The Hindu Business Line : Relaunch to give Vimal a makeover

Ahmedabad, Aug. 8 Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) plans a nationwide relaunch of its textile products under the Vimal brand during the forthcoming festive season beginning September-October. Apart from fabric and home furnishings, the company is also looking at the option of launching readymade garments through outsourcing as part of the bouquet, and increasing the turnover of its textile unit at Naroda here four-fold to around Rs 800 crore in the next three to four years, sources told Business Line.

However, when contacted, a company official declined to comment. RIL, which began preparations in January this year for the Vimal re-launch, is pumping in about Rs 20-25 crore into an aggressive brand-building exercise to bring back into the reckoning one of country’s well-known fabric brands.

The relaunch is against the backdrop of the proposed launch of RIL’s first hypermarket, Reliance Mart, on the S.G. Highway here.

The mart is scheduled to open shortly in an area of about 1.65 lakh sq ft at the upcoming ISCON Mega Mall.

This would be followed by a second and even bigger mall on a 2.50 lakh sq ft area at Jamnagar, the hub of RIL. Twenty-five more malls are expected to come up across the country this fiscal.

While the company already has a dozen Reliance Fresh stores in Ahmedabad, its first hypermarket would house nearly 95,000 product lines, encompassing 3,900 categories.

The Vimal brand, which began with sarees in the ’70s, graduated to men’s suitings in the ’80s and home furnishings under the Harmony brand thereafter, is being revamped in a big way. The textile unit, which has been virtually dormant for more than five years now mainly because of the company’s foray into other businesses, is expected to bounce back with an aggressive campaign.

With its entry into retail business, Reliance sees great potential in reviving Vimal through the synergy between its oldest and newest businesses.

For this purpose, RIL has hired Mr Anand Parekh as President, and some half-a-dozen high-profile Vice-Presidents, including Mr Rajiv Pal, over the last few months. Mr Parekh had earlier been credited with rebuilding brands such as Digjam, Ruf-n-Tuf and Flying Machine, and also with turning around Birla VXL.

The existing 20-odd exclusive Vimal outlets across India would all get a fresh look and new ones would be embedded in the Reliance Mart format.

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