We are a multi-channel player, not digital-first or D2C: Titan Company's Rahul Shukla

In its bid to expand premium international watches portfolio, Helios, premium watch retailer by Titan Company, recently announced its strategic partnership with Italian watchmaker U-Boat, marking latter’s entry in the Indian market.

With a robust offline presence in over 95 cities, the multi-brand retail chain is set to power U-Boat’s aspiration to capture Indian audience with custom-made timepieces by its founder-designer Italo Fontana. The first launch phase will see the company roll out U-Boat watches at 11 stores, primarily in metropolitans, and take it to 20 stores by the end of this year.

Rahul Shukla, vice president and chief sales and marketing officer, watches and wearables, Titan Company, thinks that Italian watchmaker is set to mark an upward growth trajectory, riding on Helios’ solid performance in the last few years. “Helios has been growing at a CAGR of 25% for the last five years. Last year, we grew by 35%. The premium and accessible luxury segment is growing at twice the rate of fashion segment. And hence, there’s no reason why U-Boat will also not demonstrate the same growth trajectory”, he tells Campaign.

With an extensive portfolio of 45 international brands, the watch store is bullish on adding more global brands to its kitty and U-Boat’s addition is the first step towards that goal. Through this move, the company has set its eyes on 45% growth in revenue ahead of the festive season, success of which relies on how the brand is able to retain Italian watchmaker’s USP.

“U-Boat is placed in the premium and accessible luxury segment. We are their partners in India and all their watches will be imported from Italy. It is very important to protect the USP of the brand because that is what the consumers are looking for. We have no intention of diluting that appeal”, Shukla stated.

On picking the marketing mix for the new entrant, Shukla said the brand is focussed to deliver with a niche approach. “We will do a lot of research on the profile of the consumers. Largely, Digital will have preference in our marketing mix because it offers customisation and personalisation of targeted communication. For products such as these, one cannot target through mass media”, he opined, adding that the brand is neither digital-first, nor direct-to-customer (D2C) and is “perfectly okay being a multi-channel player.”

The marketing leader also shared that the brand has no qualms in ducking the trends and having a traditional approach of staying true to its omni-channel identity because it has proven to be result-oriented in the past.

“We are an omni-channel brand. In our mind, there’s no conflict between online and offline. Rather, they are synergetic in nature. At overall level, roughly 18% of our business came in from online last year. Going by the trends, this number is likely to grow in terms of contribution to the overall business. For us, online is not just a tool of transacting but also a medium to influence on-ground sales.”

“Our strategy is not to limit our business opportunity to one particular cohort of customers. We want to reach out to customers wherever they are shopping from and devise strategy in each of those channels to gain leadership”, Shukla informed in an interview with Campaign.

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