Samsonite has grabbed share from us

IN JUST about six months after taking over as the managing director of VIP Industries, Radhika Piramal —daughter of business historian Gita Piramal and company chairman Dilip Piramal — has already earned respect from rivals. "VIP is not operating like earlier. She seems to be a tough task master and it shows in VIP's aggression on the field," says a top executive of a rival company. In her second stint with the family business, Ms Piramal is determined to get back the market share VIP has conceded to Samsonite by launching its premium brand. In 2000, after graduating in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University, Ms Piramal had joined VIP Industries as a rookie brand manager before joining Harvard. She returned to the company in July 2009 as a director, armed with a degree from Harvard and work experience at Bain & Co and Future Brand in the US. As the MD of the Rs 1,870-crore VIP, her biggest challenges are to relaunch Alfa brand and recruit and retain top talent, Ms Piramal to ET's Maulik Vyas in an interview. Edited excerpts:

VIP Industries is the second largest luggage maker in the world, but it's almost 10 years since you have launched any new brand. Why?
During the 1990s, we had launched many new brands. However, after a point, we realized that these sub-brands were diluting VIP's brand equity. So, we began focusing more on the flagship brand and at the same time worked towards making other brands stronger. We realized we needed a brand for soft luggage in our portfolio and that's when, Foot Loose, our last brand was launched in 2001. Now we are planning to bring our European brand Carlton to India to cater to the premium segment and also re-launching the Alfa brand for mass market.
VIP is preceived to be a massmarket brand. Aren't you too late to enter the premium segment?
We acquired the premium British brand Carlton in 2004. However, we didn't bring it to India since we had a distribution agreement with French luggage brand Delsey SA then and marketing its luggage in India. We believe there is not enough space for two premium brands. Recently, we took the decision to terminate the distribution agreement with Delsey to focus on our own brands. We will sell the Carlton brand by opening exclusive stores in the next quarter. Indians are travelling to more geographies than they ever did before and it is time to promote this segment.
Samsonite is aggressively opening stores in India while Tommy Highflier has plans to launch a luggage label from India? How will you deal with such intense competition?
Samsonite came to India in the mid-90s and grabbed some share from us. Currently it has around 15% market share in the organised luggage segment. However, we are determined to get that share back by launching our premium brand in India. We have our own research and development (R&D) centers and
aggressive promotional plans for it. As far as Tommy Highflier is concerned, we have seen that companies with fashion background have not succeeded in hardcore luggage segments.
It's been more than six months since you became the MD. What changes hav you brought to the company ?
This is my second stint in VIP. When I joined the company after a gap of six year, my single aim was to increase our top-line. The biggest challenge is to relaunch Alfa at affordable prices without compromising on the quality. Another challenge is to recruit and retain good people for growing other portfolio brands. We already have a seasoned management team for VIP.