Colloquium: January 30, 2008
Marketing and Brand Building Initiatives
 Mr C S Baskar, COO, Royal Classic Group, couldn’t have addressed the students at a better time, as the students were all set for the biggest annual event in campus, Pragati’08, the official business fest at Amrita. The crowd waiting at the venue was pumped up with energy and enthusiasm, to get a feel of how it is to be in the marketing arena in the present day Indian Market. With the students all ears for the words of wisdom from the marketing expert, Mr Baskar started the session with the statistics on Classic Polo, to give the audience an idea on the company about which he was going to talk about for the next 45 minutes.
Classic Polo is described as a fabric to fashion company, which means that right from the cotton required for the fabric to marketing the final clothes - the entire range of activities is carried out in-house. Classic Polo, he said, is a 100 % vertically integrated company. “Not just 99%, like other companies claim to be, but literally, it is a 100 % company”. The company, comes up with 3 to 4 designs per day at an average and launches around 400-500 designs per season amongst its 54 exclusive brand outlets and 3000 multi brand outlets all over the country. This is a magnificent effort, considering the numerous festivals we have in this ‘Land of Festivals - India’. Innovation, team work, commitment to quality and social responsibility are some of the values that Classic Polo nurtures in its brand and the senior management themselves overlook the process to make sure that the quality of the products are maintained, no matter what the challenge is. This, he said, has helped the company in the long run. With the target market set on 25 to 30 year olds in the country, with the ‘widest choice of T Shirts’ as the brand strength and with in-house, outdoor, printable campaigns as the marketing collateral, the company looks all set to further the lead it has over it’s competitors. This was clearly evident from the statistics – RCG has been consistently growing at 60 % a year since its inception, while the competitor’s or the industry average is 20 %. He then went on to explain how important it is for a company to have a strong and long lasting relationship with the client and how that has helped the parent company - Royal Classic Group - become a Rs. 225 crore worth company.
Further, taking on the questions from the audience, he went on to explain how love and passion for the field helps you enjoy your task and gave his own example of how effectively he could adjust to the marketing arena for the past 5 years from being in the accounts department earlier. Answering another question on why is ‘vertical integration’ necessary when the industry is outsourcing all but the core competencies, he explained how cent percent vertical integration has helped the company be cost effective by cutting down on the margin which otherwise would have gone to the outsourced company. Also, he said, quality of the product could be well assured by vertical integration. On rupee appreciation affecting Classic Polo, like all the other textile companies, he made his point reach across loud and clear that the strong domestic market for Classic Polo helps it keep itself shielded from rupee appreciation. And on the final query on IPO, like a true marketing professional, he answered the question with the statement ‘It’s all in the pipe line’.
The session emphasised on the importance of having a good customer relationship for the success of the company in the market. At the end of the session, the crowd was all set to build a better and stronger relationship with the fellow MBA aspirants, who would be visiting the campus for Pragati’08. This was a direct mapping of the lesson from the session being applied in a practical way. Thus, the session, in addition to the marketing knowledge it had added, was more valuable for the students, which justifies the first statement - the timing of the session couldn’t have been any better than this.
- By Kiran C Sekhar
I MBA
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