The Hindu Business Line : Khadim's to foray into supermarket chains

THE Khadim's group of companies, with a large presence in the medium-prized footwear segment through Khadim Chain Stores Pvt Ltd in eastern, southern and central parts of the country, has chalked out plans to diversify into supermarket chains in the name and style of "Khadim's Khajana" supermarkets (which will also have footwear outlets), in semi-urban markets.

According to Mr Siddhartha Roy Burman, Director, Khadim Group, the first such Khadim's Khajana outlet, with an investment of Rs 2.5 crore, is expected to come up in Kanchrapara, near Kalyani in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, in August. Among the other centres where such outlets are likely, sometime next year, are towns such as Burdwan, Siliguri, Malda and Sodhpur.

The decision on more units would, however, depend on the success of the Kanchrapara outlet, he said.

Talking to Business Line here at the opening of Khadim's 180th (all India) retail store at the City Centre multiplex-cum-shopping mall at Salt Lake city, Mr S.P. Roy Burman, Chairman of the group, said quality footwear at an affordable price was still the prime concern of the group, and the company was now trying to seamlessly move into strategic manufacturing of footwear from a 100 per cent outsourcing mode. He, however, admitted that the outsourcing concept, especially in footwear, was now here to stay.

Khadim's has already commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to work on a complete business restructuring plan for the company. The group has many smaller companies, which have come up at different stages of business growth, and the objective now was to strategically merge the different synergies and core competence to create a compact footwear outfit.

Khadim's product range include items such as leather shoes and accessories, school bags, wash-n-wear moulded slippers and ladies fancy slippers. The group recorded a turnover of Rs 120 crore during 2003-04.

Mr Roy Burman said the new EVA (moulded low priced wash-n-wear slippers which may replace the popular Hawai range) unit near the existing footwear unit at Kasba industrial estate has now started operations, and is expected to pick up production soon.

The built-in capacity now is said to be around 4,000 pairs a day. The chairman informed that a centralised warehouse of around 60,000 sq ft near the factory site has already become functional. Equipped to cater to the needs of the all India market, the objective was to turn it into an intelligent warehouse, for which necessary software was being developed.

The group has elaborate plans to make a major foray into the southern markets, with Chennai as the retailing hub.

The chairman said the company was already scouting various locations in Chennai city to create a similar kind of warehouse, exclusively for the southern markets. He said some of the exclusive retail outlets of Khadim's were located in Bangalore, Chennai and Secunderabad.

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