Tanishq - The Turnaround Story

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In an attempt to elbow out competition, Tanishq conducted tests on 10,000 ornaments selected at random. In some cases the caratage was found to be as low as 10% and almost 65% of the gold tested was below 22 carats. As the caratage offered was on the lower side in traditional jewels, the jewellers kept the making charges very low to entice customers. This had become the norm all over the country. Tanishq had to struggle hard to break this convention. As the concept of Karatmeter became more widely known, customers began to realize that the rates they were paying for Tanishq jewellery were indeed justified. A Tanishq official commented, "They have begun to understand the total value proposition that Tanishq offers." An all-India customer satisfaction survey conducted by Tanishq in 2001 revealed that over 50% of all Tanishq customers intended to make it their jeweller, replacing many long-standing relationships with the traditional jeweller. When Tanishq was launched, it sold most of its products through multibrand stores. This did not help the Tanishq brand to make its mark. Having realized this, Tanishq decided to set up its own chain of retail showrooms in 1998. This proved to be a very wise move as sales picked up almost immediately.

By July 2001, it had 47 'Tanishq boutiques' in 37 cities - 12 were in the metros - Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore, the rest in smaller cities with a population of at least 0.5 million such as Trichy, Nagpur, Amritsar and Patna. The focus on smaller cities paid off well with the annual growth being as high as 150% as compared to the 45% growth in metros. The number of boutiques was expected to reach 50 by the end of 2001 and to 70 by 2002. Tanishq's efforts to standardize the price of its ornaments proved to be another milestone in its success. Gold prices differed across the country as they were based on different parameters concerning the local markets. In a bid to control gold price variations in different parts of the country, Tanishq decided to have a standard gold price across all its showrooms from March 2000. The standard price was made binding on all Tanishq showrooms. Tanishq based its gold prices on international exchange prices, resulting in prices often being lower than the local market prices. Nangia said, "We already have a kind of standard pricing in place, but this would represent a formalization of that system to the public." Tanishq even had plans to link directly with the London Metal Exchange (LME) for daily quotes in the future. Tanishq set up an ultra-modern and large-scale manufacturing unit in Hosur, Tamil Nadu at a cost of Rs 600 million. The unit had facilities like refining, alloying and stone casting and a dust-extraction system that kept gold losses down to 2% of the raw material while local jewellers typically lost 8-10%. This in-house manufacturing facility was the main reason, which enabled Tanishq to charge the same price across the country. One of the company’s most important initiatives was customer service enhancement. Tanishq launched a direct consumer contact programme and conducted surveys to monitor store walk-ins and footfalls and percentage of repeat customers.

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