Subhiksha has big expansion plans

Discount retail chain Subhiksha, which conducted a massive recruitment exercise recently, has big expansion plans.

R Subramanian, managing director of Subhiksha Trading Services Ltd, says, "We are opening 50 stores in a single day in the next 30 days in Hyderabad and 30 on a single day in Bangalore in the next 40 days."

Market observers feel this will clearly be the biggest retail activity in a single haul, if Subhiksha's plans were to materialise. Gibson Vedamani, CEO, Retailers Association of India, says this is not a difficult feat for a deep discount store like Subhiksha at all.

"The critical thing for them is to have the backend of merchandise in place. They are not very high on service or display and to that extent front-end is not an issue. And certainly, if they can pull it off, this will be a one-of-its kind activity," he said.

Most major players in retail (across categories) are looking at rolling out at least 40 stores each in the next two years. For instance, Spencers, which has 48 outlets that includes a combination of formats (i.e. daily store and four hyper markets) is looking at doubling the retail footage every year for the next four years. Meanwhile, the big daddy, Big Bazar, with 22 outlets across the country, plans to launch 50 more stores.

Subhiksha has created a niche for itself as the leading discount retail store for grocery and pharmacy. The retail chain is working at moving out of Tamil Nadu, where it has 145 stores across 31 centres. ICICI Venture has invested in two rounds in the venture and Subramanian admits that they have debt lines for working capital and projects from banks.

Business Standard had last month reported that Subhiksha had just roped in Abhijit Sanyal, ex-CEO at Boots Piramal Healthcare to head its western operations. The retain chain had also brought in Atul Joshi, who was the chief operating officer at Airtel, to head its northern operations.

Vinod Karnam, who was earlier with Marico, was roped in to look after the Andhra Pradesh operations, while Nagaprasad, who was with Dell Computers until recently, heads their Karnataka operations.