Rahul Pandey : Hello everyone , this Titan company's own podcast so this is supposedly the first of the sessions of The Chatterbox and while we were wanting to get started we said who should we call on this platform the first day anyway what he's so excited to have today with us we call them with a lot of love infection BB who's nothing less than what should I say the man who's actually bought this organization to a another level a person who has been in the heart of all the titanians and the partners across the country.He is none other than Mr Bhaskar Bhat I how did it all started ,
Bhaskar Bhat : Well Titan came to me isn't it a little Presumptions of me to say Titan came to me well the reason why I say this is that Titan was created after I chose to join a company called Tara Press so it's a long story to cut it short I was working as a good salesman in a very good company in Ahmedabad Godrej and I was selling typewriters and locks and cupboards and so on and so forth and I applied for this job which talked about a large group getting
Bhaskar Bhat: Into watches and one thing led to the other I applied and low and behold I was told it's a Tata company the Tata want to get into watchmaking this was way back in 1982 I think December and everything kind of concluded in January but so I it was for a marketing executive's job marketing executive for for selling watch movements of manufactured by a company which then turned out to be our collaborators for watchmaking and I appeared for the interview and what I remember most is um after I was told it's the Tata is
Bhaskar Bhat : Getting into and the company was Tata press limited which no longer exists it was a printing press the the I was told I have to meet the managing director of Tata press limited and a vice president and so on and what struck me was before I went for the interview and knowing that its watches I'd prepared myself a lot in um British Library it was called the British Council in Ahmedabad went to the library and read about watches and movements and all kinds of things and this and so on and I walk into the interview and it was
Bhaskar Bhat : In Prabhadevi tata press into the anti-chamber which is where the secretary sits of the managing director managing director was Xerxesis Desai and in that anti-chamber just outside the door there was a big sign which said think big I said well I've been well the products I sell are big what the lock is small maybe the refrigerator is big but think big well anyway I went in so all that preparation you know sat and then it was all out of syllabus as in it it's was the man Xerxes Desai you know it was all about him as in it was not about
Bhaskar Bhat : Interviewing me literally it was about you know he started talking about the world watch market and you know how great the opportunity is and how the Tatas have decided to get into watches and how this project was in Project stage and how I would be part of the project team and of course that I would be marked a marketing executive selling movements and so on it was it was you know something completely or you know out of the box in a way for me because I expect it to be interviewed and asked questions about watches the
Bhaskar Bhat : Categories and it was completely different it was as if the other person was wanting me now that's a great feeling you know as in wanting to impress the other person versus being told look we need good people and anyway one thing led to the other and I joined I think around may I think May 1983 is when I chose to join Tata press limited as a marketing executive and my letter was from the Time products division of Tata press Limited a division of Tata press limited and I was selling watch movements at that time
Bhaskar Bhat : But the think big stuck with me and later much later like good MBAs translated it into thinking scale thinking different and all kinds of things um so Tata press was in conceived and incube I mean sorry Titan was conceived and incubated in tata press Limited at that time our joint venture with TITCO had not yet been signed the name Titan watches limited had not yet been coined that's the stage I joined so when I say Titan came to me but it was before wow so well I've been at the right place at the right time at least as far asTitan is concerned
Rahul Pandey : Fantastic right so we all can possibly say you came and that's how Titan came and now
Bhaskar Bhat: I wouldn't say that that would be too presumptuous to me Titan started because of Xerxes Desai and at that time Anil manchanda and a whole lot of others in the Tata group certainly at that time I believe Bharat Ratna JRD Tata was also very keen that Tatas get into watches and so on so it was I mean if you were if you were to take the prime mover was Xerxes Desai yeah
Rahul Pandey : You mentioned this about this thinking big so I will when we when the organization came into watches for a and we were looking at this interchanging industry patterns was that what was that thinking big element that came into picture
Bhaskar Bhat : It was it was it was multiple thinking big so when I say I translate thinking big into thinking different and thinking scale you know we were in a regulated industry at that time there was something called the MRTP ACT which was you know Monopolistic and restrictive trade practices Act it was called which means large groups and corporations were were not permitted to
Bhaskar Bhat : Get into certain industry sectors because then they would dominate it's now become the com competition commission and so on and so forth but it MRTP ACT is no longer valid so the entry of Tatas into the watch industry itself was a bit of a problem because we were not allowed to apply against a government initiative to increase capacity in the in watchmaking the thinking big really was when when the government changed we had actually been working on with our collaborator franci Bosch on a mechanical watch project because the
