Jeevant Sarma: So hi everyone we are back on the chatter box which is Titan company's Flagship podcast show and today we are here to learn about the international business division of Titan and with me I have Diny and Gaurav who are here to sort of help us understand IBD a lot more and a lot better and tell us about their Adventures that they've had overseas taking Titan globally to places so yeah super excited to be doing this today welcome Diny welcome Gaurav
Gaurav: Happy to be here yeah
Jeevant Sarma: Diny we'll start with the why right Titan is India one of India's most loved Brands why did we even feel the need to venture outside you know sort of we know the company has had a very specific big Focus internationally since 2019 so can you tell us the why about it
Diny: Sure thanks Jeevant and really speaking the biggest reason is the opportunity that is the world I mean India is a large Market the world's most populous country but there's a whole bigger Market out there internationally and that's what we wanted to go after we felt that it was important that we chase after that market and do it across all of our businesses so while watches has been outside India for many years we wanted to take our jewelry our Eye Care our fragrances and eventually at some point in time the taneira business as well outside of the country so that's and the opportunity is very very large it's it's really big and it's very very large the other thing is that you know everybody talks about the India shining story
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Diny: And in the next 15 to 20 years my bet is that India is going to be or going to come back as the world's most significant economy it used to be 300 years ago India was the world's largest economy and I think what we're going to see in our lifetimes is a full circle where the economy of the world comes back to depend on India as the biggest driver and then You' ask the question saying if that's the case why are we going outside India and that's really the interesting part which is to say that as India grows and as Indian consumers enjoy bigger incomes
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Diny: They will premiumize they will want to look at International Brands and there for it's important that Titan company takes its Brands outside of India because the Paradox there is that if you want to sell well in India you've got to be an international brand so these are the two factors one a very large opportunity
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Diny: With the non-indians and second it's important that we take Our Brands internationally .
Jeevant Sarma: Got it that's super insightful to me on you actually touched upon the growth part of it as well right so if you have these engines of growth sort of working for you what do you think the you know the growth story looks like for Titan IBD say in the next 5 6 years
Diny: Would would you say that doubling every year for the last 3 years and continuing to double for the next couple of years would be exciting
Jeevant Sarma: Super exciting I'd say so
Diny: That's what we've been doing when we started the sort of IBD in 2019 one year later 2020 we opened the first jewelry store in Dubai in Mina Bazar we are now up to 15 Stores 11 in the GCC region and one in I mean and Singapore too sure and four in the US so that's been a really rapid rate of growth what we are looking to do is get to a number of about 25 -30 by the end of this coming Financial sure and eventually get to 50 Tanish around the world I mean we think that that's that's not too difficult to do and it's not just in jewelry I'm going to let Gaurav pitch in for the Watchers in the eyecare story yeah
Gaurav: So for for Watchers we've been there internationally for the last 30 years I think at one point of time we were there in close to 40 plus countries but we changing track I think what we're trying to do is we trying to reduce the number of countries in which we are present in traditionally we've always catered to the Indian diaspora because that was the low hanging food but now we're going after the non- Indians as well I think we have a fantastic product our watches are fantastic I think our customer value proposition internationally is strong I think what we need is the correct goto Market strategy so we've identified a set of our priority markets and the idea is to go deep in those markets and play the market share game even with eyecare I think we opened our first store about one and a half years back in BarJuman in the Dubai did fantastically well we we catered primarily to the Indian audience there mhm but we've opened three more stores and all three of the the new stores that we have are about 50% of the audience that we are getting the 50% of the customers that we are getting is primarily non-indian
Jeevant Sarma: Sure
Gaurav: Again with EyePlus the service is fantastic the product is fantastic and the customer value proposition I would say after jewelry I think it's the strongest customer value proposition we have amongst all our brands internationally so there's no reason why we can't succeed with with eyewear globally as well
Jeevant Sarma: Right so interesting you mentioned that you know the Indian diaspora outside has been like a low hanging fruit in in so to speak right do you think for for a brand like Titan the key cohort the key segments would be the Indian diaspora the NRIs the PIOs or is there a global acceptance also emerging that you see
Gaurav: Is definitely a global acceptance that is that is emerging I think some of the conversations I I'm new to this division it's been almost about a year now but by the conversations that we have with people who've been there for longer when we would go to a lot of these First World countries maybe speak to someone in the US or the UK or Australia they would say oh maybe maybe these watches are not for us sure but very recently as recent as a couple of months back we were speaking to someone in Australia
