watches are a very exciting product on the market in terms of both fashion and
technology that they incorporate into their designs. Fossil watches are designed with the old
school or retro look which works extremely well for the brand and this has been its driving
force over these many years of existence.

BRANDING
Over the years Fossil has changed its brand image; however the globally-recognized Fossil
brand is rooted in authenticity and a
distinctive Modern Vintage design
aesthetic. At the heart of Fossil Inc.'s
success is a commitment to fostering
creativity and delivering the best in
design through its core businesses.
In 2001 a brand strategy team was put
together with the goal to collect research
data internationally as well as
domestically. The research goal was to determine consumer impressions of the brand,
confirming points related to relevance, positioning, quality, appeal, and overall knowledge
of the brand. Also it sought to find out what the important underlying touch points were
among the targeted consumer group in each country. The deliverable was to develop a new
direction that did not belie the strength of the established branding but rather redefined
that heritage in a new, relevant way that took current cultural and fashion trends into
consideration as a way to unite and communicate the diversity that the brand now
represented.
Thus the current brand was created with the vintage and retro look which was the signature
style of Fossil watches. The tag line read "What vintage are you?" and several combinations
of the same brand image, logo, tagline, graphics, colours etc gave the brand a very retro
look.

ADVERTISING
Fossil has their own in-house advertising
department which works on design and execution
of advertising, packaging and sales promotion. They
use extensive computer programs in order to make
their ads more creative and less time consuming. As
far as advertisement goes, Fossil's theme is "aim at
evoking nostalgia for the simpler values and more
optimistic outlook of the 1950s through the use of
images of cars, trains, airliners, and consumer products that reflect the classic American
tastes of the period. These images are carefully coordinated in order to convey the flair for
fun, fashion, and humour which the Company associates with its products"
Fossil developed advertising programs with all
its major retailers and developed visual
support through its fixtures and signs.
Consumers were given multiple promotional
items like T-shirts, unique tin boxes, pens etc.
In many locations Fossil started a
"shop-in-shop" which included
promotional merchandise and Fossil products
as part of its sales promotion strategy.






VISUAL MERCHANDISING
Fossil's style draws its inspiration from vintage creative culture and mid-century modern
design. The atmosphere is described as comfortable and inviting, with an ambience
reflective of Fossils authentic and friendly personality.
The music in the shops background was playing evergreen music from The Beatles to Indie
or upcoming singers or groups like Snow Patrol, Hoobastank or fun music from Sheryl Crow.
All these choices of music are just like their fashion style/ design Evergreen, Upcoming and
Fun.
The flagship for the American
lifestyle brand features a fluid
sequence of spaces that are
differentiated by lighting,
materials and fixtures.
In this store alongside, the interior
is organised around a central five
metre table, composed of steel,
glass and white lacquered wood. The table defines the mens and womens areas, and
supports flexible displays for both sides.
The 'watch room' is located beyond a white powder-
coated steel wall and is visible through panels of fritted
and frosted glass.
Special attention is usually given to the watch display
strategy. The result is an atmosphere of understated
luxury and warm natural materials, featuring exposed
cedar planks, fabric covered drum light fixtures, and a
ceiling of corrugated metal deck.

The stores faade features cold-rolled
steel with maple infill panels, materials
that project a warm industrial face to the
street and convey the sense that the
storefront is in fact a fixture itself.



EXPANSION PLANS
Globalization is our first key enabler to the growth of Fossil, and central to their strategy,
with Asia being integral to their growth strategy. Last year, Fossil grew its Asia business by
more than 20%. Their strong performance in key markets like Japan, Korea and China, and
the success of their concession business is an indication of the current strength they have in
the Asian marketplace. In 2014, they have plans in place to continue our expansion. Asias
rapidly growing middle class has an affinity for watches and jewellery, and in particular,
their portfolio of brands. This opportunity in Asia, combined with the significant talent and
infrastructure they have developed, has them well-positioned to meet their goal to
eventually grow Asia to one-third of their total sales. As Asia also represents their highest
margin region, it is a high return opportunity for Fossil as well.