Dear All,
Hi!
I am Vijay from Bangalore, a software professional having more than 15 years experience in India and abroad. Though lately I have started a business in retail. Where we are trying to popularize some of the north Indian snacks in Bangalore. It has shown very encouraging response.
Currently we are getting our supplies from north India, packing in Bangalore and supplying to shopping Malls and Retailers.
Though to graduate to the next level we need to have our own manufacturing in Bangalore. Thus we are looking for funding for the same.
This business has the potential to grow into a multi-million Rupees business.
Please go through the presentation below to have a better understanding of the business.
Sai1 from Vijay Nayyar
Ashwin C Parulkar
I think you need to take care of few things:
1 aim at building a brand by itself and branding the quicker u do…have an early entrant advantage
Competition:
1.the moment Haldiraams balaji and others enter banglore …will you cope up?
2 threat from other entrants
Nikunj Bubna
This presentation was very very ‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaunish’…means too goody goody & aal is well type
Also, find it hard to believe that little competition in something so commonplace as snacks in a buzzing metro like Bangalore. Remember, Pepsi’s competition is not just Coke, its Fanta, Sprite type colas also also + Frooti, Maaza type non-aerated fruit-based drinks also + Energee types also + Rasna, Tang, etc type home made beverages also + Bisleri type packaged water also + water & chaas at home also + ++++ & actually the list goes on. Anything & everything that compete for quenching my thirst are competing with Pepsi. Same way, even you need to look at competitors/ substitutes more seriously in order to get a better grasp of growth strategy.
Running is small localized business is one thing but the same set of assumptions cannot be applied if somebody is really thinking of Haldiram’s scale. The strategy needs to be much more refined with crisp thought
Darshan Bhambiru
Brilliant thought Vijay,
On My Recent trip to Hyderabad, I found the south Indian food GOOD for only a few days then the yearning for a Simple Vada pav was more than anything, Nice to see you tried this in Bangalore, Believe me You would Be Rocking if you land in Hyderabad and also there is currently hardly any Competition for you if you start NOW!!!
The reason Why McDonalds and Subway are making it Good is the simple reason there is No other Availability for anything apart from the Wada Sambhar, Rice and Other South Food available locally, creating a retail outlet with North Indian food items would be a big HIT.
Suggesting a Retail Instant snack food counter with Noodles or quick snacks apart from the regular Vadas and Bhajiyas with variations to throw in, maybe For the Lunch And Dinner times you can have a Menu of Select Punjabi, Rajasthani, Gujarati, Chinese or exotic or rather lesser familiar ones like Italian, Mexican, French Food made available Believe me You would Have an Audience in Queue!!! Once you get the hang of it, you may add more or select what is best and moving faster with operational management, maybe you would be able to find out the taste buds liking of the locals or visitors would come flocking too… Just a Matter of Time!!
Could not find Much serving such delicacies around when we tried though, so cant say much about Bangalore though but yes should be similar there as well.
The Timing is right the Location is also Rightly selected (Targeted) I can Vouch for this since I have been through it myself, when finding a simple Wheat Roti to eat was a BIG thing and every time when Hungry the BIG question was “What to Eat now?” For people who cant eat only Rice and Variants, Maida is not a very good idea for such people as I experienced myself.
Mix and Match not only packaged food, also look into the Retail counters that is where the actual money comes in from maybe a small Restaurant or Snack corner wold be sufficient in your chain of counters if not more.
You can have a centralized Ware house or Production Unit somewhere to supply locally using the Tempos Vans etc or can Brand one of your own too, there are a lot of Bakery units to which you can supply in Wholesale rates and they have regular customers flowing in looking for a variety or change from the regular as well.
If you go for the Modern Trade then this would be one less effort for you for the packaged variety.
Other wise you need to have your own Transport facility, maybe you can contract with some Transporter companies or also try the Courier Companies which have Vans etc for the purpose, if Railways is an Issue for Multi city logistics.
Established Players in the filed like Haldirams, Bikaji and some more in other states might try to replicate with minimum efforts since thy already have the rest of the Logistics and Packaging etc in place by now just locating and identifying the counter would be something that they might need to do, though this would seem like an eminent threat, you still have the early entrant advantage.
Wishing you Good Luck in your Endeavor!! Cheers!!!
I would be glad to be your customer when around for sure with my Gang 🙂
PS: How about the “Northern LIGHT” 😉
Nikunj Bubna
Also, my dear friend, when even large multi-billion $ market cap companies like Reliance Comm, Suzlon & plenty of others in India/ abroad see business collapsing to a fraction, then there is no such thing as assured in business. You might be doing a good Rs. 10 lakh business today, but it would be naive to call it an ‘assured asset class’ for an angel investor to get charged up with a 15% pa return prospect….builders pay 24% interest against property security, banks give SME loans at 15-18% kind of interest. I think even PE funds want 15% to 20% kind of IRR atleast when they invest in mature established businesses. VCs aim for a 5-10x multiple & angels look for a home-run. So, if you are looking for an angel, continuous scalability & sustainability is important to understand at this point.
Vijay Nayyar
Dear Ashwin,
Thanks for your reply, I appreciate your points raised, though yes we are already taking care of building the brand and that is the reason we are not compromising with the quality at all. Also we smilingly give replacements to slight issues raised by the customers.
Haldiram is already there in Bangalore, but some of our items are unique and are not catered by Haldiram’s. The other common items we give cost advantage to the customers.
Other entrants would be handled better than Haldirams.
I hope I have replied to the points raised by you. Still if have some more points, you are requested to raise the same.
I once again thank you for your interest to my post.
Best Regards,
Vijay.
Vijay Nayyar
Dear Nikunj,
Thanks for replying to my post, I really appreciate the concerns raised by you. Yes you are completely right in bringing to light the point it has to be a wider set of products we need to analyze from competition point of view. And of course we are no where near Haldirams at this point of time. But believe me the kind of response we have got it is nothing but over whelming. The other vendors who are selling similar products with a south Indian touch have their prices high which gives us distinct advantage. Also since the population of north Indians is rapidly increasing by every passing day, they are looking for the original north Indian taste. Thus this gets us over the hump you have rightly mentioned.
Yes you right again at this point of time we are not in a position to take on Haldirams head on. In fact we don’t intend to do the same at this time. Our focus at this point of time is to grow bigger in size by every passing week. And once we see we are large enough to take haldirams head we have to craft a separate plan.
I will be more than happy to hear from you, to understand if I replied to your points and if you agree with them.
Once again thanks for your time.
Best Regards,
Vijay.
Vijay Nayyar
Dear Darshan,
Thanks for your elaborate reply, I really appreciate the points raised by you, also I am happy to see you have the first hand experience to understand the paucity of North Indian snacks in South India. I also thank you for your encouragement that this business can rock. Yes you are right it can be taken to whole of south India that is Hydrabad, Chennai, Kerla etc.
Yes we plan to have a manufacturing unit in Bangalore, a store and a delivery network. I believe in playing cautiously and would like to grow step by step. As I intend to develop a robust model I would like to have good business in Bangalore and then replicate to the other cities.
In fact big players like Haldirams and Bikaji are already there but they don’t have some of the products we are offering. Also we give our customers the cost advantage in the common products.
I hope I have replied to your points, please let me now if I you have any other comments.
I once again thank you for your interest to my post and your good wishes.
Best Regards,
Vijay.