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Gaurav: And that person says I can't survive without having Titan in my showroom because that's the strength of the band and then that's the strength of the country we spoke about India shining earlier I think India is definitely shining and I think everyone is slowly but surely waking up to that to fact a lot of supply chain is moving from China to India as well
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Gaurav: So so yes to the diaspora question yes that is a low hanging food but as you said our products are world class we we are the fifth largest watch manufacturer in the world for a reason and in watches because I think it's different life stages amongst the three brands so in watches because we've been present there I think we we dominate within the Indian communities whether it's in GC whether it's in s but I think there's huge opportunity say in Southeast Asia I think they a strong brand in Vietnam we a strong brand in Philippines we are just going to enter into Indonesia which is another huge market so so yeah so it's it's a global brand and I think a lot of global acceptance for our watches is there as well and we have fantastic products
Gaurav: I think Stellar which was a fantastic launch of in in the last quarter it did well very well in India but it did fantastically well internationally as well so we we sold out and we were sold out within weeks not months so so yeah and then and with the product lineup that we have premiumizing in India as well so a lot of our premium collections the main line is getting very strong Raga is is a global women's brand and even in variables I think there's been some fantastic exciting launches that have happened in variables and probably we are the only watchmaker which is which is into both fashion analog and variables with fossil exiting as well so I think we have we have a big big advantage and with eyewear as well it's a need based category so so you don't need to necessarily go after after Indians and like I said the customer value proposition is very very strong so we are very confident that probably in the next 2-3 years we'll have about 50 EyePlus stores as well
Jeevant Sarma: Pretty impressive actually it puts a lot of things to perspective like right and and when somebody typically says that oh an Indian brand is going global we think okay maybe sh they'll try us UK UAE and maybe right but I think southeast Asia emerging is a pretty insane growth story in itself and as someone who handles the queries also online like I know from from so many corners of the world be it Serbia be it Canada we getting queries and it and that sort of shows the pull of the brand so yeah it it does put a lot of things to perspective yeah so taking it a little bit away from business right bringing it more to people so let's say I am a young professional and keep me aside I've already joined IBD but sure if there is a young professional who's kind of wanting to sort of work in the international business what is it that you would sort of advise them your two cents on joining other international business yeah
Diny: First I'd say jeevant learn as many languages as possible you have Google translate but you still need to speak as many different languages
Gaurav: We should corporate tie-up
Diny: Yeah second is I think learn to accept diversity working outside of India you know you have to deal with different people from different cultures different foods and it's important to be able to understand that not everybody works the way we do right and there are different styles you hear about how Americans work how the Japanese work so now I think that dimension of understanding how middle easterners work how say people in Southeast Asia work how people in the US work and and any company that's serious about going global you got to figure out these nuances pick up on that the third I would say is be willing to explore be willing to go out there and figure out things I mean Christopher Columbus didn't head out to discover America he ended up there right so life in IBD is a bit like that you start out to do something and you end up somewhere else but there are many doors and you know they open eventually so you just have to persist with it so if you if you're someone who likes a little bit of sense of adventure you like a little bit of uncertainty you're willing to learn a few new tricks
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Diny: Then certainly come to IBD
Gaurav: I think from the outside it seems very glitzy very glamorous sure it is but if you're coming only for the glitz and the glamour then you're coming to the wrong place I think the initial excitement of traveling and going to different countries I think that means out in in in less than 6 months but if you have a mindset of an entrepreneur if you're ready to deal with ambiguity I think a lot of things that Denny also spoke about every day is a new challenge every country almost operates like a different business unit because obviously the business is different the commercial requirements are different the compliances are different the legal requirements are different
Jeevant Sarma: Shipping requirements
Gaurav: Shipping requirements are different so so
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Gaurav: And then I think a lot of us have a very myopic view of the world
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Gaurav: I think internationally it just broadens our Horizons and truly gives us an outside in perspective and
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Gaurav: If if you want to understand different cultures different people and see the world from a different lens I think
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Gaurav: International is the place to be but why don't you tell us what has been your experience I think you've been here for about a year I think when you came in I'm sure you had Glamour in mind but how's been your experience
