Swatch's segment strategies and quality obsession are worth emulating: Bhaskar Bhat

Bhaskar Bhat, managing director, Titan

Claim to fame

Credited with turning Titan Industries around and making it a market leader in mass premium watches and branded jewellery

The lesson

In watches and jewellery, the segments in which Titan dominates, most of the competition is from the unorganised sector, which is tough to compete against, says Bhat. In watches, for instance, there was a lot of smuggling. "But at the same time, by being an organised player you have an advantage of being a brand the customer can trust."

In watches, rather than naming a rival brand, Bhat prefers to discuss "companies to benchmark oneself against, such as the Swatch group", even though they might be in different segments, with Swatch being a luxury brand. "That's a profitable, very formidable group with a set of brands. Though they are much bigger than us globally and we are not a luxury brand, their market segment strategies and obsession with quality are worth emulating," says Bhat. Such luxury brands have a single-minded approach to segmentation, whereby they will not dilute their strategy to remain sharply focused on a certain kind of consumer, whatever be the prevailing conditions. "They'll continue to target that consumer," he adds.

When asked to comment on HMT, the erstwhile dominant player in watches, Bhat says Titan's larger focus had always been on the consumer and not the competition. "We try and offer customers what best we can give them. When you go enter the market, you understand what consumers are not getting and offer them that." Similarly, in jewellery, there were several regional players but no player with a national footprint till they entered. "The market was fragmented with local players. We entered with the aim of serving a slightly different consumer, who would be younger, upwardly mobile and probably had shifted 2-3 cities. To them, we were a desirable brand," he says.

(As told to Indulekha Aravind)