Bhaskar Bhat : Government had determined that all companies should have 20 quarts and eighty percent mechanical yeah our initial application was approved for only that but the government changed and Rajiv Gandhi came to power and so-called broadbanding happened in the industry all industries were permitted to choose what they wanted to in terms of Technology so I in a very momentous decision this Mr.Desai said we will get into quartz and that's another story by itself so the thinking big and thinking different started then you know
Bhaskar Bhat : While most of us who had at by that time it was already 1984 or 85 I had got familiar with the watch industry or the trade and I knew that 95 97 percent of watches made by India and sold in India were mechanical watches
Rahul Pandey: Correct
Bhaskar Bhat : So as a good professional you know I thought mechanical is the way to start and then eventually you know if quartz become because Electronics watches had a very bad reputation you know the digital watches that those imported ones imported and duplicate Casio kind of stuff sold by the kilo and so on
Bhaskar Bhat : But that decision to make only quartz and sell only quarts completely changed everything you know we had a lot of arguments with Mr Desai and with you know there were others who had by then joined from HMT and so on Amita for example very passionate about electronic watches and quartz and that led to multiple thinking different thinking big decisions for example the choice of setting up a world-class manufacturing facility was made then in Hosur that is we will not do screwdriver technology we will set up a proper industrial
Bhaskar Bhat : Facility in Hosur with world-class equipment and therefore Japanese actually Swiss and the collaborative was French and mostly Swiss equipment later Japanese German so if you can see as you can see even today 35 years later 37 years later it's a world-class facility whether it's watches or jewelry eyewear so that world class was the first thinking big in terms of manufacturing world-class in terms of technology which was squats world class in terms of quality which was ensured by the processes and the likes of Hari Rao and Mr Amita
Bhaskar Bhat : And BGD and shantaram who contributed to ensuring that the product is functionally by way of accuracy water resistance plating quality all that was a reliable long lasting and accurate similarly setting up the service facilities so that is second bit of world thinking big thinking different but the more important ones were about design LED that is showcasing a wide range of products to the Indian public which was not till then seen in India because people were relying on smuggled watches because you know what HMT was
Bhaskar Bhat : Selling was really archaic in terms of style and mechanical okay the rajats and the pilots and the ashes kohinoors all these okay very good watches No Doubt so we differentiated ourselves by showcasing Global kind of designs then the distribution was differentiated in terms of going to a retailer and ensuring that the displays were differentiated even in that counter because the idea was you will create a great product great designs great quality you do wonderful advertising including the advertising which was
Bhaskar Bhat : Differentiated to showcasing all our products in press including on television with Mozart you know that the tune which yeah which established a certain class for the product and you did all that and then suddenly the reality in the store would collapse if it was displayed very poorly so even that was done and going directly to the retailer so whatever was the market practice we actually swam against the current and that was thinking different but there was a logic to it that if we have to be considered by a customer you have to differentiate that principle continues I think in this company pursuing differentiation pursuing differentiation in multiple ways
Rahul Pandey : And that must not be an easy thing to do then
Bhaskar Bhat : Even now I think then or now I think then in a way it was easier because you know for example in media there was no choice to make okay one program ramayan if you were on you can access 143 million customers on that morning of you know the Rama and showcasing and you spend some two and a half lakhs for 30 seconds or something like that so
Bhaskar Bhat : Things have become much tougher if you ask me today much more complex so some things were simple some things were difficult but swimming against the current happens all the time continues to happen all the time day the last thing you know which company still believes in you know in our advertising on transparency which leads to trust so our ads the television ad would show the range of price for the product for this the catalog style advertising in press we would have the price of each Enterprise so customer in a way we found
Bhaskar Bhat : That customers the showroom was inside the customers house as in in the Press ad and people would come with cuttings of the watch and say now the price no argument this is the price so it was and of course functionality of the product you know quartz technology was explained how it was so much more accurate than a mechanical watch easy to maintain you don't you don't have to wind and so on and so forth those were the differentiators if you ask me
Rahul Pandey : I'm told very anecdotally that you used to actually carry a suitcase to go to all those retailers