Jeevant Sarma: So to be honest I'll I'll pick up a couple of things that I absolutely did not see myself doing in an international St but I have ended up doing it a lot so one is reading government websites a lot you know the requirements the legal requirements the shipping requirements whatever understanding you know nuances about shipping about timelines and and I think timelines I've never been more of a strickler for timelines than IBD because if if you miss a window then you know you miss a season it's it's like that so it's very you have to be on point you have to be very diligent it's it's not like India where if you make a mistake sure you have three other routes it's it's someone for I
Jeevant Sarma: I need to have a stronger eye for detail is is what I have discovered in this tint but the fun part has definitely while yes after a point the all the flights and carrying the luggages and doing the road shows and everything does take a toll on you but definitely it it's a very exciting feeling when you're actually pitching Titan to the world I think in my previous stint when I was working more in Ecom that sort of that that pull you know that I I am doing something that's pretty insane you know that that pull was not there and and now when I do this on a global stage yes the The Pride is very at a very different level so I think yeah those are three things that
Jeevant Sarma: I never thought would happen but yeah here I am one point I want to touch upon right you mentioned the diversity the the respect for diversity and to understand those nuances culturally how people are different how important do you think is is cultural intelligence to for for just expansion of business and and in other areas where it trickles down probably for IBD yeah and
Diny: You couldn't have said it better actually more than intelligence in an IBD kind of a role you need a whole lot of emotional intelligence and you need what you stated cultural intelligence the ability to understand people from a different culture who are not necessarily the way you are and today in IBD what is super exciting is we have about 13 I think now 15 nationalities of different people across right in our stores and so learning to deal with them and learning to you know for example simple thing like when when a bunch of Indians are together you break into Hindi
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Diny: But then you have an emirati sitting there in that same you know conversation not able to follow what you're saying
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Gaurav: On that Deal we spoke about watches and eyewear but for jewelry and Tanish in particular how important is it for us to now start catering to the non-indians as well because I think the priority like you said was was to go after the Indian diaspora because eventually our aim is to become the Tiffany of the East right so so so
Diny: That's that's the other say cultural intelligence that you would need to build right right so one is in dealing with people within the Titan system and partners and others but if you truly want to serve the globe then what you also need to do is you need to understand your segments of customers right and that so an HNIs in Dubai and we've all seen Dubai bling right behaves very differently from HNIs in India right Dubai has several Pakistani HNIs we need to serve them because again the interesting thing in in tanishq what you said is we are not just serving Indians today a lot of South Asians
Diny: People from the Sark countries come to tanishq in Dubai because the sensibilities are pretty similar it's not as if Pakistani Punjabi is any different from a Indian Punjabi or for that matter a Bangladeshi is not very different from West Bengali so they we're all part of the same subcontinent and therefore a lot of that extension to South Asians and then over a period of time extending further the Middle Eastern sensibility for jewelry particularly is again intricate jewelry gold is preferred so there are a lot of similarities and these in a way Degrees of Separation we take them one by one and keep extending ourselves and reaching out so being able to understand various customer segments and eventually even being able to understand the mainstream Western consumer right I mean Dubai is a Melting Pot of 200 plus nationalities and you have everybody from Filipinos to Americans to Russians to you know Chinese out there and therefore being able to build that capability or the cultural intelligence to be able to serve all of these different communities I think is really really key to make it work in IBD
Gaurav: Yeah yeah true
Jeevant Sarma: So on that note right like you said you you have to figure the nuances and what is important for their culture and everything so from a jewelry perspective let's say wedding has always been like a big buying occasion right I wanted to understand is is that because for jewelry let's say that becomes a tent pool event right for a customers Journey now does that also translate across other cultures do you see that in Us and other places and
Diny: Absolutely so there are I'd say a couple of aspects here I mean Indians wherever they go remain rooted yeah to India and therefore the wedding is that one aspect or that one event which then sort of brings everything that is Indian back to the Forefront right the rest of the time you working you're doing your day job you're blending in all of that right but the moment the big fat Indian wedding happens then everybody comes back and until now you had to make a trip back to India to buy jewelry to buy your outfits all of that
Diny: but now increasingly with Indian Brands like Tanish being present there Nalli being present there manyavar being present there you're able to get what you want out there so and and the other cultural Nuance here is that Indians around the globe and particularly you can see this in the US are really much more assertive about their identity today right I the pride of being Indian the pride of indianess whether it is Indian girl wearing a lehenga to a prom or celebrating Indian weddings and many of these are becoming more mixed so you have a Indian bride marrying a American and the you know the the the families now are Multicultural so a lot of these aspects are coming together and one interesting challenge the supposes for us particularly in the jewelry business is each of our stores therefore needs to be a little India an India in a box right accommodating all of this in one store sometimes is a challenge but it is something that we are learning to better and better as we go along
