26
|
The Textile Magazine
SEPTEMBER 2011
Arvind
On way to becoming a
$2 billion conglomerate
cover story
H
ere’s another reason for you
to go on a shopping spree.
Global denim leader Arvind
Ltd. is on the half-way mark to be-
coming a $2-billion conglomerate in
the next three years. Now, you can
look forward to more stores where
you can shop for your denims, in-
formal clothing and formal dressing
options, all under the Arvind um-
brella.
Arvind has always been a pioneer in apparel
brands & retail space. It launched India’s first
branded denim Flying Machine in 1980 and in
1993 it brought in Arrow & Lee, the first set of inter-
national brands to be launched in India. Arvind’s
launch of Ruf-n-Tuf used to be a part of marketing
folklore in the mid-1990s.
“Arvind is now reaching out directly to the con-
sumers unlike in the past when it mainly supplied
fabrics to 6,000-7,000 retail traders,” says Mr. Ku-
lin, who is an electrical engineer from the Stanford
University and at present pursuing his MBA from
Harvard. “Our retail and brand initiatives are get-
ting bigger and bigger while the B2B module is
shrinking.”
To ensure a direct link with its consumers, Arvind
plans to set up 500 of its own retail stores across
the country by 2014, adding 120 stores a year.
Mr. Sanjay Lalbhai,
Chairman and MD
By K. Gopalakrishnan