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1. The single biggest challenge has been to balance the inherently conflicting objectives of delivering exponential profitable growth
while catalysing a radical transformation of legacy businesses across the group. Early in this journey, it was vital for me to create a rallying
cry that unifies employees and aligns their passion to the stated audacious vision of organisational transformation.
34 | MARCH 2017
INTERVIEW
no time, we had a new-age Raymond
evolving, fairly rapidly.
As I look back, we have already
come a long way over the last 3
years, having accomplished most
of what we set out to achieve in the
first of the three identified phases of
organisational transformation. In this
massive organisational overhaul that
is underway, there have been a few
misses and setbacks along the way,
but none that would derail us from
the path that we chose to tread. As
we progress into the second phase of
Raymond evolution, we now have an
advantage of tremendous tailwind and
organisational momentum.
What has been your action plan so far
to transform the company, streamline
operations and drive efficiency? If you
can elaborate the key steps taken to get
the company in a much better shape?
At the outset, we articulated and
cascaded a clear vision and an enabling
strategy to all the stakeholders of
Raymond. This encompassed spelling
out a 3-phased transformational
path forward of ‘Vision, Mission and
Strategy’, in three distinct time buckets
termed as Raymond 1.0 (2014-2017),
Raymond 2.0 (2016-2020) and Raymond
3.0 (2018-2025).
To support Raymond 1.0 Vision,
a granular and comprehensive
‘Strategy-into-Action (SIA)’ execution
plan was detailed out with a clear set
of quantifiable milestones for each
business and function, with specific
tasks, sub-tasks and platform owners,
resources in measures of time, people
and money, tracking and management
review processes, linkages with
performance management system and
incentives, and so on.
Raymond 1.0 was pivoted on the
following five key pillars:
1. Starting Jan 2014, we shifted from a
legacy ‘product-centric’ org structure
of ‘textile’ and ‘apparel’ divisions to
a ‘customer-centric SBU (strategic
business unit)’ structure supported
with functional shared services
organisation at the lifestyle level. Over
the last 3 years, we have aggressively
invested to build a sustainable
competitive advantage in all the four
SBUs and build world-class excellence
in all the key functions.
2. Immediately thereafter, starting
April 2014, we dispassionately started
divesting in all the non-strategic
and non-core businesses, including
cutting our losses by shutting down
unprofitable non-strategic retail stores.
Further, we rapidly outsourced all the
non-core but strategic activities viz.
IT services (outsourced to Accenture
for 10 years), payroll, admin facilities
and so on.
3. Building a world-class leadership
team to catalyse the new organisation
structure was amongst my top
priorities. Every single one of the
‘Top 350’ leadership roles were
individually re-assessed from a
strategic perspective and re-evaluated
for manning. Of these, leadership
talent for a third of the ‘Top 75’ roles
was externally hired from industry
best global benchmarks of talent and
functions viz. apparel SBU head from
Tata Trent, brand & retail heads from
HUL, retail project head from Shopper
Stop, creative head from Givenchy &
Prada, digital head from Burger King,
and so on. In the process of hiring
external and elevating internal talent to
leadership roles, the average age of my
direct reportees has reduced from 52
years to 43 years over the last 3 years.
To enable building a high-
performance organisation, we
also overhauled the performance
management system with clear
linkages of quantified KRAs (key result
areas) with consequent management
framework at all levels within the
excellence in product quality and the
conventional trade channels.
The single biggest challenge
has been to balance the inherently
conflicting objectives of delivering
exponential profitable growth while
catalysing a radical transformation of
legacy businesses across the group.
Early in this journey, it was vital
for me to create a rallying cry that
unifies employees and aligns their
passion to the stated audacious vision
of organisational transformation.
However, amongst the foremost
challenges at a personal level was also
to gain professional credibility amongst
my direct reports and larger teams, as
someone who could effectively partner
them and lead them, given an apparent
lack of experience in the textile
industry. On the brand front, the key
challenge was of a brand getting older
in a country getting younger. There
was an urgent need for the brand to
evolve from its legacy trappings in
classic suiting and trousering fabric,
largely meant for the pre-millennial
generation and restricted to special
occasions like weddings.
Post alignment of immediate
and long-term expectations with the
chairman and board of the company, my
topmost priority in the first six months
was to learn, assimilate and reflect on
as many elements of the business value
chain at Raymond and the industry. In
this phase, I travelled quite extensively
and actively engaged with multiple
stakeholders including customers,
investors, trade partners and strategic
vendors — both in India and globally. I
also met up with as many employees
as possible across levels, businesses,
functions and locations. During this
learning phase, I did not trigger any
material change in products, processes
or people. Thereafter, I moved with high
speed and initiated massive changes
across the organisation and within
The single biggest challenge has been to balance the inherently conflicting objectives of delivering exponential profitable growth
while catalysing a radical transformation of legacy businesses across the group. Early in this journey, it was vital for me to create a rallying
cry that unifies employees and aligns their passion to the stated audacious vision of organisational transformation.
