Grishma Patil, Director, Candour London
Grishma Patil is a dynamic young entrepreneur and director of Candour London. She is an alumni of Kingston University, UK. After completing her bachelor of Business Administrative degree from Kingston University, she returned to India and witnessed a huge opportunity in Indian Market. In conversation with ADC, Patil reveals how she got into the business of lingerie, which took over all her interests.
What is the idea behind Candour London?
The idea of Candour London was a continuous process throughout my university life in London. Having lived in Central London for four years, I got acquainted with brands like Victoria secret, Agent provocateur, M&S, Gap body etc. Like any other girl, lingerie was always a preference when it came to shopping. The fashion, range of colors, variety was something that kept me hooked to them at each time.
Coming back to India, I realized that lingerie shopping was monotonous and boring. The sheer need to improve and bring in a sense of youth fashion, fun and brilliance in Indian lingerie market triggered me to go a step forward.
What are the challenges /opportunities in this segment?
The major obstacle being faced is the heavy budget that the existing brands come up with for marketing. It depends on individual brands as to what means of promotion they go for but having said these are seasoned brands in market since the past 15years and hence know their drill very well. I am sure in the next 1.5 years Candour London will be at a stage where we will know our capacity and our budget will be set according to the brands future expansion plans. Although Candour is still just a 7 month old brand, we are investing where ever necessary and saving where ever possible as I go with a saying “saving is earning” specially in the demonitisation era where the entire economy is being affected.
How do you plan to scale up?
To starting with this venture, I invested of 1.5 cr it included manufacturing, employment, marketing, product designs. There is huge space in lingerie segment we are entering into Indian market by using unique brand strategy. We are investing into a state of the art technology and integrated manufacturing systems to deliver top class products. We strongly believe that differentiation through innovation and technology is the way forward. Candour London is well enabled to deliver a quality product to the Indian youth. We plan in doing associations with new and young designers and cosmetic brands to promote our products. We have planned on acquiring fund of Rs. 12-15 cr in the first phase to reach a turnover of 50-70 cr. In the 2nd phase we plan to acquire a funding of 50cr to reach a turnover of 200crs.
What is the USP of the brand?
Candour London is emerging youth centric brand in India and rapidly growing model which come up with various designs, innovation in gel bras and sweat free fabric. The USP of Candour London USP lies in complete lingerie shopping solutions to provide an incredible collection that suits the needs of each and every young woman.
Where do you see yourself five years down the road?
Our vision to build Candour London is most prominent brand by providing unique designs and comfortness to every young woman. We are doing a lot of product tie-ups with a couple of value premium and semi luxury brand in India to showcase our brand value. Although Candour has associated with factories in Sri Lanka and India, women undergarments are a very technical product to manufacture and need a lot of skilled labour, which we shall build our own unit in 2 years.
We are focusing to open Multi brand outlets pan India, will also associating with leading online stores.
Candour is available at around 205 stores in the major cities across India. We started with 70 stores in first month after launched.
Candour is available at around 205 stores in the major cities across India. We started with 70 stores in first month after launched. We hope to open over 1500 Multi brand A+/A/B+ outlets in 2020. We focus on 25-30% growth year on year from now on.