1. Raymond is the largest fashion retailer and suit manufacturer in India, with plans to expand globally through new offices in Dubai, London, and New York. 2. It aims to transform digitally over the next 3 years by using big data to gain customer insights and improve targeting, with over 60% of revenue now through its CRM platform. 3. Key initiatives include a new e-commerce site, in-store digital experiences, and consolidating customer data from its various systems and brands into a single view to better understand customers.

1. 36 | MARCH 2017
Raymond is the largest and most
penetrated fashion retailer in India.
Beyond continuing to expand store
reach optimally, we are also renovating
and digitising our existing stores to
enhance shopper experience in retail.
We have also created a unified robust
CRM platform with sharp analytics-
driven action ability to configure a
digitally immersed omnichannel
business. Also, Raymond is known for
brand leadership through disruptive
advertising.
Our apparel business has been
witnessing a strong double-digit
growth over the last 3 years which
is significantly ahead of the apparel
industry growth. We have almost
doubled the apparel business over the
last 3 years and will continue to scale
up this business to attain profitable
market leadership in this segment.
The company reportedly also has
plans for global expansion. If you can
elaborate?
We are the largest suiting manufacturer
in the country and the leader in this
space. Our garmenting business is
based largely on B2B exports and we
serve some of the top global brands in
the fashion and retail space. Out of all
the 55 countries across five continents
that we supply our products to, the US
contributes 30 per cent, Europe 25 per
cent and Japan 20 per cent. Exports
overall contribute 15 per cent to our
overall revenue at present.
We now want to move from an
‘export-only’ model to develop the
market and increase business by
establishing a face to the name in
select regions. We have shortlisted a
few markets where we would like to be
present 365 days and invest in building
deeper relationships and strategic
partnerships with fashion brands
and top retailers across the US,
Europe, the UK, the Middle East, South
Asia and Japan.
We have recently set up an office in
Dubai and are catering to customers
from Gulf countries, South and Central
Asia and East Africa. Our existing
London office caters to customers
in the UK and Europe. We are in the
process of opening an office in New
York that will primarily cater to the
customers in North America.
We manufacture world-class
suits, jackets, trousers and shirts at
our garmenting manufacturing units
and currently have four garment
manufacturing units, all in Bangalore,
with a current capacity of over 2
million jackets per year. Suits, jackets,
trousers and shirts will continue to be
My vision for digital transformation is to rapidly evolve
from digital being an ‘enabling platform’ as to it becoming a
‘way of life’ at Raymond over the next 3 years
CEO INDIA | 37
competitively priced for global
markets. Ethiopia will be amongst
the largest suit-manufacturing single
location facility in the world with over 2
million jackets per year from a single
location and once the facility is fully
commissioned, it will generate an
employment for around 10,000 people.
What have been the key initiatives
on the digital transformation and
technology side? Is big data helping
drive your businesses?
My vision for digital transformation is
to rapidly evolve from digital being an
‘enabling platform’ as to it becoming
a ‘way of life’ at Raymond over the
next 3 years.
We set up a division called the
Digital Customer Centre (DCC) in
February 2016 with the primary
mandate to create a road map for
digital integration and enhancement
in various aspects of the organisation.
We have assembled a highly passionate
young team with a mandate to lead
us into the stated vision in a defined
timeframe.
On big data, amongst the foremost
tasks undertaken by the DCC was to
consolidate and enrich consumer data
that was available in different systems,
platforms, brands and retail stores
within the organisation. Today, we
have data that covers 4.6 million loyal
brand customers that have transacted
with us, their purchase history and
preferences. With this data, we are able
to create actionable customer insights
and segments by clustering customer
groups based on their purchases,
maturity stage, product usage and
satisfaction.
We have created multiple customer
archetypes and our businesses
are able to target their products
and solutions with much more
sharpness basis the behaviour of
customers. The data is fairly complex
across geographies, categories and
attributes and we are now looking at
benefits from better management
of the complexity through actionable
segments. We have also connected our
feedback tool with customer segments
and are able to ascertain satisfaction
and feedback from different types
of customers and the impact of our
actions taken for them. This is tied
together by CRM platforms that are
integrated with our POS across our
network of over 1,000 stores.
Our digital team has also built
propensity models that help us market
to the relevant consumer sets and we
are seeing very good responses due to
sharp targeting. Today over 60 per cent
of our revenue flows through the CRM
platform and its growing every month.
We have also aligned digital channels
of communication for our customers
across social, email and mobile and
map channels of preference and use
those to communicate.
On e-commerce, we recently
launched our own e-commerce channel
raymondnext.com which is aimed at
widening the repertoire of engagement
with consumers through occasions,
categories and brands. The site is our
primary node for consumers online and
the go-to destination for information on
our product and services.
Currently, the inventory is common
with marketplaces online, the
website is building into the front-end
discovery platform and will be wired for
omnichannel fulfilment and experience
in the near future and will offer the best
and everything that the Raymond group
of brands have to offer. Our team has an
update released every two months with
enhanced features and improved design
as they learn about what is working
better through site analytics.
On customer experience, our first
in-store digital experience has been
for our brand Raymond Made To
the core product lines. We also have
a best-in-class capability to cater to
‘Made To Measure’ customers, for
domestic and global markets.
Though we continue to stay
committed to the ‘Make in India’ story,
we are in the process of setting up a
new garment manufacturing unit in
Ethiopia which will get commissioned
in May 2017. Ethiopia is amongst the
fastest-growing stable economies in
the African continent and has duty-
free access to the US and European
markets, making our products