CEO INDIA | 35
organisation. The core tenets of the
evolving organisational culture at
Raymond are based on the five tenets
of meritocracy, transparency, personal
accountability, bias for action and
collaborative working.
4. A comprehensive rejig of Raymond’s
business value chain, both horizontally
and vertically, was carried out to
align all elements with the stated
business vision. This included product
innovation, portfolio simplification,
retail renovation and expansion, brand
re-positioning, supply chain re-hauling,
IT/digital integration from sourcing
to retail, newer business models (viz.
MTM or mark to market, offshore
manufacturing) and global expansion.
5. Enhancing levels of corporate
governance and continuing to raise
the levels of strategic, executional
and fiscal diligence at the Raymond
Group level has been a guiding vision
of Chairman and Managing Director
Gautam Hari Singhania. This resulted
in the formation of a high-quality
Advisory Board for Lifestyle Business
in early 2015. The board constitutes of
Ravi Venkatesan (Chairman, Bank of
Baroda, and Ex-Chairman, Microsoft
India), Rajiv Bakshi (Ex-CEO, Cadbury,
Pepsi), BS Nagesh (Founder, Terrain,
Ex-MD, Shopper Stop), Mihir Doshi
(MD, Credit Suisse India), Richa Kar
(Founder, Zivame, woman lingerie
e-comm brand) and Manish Chokani
(Enam Capital).
The advisory board engages with my
leadership team every quarter, wherein
diverse topics of potential relevance
to Raymond Group get discussed
and debated at length. Within 2 years
since inception, the advisory board has
already had a significant role in shaping
the strategic agenda of my businesses
and Raymond Group.
What is your vision for Raymond? How
do you plan to bring the past glory of
Raymond back? How do you plan to
make the company future-ready?
My immediate vision for Raymond
Group is to emerge as a cutting-edge
men’s fashion and retail conglomerate
in India, and in select global markets
by 2020. The Raymond brand will
continue to build on its position as
a classic bridge-to-luxury offering
for the full wardrobe needs of a
discerning male.
In the long run, my vision for
Raymond is to evolve as a unique and
compelling ‘lifestyle’ brand, with its
offerings going beyond just the full
wardrobe solutions, extending deep
into a few relevant categories like male
grooming or personal care.
Raymond's transformation is a
3-phase process, of which we are at
the end of our first phase, comprising
of organisational restructuring,
portfolio sorting, talent sourcing, brand
repositioning and retail renovation and
expansion. The second phase has just
begun; and this phase will encompass
retail expansion into smaller tier towns,
the convergence of all retail formats
in larger markets, digital integration
across all nodes of our value chain,
remodelling of our integrated supply
chain and purposeful investments on
talent and leadership team. The third
phase beyond 2020 will largely be about
our evolution as a ‘solution’-based
organisation and making digital as a
‘way of life’ at Raymond.
So is the focus now shifting from the
traditional fabrics for suits model to
a more lifestyle and retail brand for
apparel? What is your growth strategy
for the apparel business and what
are the new areas you are entering/
initiatives you have taken?
The core of on-going transformation
at Raymond is the transition that we
are making from being a ‘product’
company to becoming a ‘solution’
company. In the first phase, we will
evolve as a one-stop shop for all the
needs of a menswear wardrobe — all
products and accessories, for all
occasions, all services from custom-
tailored to ready-mades to bespoke
clothing lines. So in sum, rather than
offering our customers with what we
manufacture, we are in the process
of re-configuring the organisation
to cater to what our customers wish
for. Consequently, we plan to extend
Raymond to meet lifestyle-related
needs of the (complete) man, which
may range from a compelling range
of men’s grooming products to highly
specialised curated vacations.
In the apparels business, we have
four power brands in our portfolio
— Raymond, Park Avenue, Parx and
Color Plus. We are amongst the three
biggest apparel brand players in India
today. Our growth strategy is based
on a triad of sharpening our product
portfolio, enhancing and expanding
our retail footprint and effective
go-to-market strategies. Our power
brands complement each other to offer
complete wardrobe solutions for the
discerning Indian male.
For the product, our focus is
to sharpen the brand positioning
leveraging each brand to its full
potential hence capturing the ‘full
wallet’ of our customers. We have
recently owned the white shirt
category in the country introducing
Raymond Whites, coupled with the
launch of world-class products such
as lightweight jackets and top-end
sweaters for our customers.
As far as the retail footprint
is concerned, we are focusing on
expanding aggressively in order to
create an optimal footprint through
exclusive brand stores, large-format
retail footprint and multi-brand stores.
With 1,100 exclusive brand retail stores
and market reach spanning 400 cities,