Apparel retail brand Madame plans to focus on sustainability model of business and will take to cost optimisation in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic, said Akhil Duggar Jain, Executive Director, Madame.
Speaking to IANS, Jain said that the company has trimmed its expansion plans for this financial year and it will open only seven new stores in FY21 against the previous plan of 22-25 stores in 2020.
He also said that in terms of cost optimisation, Madame will also enhance its back-end operations and improve the logistics segment.
He noted that several other businesses too would move towards the sustainability model.
“Everybody, especially our company is working more towards the sustainability model. Because, the impact is not just on us, the impact is on 2,000 employees, their families. We are planning more of a sustainability model as of now,” the Executive Director said.
He noted that the company will think more about the ‘bottomline’ now — the profits, — and less on topline — the revenues.
“While expanding, you think less about the bottomline and more about the topline, so tables are reversed now. Everybody is saying, let the topline be whatever it is, let’s keep the bottomline OK,” he said, adding that, at this point cost optimisation comes into the play.
He said that the apparel major will open new stores in Ahmedabad, Itanagar, Bengaluru, among others this fiscal. Among the seven stores scheduled for launch this year, one was launched in Lucknow last month.
On the business outlook, Jain was of the view that the demand for apparels may pick up by November on the back of the festive season.
He predicted that the market is likely to see a full recovery in the second quarter of the next financial year, around a year from now and then companies will be able to turn towards the expansion mode.
“Quarter two of next fiscal, almost a year from now….we will be again talking about expansion, more experiments,” Jain said.
Must Read