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Gaurav: And how do the trends flow through Delhi so so typically what we've heard is for a trend to flow through from the US to to Europe to the Middle East to India it takes about 9 years you think we are i a better position now with with our International presence to capture those Trends as in when they're happening
Diny: So that's one of the intangible values that we felt was important or would would really come through when we set up IBD and in a way if you look at it a lot of these markets are more evolved so when you walk through malls in Dubai and I'm using Dubai more than the US now because I think from a retail Evolution standpoint Dubai is probably ahead of the curve right the kind of VM that you see the kind of shopping experiences that you see are very different if you look at the maturity level of the market so the US is a 95% Diamond Market compared to India which is a 30% Diamond market right if you look at at in watches the breakup between luxury products analog fashion products and wearables you will see that Western markets are much more or have a much larger share of luxury and variables India
Diny: Is catching up right so I think it's fair to say that markets like the US Western markets Europe are probably 10 years ahead of the curve a market like UAE is about 5 years ahead of the curve so therefore by learning to play the game across our various businesses in these markets we are actually in a way preparing for the future and practicing for some of those trends that would come into India so I think that's really helping us it helps us learn from these Trends and stay ahead of the curve compared to other competition India in any case matter of years and many of them are already here more and more of these International brands are going to come in into India so right so the Indian consumer is not going to see us separately from International brands going to compare a Titan with a Casio with a citizen which they are already doing here but later on a Tanish with a Tiffany or a Kier I think it helps us prepare the the
Gaurav: Other big thing that's been happening and it's been the flavor of the last decade or so is the rise of e-commerce in fact I was reading something today where the gmv of China's e-commerce is greater than the GMV of the retail stores ret stes this year and then apparently India will reach that figure in 2040 yeah so the question is to you Jeevant on e-commerce and marketplaces what's the overall strategy and how important is it for for watches and eyewear and then of course jewelry as well
Jeevant Sarma: So I think it's a one pager executive summary of what all you just described right so cultural nuances so for example if you pick the southeast Asia region you have platforms like shopy LASDA sort of being very prominent there and again the cultural Nuance of a double digit sale days so 1111 1010 99 right so these are their Peak sale days and and they enjoy spending on these days but if you look at the Sak region you have thereas Nepal thereas Bangladesh you know it's it's a it's one of the larger players there and the way people shop and the prospecting that happens on these platforms is actually not price first it is brand first like you know so that's very different from
Jeevant Sarma: What we typically see in an Indian Indian space so this is the customer facing side of it that probably is different the other side of it is which is the Ecom infra side right because India has progressed so much in the past 10 years across ecommerce right we we are probably the only country with the kind of market share that we have in quick Commerce today than any other and UAE is catching up with that now now you have noon minutes and things like that coming up right so so the Ecom infrastructure here has become so prominent that a lot of the these services and these these infrastructures have sort of become into B2B SAS tools and are being plugged and played across the middle east across southeast Asia so yeah that's another very different dimension to e-commerce that is sort of coming in you have players like click post unicommerce who are now having prominent UAE operations yeah so so that's it's a very exciting time from an e-commerce perspective please
Diny: Let me ask you something about this whole e-commerce space I mean online sales is what it is it'll to grow the share of online will continue to grow how do you see the role of Discovery
Jeevant Sarma: yeah
Diny: Online and between marketplaces the brand site how do you see the roles playing out and also I'll just throw in one more thing do you see the emergence of speciality marketplaces I mean in a way relevant to our categories how and how so how do you see these Trends playing out globally and how can we take advantage of some of this
Gaurav: And and just to add to that before you respond where does Amazon fit into the whole for us
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah so I I'll take it step by step yeah and probably a a different perspective to look at how all of these will play out is if we tie the dots back to the customer so I think B you were mentioning right the customer is now proud to be Indian right so so if you look at the larger Trend that's happening there customers the individualism individuality of a customer is growing stronger each day so if I like watches now I will want to know what is the best watch that is available across function across form across style design in my price point right so so the speciality Market marketplaces started emerging because of this individualism of customers sort of growing in these categories right they want to know more about a product it's not just a transactional sale okay oh it'll look nice on my wrist right it's a lot more to that even with
