Initiatives
A series of consumer awareness initiatives and engagement programmes were introduced to enhance the recall of the Godrej Nature’s Basket brand and strengthen its positioning in the consumers mind as a highly desirable gourmet destination.
Operations were tightened to bring down operating costs. Recruitment, induction and on-going product and service delivery training practices were defined and executed to ensure consistency in service delivery to the end consumer.
An expansion strategy was created that saw Godrej Nature’s Basket venture out of Mumbai for the first time to other metro cities making it India’s largest and finest chain of gourmet stores.
Marketing initiatives
Directed energies into below the line activation in the catchments where Nature’s Basket is operating. The language and idiom of communication have been changed. The brand brought in food experts, bloggers and writers and associated with chefs, cooks and nutritionists. The profile of people working at the stores is altered.
Brand proposition
Godrej Nature’s Basket is a destination for authentic world food. Khattar’s contribution has been to strengthen the core proposition and its execution across all touch points.
The challenges overcome
The first big challenge was a set of employees who was working more as a disorganised group rather than a motivated organisation with a shared objective. The next challenge was to actually create an organisation with a group of people who were widely considered raw and in-experienced.
Having outlets with diverse formats, non-uniform layouts, different product lines, and varying and unmeasured service levels, the greatest challenge was to improve execution levels at the retail front. Fortunately all these are sorted out and the growth rates in the business improved with business in Mumbai breaking even.
Expansion plan
The current footprint of Nature’s Basket is eight stores in Mumbai, three in Delhi and another three in the pipeline for this fiscal. The plan is to add around 15-20 upscale stores over the next two years across the top six metro cities.
His understanding of the retail business and his learning in this process
“Attention to every little detail – right from the way your outlet is maintained to the way it is lit to the time at which your supply vehicles arrive, influences consumer behaviour and satisfaction. Theory counts for little if execution is patchy. “
