Pantaloon-Revolutionising inventory management in Indian

retailing

-Prerna vermaAnjali ranjanParth shah

Kishore purohitParth sheth

• Biyani is redefining the way inventory is managed in retailing and these revolutionary initiatives are all set to make his flagship pantaloons a leader in Indian retail business.

• Big and fast seems to be kishore biyani’s mantra.

• Pantaloons has grown from mere 900$ million in revenues in 1998 to a 55 store spread in nineteen cities with expected annual revenues of $ 11 billion, in the span of a mere seven years.

• During 2004, pantaloons' stock price more than tripled and crossed $900 in April 2005

• To leverage the growth in the retail industry most their players were furiously setting up malls and expanding their chain of stores..

• According to biyani such companies were following a similar format to reach the same customers

• Biyani wanted to do something different and developed three new highly successful retail formats.

• i.e pantaloons,central and bigbazaar.

• Pantaloon- apparel merchandising

• Central-apparel,fashion and entertainment segementtargetted at the rapidly expanding middle class market.

• Bigbazar-value retailing

• Food bazar- food and grocery retailing store

• By june 2006 biyadni had set up fifty food bazars,thirthy five big bazars,twenty pantaloons and six centrals occupying vlose to 3.5 million sq. ft of retail space

Inventory management

• Retailing involves anticipating demand on a particular day(short term demand) as well as while opening new stores (long-term demand).

• Currently the inventory is 75 days down from 112 days in 2000-01 and for improving efficinecy he has assigned category managers for every product group.they are responsible for managing the lifecycle of a product group and meeting sales target.

• Their biggest efficiency is in buying cost,they buy huge quantities and pay less,they are also able to brand/label in a store.

• Biyani is now targetting youth by junking old positioning : India’s family store.

• Biyani feel studying at communities-techies,metro sexuals,etc are must.

• Pantaloons=Affordable fashion

• New punch line= “fashion from pantaloons”

• Pantaloons will be equivalent to zara.

• Zara can launch new lines in less than 21 days, because they have their own factories.

• Faster manufacturing will let the company stock less inventory while reducing the quantity of stocks to be sold at a discount. Simultaneously sales will rise due to faster arrival of fresh stocks. Biyani has brought the time lag down to 90 to 40 days.

• Big bazar focuses on fashion with an orientation towards large volumes.it will sell commoditized fashion.

• Pantaloons will carry no stock. The inventory lies with the manufacturer and replenished just in time.

• Pantaloons is trying to make in-house products.

• Entire stock for grocery is replenished thirty times and garment stocks are replenished six times annually.