Bhaskar Bhat : Well that is true and yet not true this the briefcase was also one of those differentiated thinking outcomes that is the briefcase I think in our first batch we had 21 sales officers and some SOS asms not asms yeah I think they were called ASM area manager areas the briefcase was designed for us a leather briefcase nice very high quality leather briefcase in which you could keep watch trace and each of those trays could hold 10 watches okay so you could hold three trays in a brief okay so 30 watches you
Bhaskar Bhat : Could carry because when you went into this shop you should look like a professional and you know the shopkeepers were primarily HMT mechanical watch sellers at least the big ones the immigration ones they would not let our sales force in so this carrying this and making a presentation the sales force was trained to make a presentation about the advantages of quartz and the quality difference of a Titan product and of course the designs were visible plus you know we changed everything and it was difficult of course for the sales
Bhaskar Bhat : Force because we used to take an advance from the retailer for booking the order for taking and then for delivery you had to pay the full balance that was unheard of because they were used to credit but everything that was done by the company at that time was to a differentiate but differentiates in the interest of the retailer and the end consumer what benefit for example direct retailing to the retailer was a big benefit he would get delivery at his doorstep whereas in the old system which is existing system he had to go to the HMT
Bhaskar Bhat : Distributor and then pick the watch up himself so he would lose half a day of his shop they so this was an economic benefit for it for him yeah that he don't didn't have to go custom the Titan salesman would go to his doorstep because and deliver some small things like that for the customer big benefit saying you know the showcasing was guessing the story and display advertising area and the marketing I think very well the advertising as I said Mozart and and Overkill in a way in terms of advertising budgets and you know so that's the second thing that the retailer appreciated that Titan brought the customer to his doorstep
Rahul Pandey : Which yeah I would assume that the other brand would generally yeah
Bhaskar Bhat : They had taken the market for granted in a way and so on wow interesting one so
Rahul Pandey: So now from in the 80s to late 80s when we started to made product and restart the market but I think by the time we hit the 90s ah it was not one of those very favorable market conditions in was that no
Bhaskar Bhat : I would say look our thinking big continued you know so we succeeded in the Indian market and by 91-92 we had become the larger player in the market we had just about I think begun to beat HMT okay in terms of volumes and so Mr Desai led by Mr Desai the company decided that the Indian stage was not enough we needed to be on the global stage and that's when this thinking big so we transformed in the mid 90s of the early 90s from I used to call it are 87 to 91-92 Journey was single single single single brand okay single product single Market single brand Titan single
Bhaskar Bhat : Product watches and single geography India from there we moved to that phase was multiple multiple multiple product and we we talk about it later multiple Brands so the first second brand first second brand was Timex you know time is which is watch brand but yeah but we had a we had a JV with Timex in the 90s early 90s okay so that was our brother brand Titan and Timex later of course we withdrew from the JV and launched Sonata and then Titan story of the mid 90s is multiple Brands Fast Track came later Sonata of course and
Bhaskar Bhat : Then you know Raga and you know so many brands in watches but the mid 90s also had This Global stage thinking big we should play on the global stage that had two components to it you know Rahul one was Global stage in terms of actually going outside India because we felt we had a very good product to offer and we had the capability to make great quality product equivalent to the European brands so we chose to go to Europe Middle East Far East simultaneously we opened offices in London Paris a design office in Paris office in Dubai
Bhaskar Bhat : And an office in Singapore and simultaneously not exactly early 90s we explored creating a world-class product which was the slim watch first and then the ultra slim it was called it has become edged The Edge actually is born Edge it was that thing about being recognized as globally was what drove us so the global stage was about geography and the global class was about product so the edge research had started and the funny part about Edge is actually I remember it much later the first thing that we did for ultra
Bhaskar Bhat : Slim and that was bgd's unique contribution was to develop the thinnest movement in the world quartz movement in the world and the watch came later having developed the thinnest watch movement frankly the domestic watch markets marketing guys like me didn't have belief that we could sell a very slim watch in India we can light people you know doesn't feel anything you should see it and having created spent money and having Rahul Pandey : Created capacity and capability you won't believe it one Basel fare you know Basel fare used to be standard
Bhaskar Bhat : For us every year we'd go and that was one more thinking big aspect of Mr desai's attitude and training in a way for many people exposing you to the world and world class so actually going to the Basel fair and seeing all the brands and beautiful displays great product fantastic marketing and you know those those showcasing Etc mind blowing you know including the wonderful dinners in French restaurants and so on opened your mind out to what the world was all about and connections with the watch world you