Jeevant Sarma: Jewelry and on top of that now now if you go to a Reddit so there's a thread called our watches right you go to the thread people actually ask questions about movements that even a sales guy like me maybe may not know and I am reading up on it right there are an insane amount of podcasts that are there just about watch movements how do you clean a watch I did not know that so customers are now the first purchase probably typically happens on a Marketplace but if they like that category and if that category gives them that delightful moment then they start moving into specialized Market specialized e-commerce sellers or or portals to sort of do this and then they indulge in Discovery to your point they really want to be like you know a key opinion leader in knowing everything about that particular space so so that is how this kind of plays out so yes how does Amazon fit in probably it's in my opinion the first purchase happens on something like an Amazon on and then gradually it moves into a more speciality kind of a section or a segment
Diny: So can Indian Brands like us get discovered on Amazon globally
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah of course why not I mean for sure the while there is this individuality that is growing there is also an impulsivity that is growing right so a prime two-day delivery one day delivery is a very sweet promise for an impatient customer like myself and others out there right so definitely there is a scope of Discovery and like a first purchase happening there and probably then going into a speciality store yeah so one last question I had from the both of you right let's say think of a time machine you're in a time machine you're meeting yourself who's just about to start your stint right what is the one advice you would give yourself before you before your day one at IBD right
Gaurav: Be be ready to unlearn
Jeevant Sarma: Be ready to unlearn okay
Diny: Yeah i' I'd say that and I'd say be open right because you're going to get a whole bunch of experiences that you some of which you anticipated some of which you totally haven't planned for and I think the more open you are the more you absorb the more you learn I mean whereas another way to play it is oh my God I mean all of this is going wrong this is difficult you know yeah you you get into that aspect saying things are different from the way I'm used to and things will be different from the way you're used to so I would say that's the perspective that if you anybody in IBD or any Indian who aspires to be a global Indian has to sort of keep in mind
Gaurav: Yeah what would you say
Jeevant Sarma: I would tell myself figure out time zones quicker cuz it still takes me a lot of time to figure out when to set the meeting with the party so yeah
Diny: Jet lag is one of the side effects of being part of IBD so you you learn to deal with it
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah
Gaurav: That was one of the first things I learned when I called any of the business managers what time zone are you in because that was very very important so that becomes very important and
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah yeah
Diny: And another thing I would say is that be prepared to work 24/7 in the sense that work never stops right because there's always some part of the globe that is like last Diwali you know we pretty much By the time we shut shop in San Francisco yeah Singapore opened right so it was like 24/7 Diwali for us so that's the way life is when you're in a global team you just have to figure out how to find your work life balance yes
Jeevant Sarma: Cool so one question I've always been wanting to ask both of you so what is your absolute favorite city that you've discovered in your IBD stint that you absolutely absolutely love
Diny: You want to go first
Gaurav: I'm thinking about it
Diny: So let me go so for me it was always the larger cities London was my favorite city I think New York kind of came along the way and say San Francisco too because these are large cities melting pots fun lots of stuff happening sure but I'd say that's changed and now a lot of these cities the inner cities are sort of going through their own struggles crime is up people are moving out all of that is happening and safety is also a question so actually I was thinking about it and it is Dubai Dubai to me today offers the best of all worlds it's got lots of interesting things to do if you're a if you're into cars and motorcycles then there is the autod Drome there's a whole bunch of other Motorsports activity that happens there the Yas circuit if it's culture Abu Dhabi today has the loua there's a gugenheim that's coming up the ran mosque is worth visiting yeah food I mean you can't beat Dubai I mean it's actually you know every restaurant that you find in every part of India you'll find in Dubai so there are more Indian restaurants from around India than in Bangalore in Dubai so I think for all of those reasons Dubai ticks the box for me right now
Jeevant Sarma: interesting yeah
Gaurav: For me in terms of all the cities I've traveled to for work the country which excites me the most is Vietnam I think there there there lot of flares to that country and it's it's very very exciting yeah still still yet to discover it fully but but yeah Vietnam is very exciting yeah
Diny: Haven't been there as yet looking forward to go there in June
Gaurav: Yes we be doing a big big press launch there
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah so for me it's a two-part answer like my favorite place is also Vietnam I've also recently been very sweet people food is rough but actually my top one city after my IBD has become Bangalore I love coming back home like you know
Gaurav: Yes that's there
Diny: There's nothing better than sleeping in your own bed
Jeevant Sarma: Exactly yeah I love it
Diny: Couldn't agree more
Jeevant Sarma: Cool it was a fantastic conversation and I was not at all nervous I don't know the camera shows but yeah no it was it was fun learning all of this from you I think we've also never gotten the chance to dwell so deeply into IBD so yeah thank you for your time and it's been a fun session
Gaurav: And then next time we should Sireesh should do this in tight
Jeevant Sarma: Yeah yeah so that's it over and out from the chatter box looking forward to the next episode thanks folks