Bhaskar Bhat : Know over there in fact there's one side story where once the Titan stall which was inside a Francis Bosch Booth the Titan brand was people the the Swiss objected to our showcasing Titan oh yeah yeah because their rules didn't permit you know so at that time the Indian press lapped it all up saying Titan the Titan is seen as a threat kind of the Swiss anyway so we had this movement and we actually advertised for selling this movement and it was branded papion Papio in French means butterfly
Rahul Pandey : oh
Bhaskar Bhat :And we actually had an ad in Europa Star saying we have developed the world's slimmest movement God's movement and it's you know on a sale if you want come to stall number so and so and the price was some I don't recall now 36 Swiss Francs or something like that you imagine if we had actually sold the movement we wouldn't have been the only people making making the slimmest watches in the world later Edge was launched in fact bgd himself developed the edge watch because of the you know the challenge was in the waterproofing you know creating that
Bhaskar Bhat : Gasket which would predict the watch from the Water Country because India water anything is one big issue so that was the other angle the European foray of course was the and at that time the other product we launched was jewelry I was wanting to come to this so actually jewelry is a story which jewelry was originally conceived as an export product and it was primarily because we had Ambitions to launch watches in on the global stage and wanted to set up a separate world-class facility for Swiss quality components and cases
Bhaskar Bhat : Swiss the Euro case plant needed a lot of Foreign Exchange so jewelry export for earning foreign exchange was actually the origin of Jewelry in this company later of course we realized that the Indian market was very very large I mean not that we didn't realize but we chose to enter the Indian market ah in the 95 was our launch but before that we had actually sold the overseas Market there was a very good sales guy I think manvinder Singh who used to carry jewelry case again briefcases across the world lovely
Rahul Pandey : So which means we can say tanishq which is the currently the current is biggest jewelry brand was in a way conceived as a
Bhaskar Bhat : As an export business but tanishq again is a great story it starts the name was much later it started as aurum and then Celeste these were the names we had even advertised for franchises for aurum oh or something like that anyway tanishq was a tan and Ishq so jewelry again had a lot of fuss you know so differentiation carried on jewelry is such a great story of differentiation in terms of business model itself you know apart from all the
Bhaskar Bhat : Others which is product and but early days jewelry was a cut and paste strategy of watches almost like if diamonds is selling in the rest of the world we will do only diamonds if retailing we had kind of done a good job in watches we'll do retail world-class retail stores for jewelry and they premium positioning Etc etc without realizing that the Indian jewelry market was very different from the rest of the world and what succeeded in watches actually didn't succeed in the early days of the jewelry it was exactly the opposite the
Bhaskar Bhat : Category truths in jewelry were very different you know Rahul what succeeded in watches so wonderfully we hit the ground running and you know we grabbed market share from both mechanical watches and other brands didn't work so well in jewelry because it was almost those tenets that we applied in watches yeah principles of differentiation which was a world a product that the world was celebrating which is Diamond jewelry and sold in stores which were Boutiquish and also brand creating a brand these did not work in jewelry because the
Bhaskar Bhat : Category truths in jewelry we realized Indian jewelry in the country in this country it has a lot of tradition associated occasion purchase wedding investment orientation versus adornment a lot of learnings and the early failure in a way of tanishq because the stores it was an elitist positioning and the products were beautiful they were much appreciated but the walk-ins were very poor and the greatness of this company really is our ability to quickly change one was from export orientation to India and then within India
Bhaskar Bhat : Realizing that 22 karat gold jewelry was important and then moving forward you know so the lesson to me really was that what works in one category doesn't apply always to the other category you have to go into the depths of understand consumer not Behavior drivers of the category drivers in each category and then discover the differentiators and then work on those the second in that phase as I said are Geographic expansion meant a lot of money to be invested Europe didn't succeed at all we actually lost a lot of money
Bhaskar Bhat : And because we went to 11 countries together simultaneously in in that phase we mult we entered multiple businesses as I said jewelry Europe the Timex JV we in fact even launched clocks table clocks because we acquired some Machinery from a from a Hyderabad company and jewelry you know the launch jewelry so that time much later we realized from that phase of the 90s that when you get do something new experiment first pilot yeah these initiatives before you scale so pilot before scaling the third thing was don't launch anything big if even if you didn't pilot if you didn't have sufficient bank balance cash which is yeah especially if you want to go overseas you have to have what BCG used to call a war chest oh a war chest which has to be several times bigger than your any cash flow or investment that you would have imagined because if things can go wrong and they can go very wrong yeah yeah assumed so that wow.
