FRANCHISE and Retail Opportunities Expo and Conference made its beginning in Mumbai in 2005 and has now evolved as the ideal Indian springboard for the development of franchises both for domestic and international companies alike.
FRANCHISE and Retail Opportunities Expo and Conference made its beginning in Mumbai in 2005 and has now evolved as the ideal Indian springboard for the development of franchises both for domestic and international companies alike. The event brings all the brands looking to pass on their formula for success together and at the same time presenting hundreds of franchising concepts in more than 75 sectors of business activity. It is an exclusive platform for meetings where concepts can be presented to thousands of business investors to discover and buy top franchise concepts.
Two days, 14 sessions, 40 eminent speakers and over 350 delegates from across the country and abroad were the star attractions at the 4th Global Franchise, Retail and Entrepreneurship Summit' with a theme 'Creating Entrepreneurs'. The conference was held on March 16 and 17 in Mumbai, making it one of the largest and most successful conference on franchise and retail in Asia. The expo was exclusively dedicated to business opportunities in franchising and retail for business buyers, franchisors, developers, chain store operators, suppliers, and investors to network on a common platform.
The platform provided entrepreneurs an opportunity to know about in-depth study on local and international trends in franchising and retail industry. Around four dozen eminent giants from Franchising, Service and Retail industry were present on the dais to share their thoughts with the distinguished gathering on how to develop a business using the franchise methodology.
With increased retail competition, today, franchising is assured of setting up of business with international know-how and technology. The expo that attracted more than 8,000 visitors, were high net-worth individuals, investors and entrepreneurs looking at potential franchise brands that focus on Food (cafés, fast food restaurants, bakery, and grocery), Retail (chains & outlets), Hospitality (hotels, motels, travel and tourism services), Automotive (brands, service and filling stations), and Real Estate (developers & services). The event also saw domestic companies like Moti Mahal and Jetking taking franchising to new heights which reflected the success of the show.
Opportunity Seminar
Day One: The summit started with highlighting opportunities in Food & Beverages sector by Ravi Saxena, MD, City Max Hotels and Shikha Nath, Director, Blue Foods (Copper Chimney Group). Tarun Joshi, MD, Brand House Retail, Thorsten Allenstein, Country Head, Triumph International and Kunal Sachdev, CEO, Hidesign shared their thoughts and views on the Fashion and Lifestyle retail sector which formulates 50 per cent of organised retail in India.
Suresh Bhatia, MD, Major Brands and Pradeep Hirani, Chairman, Kimaya Studios highlighted the future of Luxury retail in India. The Specialty retail session was admired with great enthusiasm as Ajay Mehra, CEO, Times Retail, Aloke Banerjee, CEO, Carmichael House, Atul Jain, COO, 24-7, Gautam Sahni, Exec. Director, U.S. Dollar Stores, Vishal Lohia, Executive Director, Office 1 Superstore offered plethora of exciting business opportunities to the Investors.
A post-lunch session opened gateway of opportunities in Health, Beauty and Fitness Service Sector with Yogesh Sethi, COO,VLCC. Avinash Gupta, CEO, Tally Solutions and Rohit Swarup, Executive Director, Xplora Design Skool unfolded fantastic opportunities in Education and Training. The day concluded on a high note with an outstanding session in specialty services panelled by Pramoud Rao, MD, Zicom Electronic Systems, Ambreesh Murty, Director, EBay (I) and Parinjay, Business Head, Castrol Bikezone.
Knowledge Conference
Day Two: The Knowledge day started with two of the most powerful industries in India i.e. Telecom and Oil. Rajiv Handa, VP Retail, Tata Tele-Services and Jitendra Sharma, COO, Essar Oil discussed with the delegates on creating routes to entrepreneurship.
Sachin Marya, VP & CEO, Franchise India Holdings Ltd, gave an all encompassing presentation on working of Franchise Business. International Franchising and Licensing, a key area of interest in today's time saw Denis McFaden, Founder, JustCuts Australia, Diana Williams, Founder, Fernwood Fitness Centres and Paul Merrifield, Profitz Canada Inc unfolding powerful international master franchise opportunities for Indian market.
Panellists' discussions
Towards the end of second day session, an interesting debate on Franchise Relationships was held, headed by Ratan Jalan , CEO, Apollo Health Care along with R. Parthasarthy, Exec. Director, CADD Centre, Arun Khetan, CEO, KIDZEE and Nand Kumar, MD, Food Factory Express. Powerful Franchise resources were created with Legal and Tax issues in Franchising discussed by Gitanjali and Annaopoorna from Nishith Desai Associates.
Empowerment through franchising for women, veterans and minorities was taken up by Uday Mathur, MD, EuroKids, Sunil Uplap, MD,Tanclean, Sandeep Sewal, VP, Cookieman and Major K.V. Rajan, Exec. Director, Veta. The curtains were pulled down after powerful debate on Franchising in Retail with Akhil Chaturvedi, Chairman, Provogue, Shubranshu Pani, President Retail, Tramell Crow Meghraj, Manjunath Jyothinagar, Group President, Gitanjali Gems and Sanjeev Mehta, CEO, Shopworks (I).
Feedback
There has been a favourable feedback from the participants who were extremely happy with the 'quality' response they received at the exhibition.
At the end of the show, the executives from the exhibiting companies while appraising and applauding the success of the event echoed positive response such as: good crowd, Franchise India is always able to get quality investors to the show; Franchise India's ability to bring franchisors and franchisees on a single platform from multiple locations; great venue; serious investors and good advertising of the show with excellent media exposure; one roof for entrepreneurship; excellent platform for the dedicated and serious investors.
All expressed the opinion that the show was very well organized and to the best efforts and to promote new brands.
"The quality and quantity of visitors was excellent and we are confident that we will recruit suitable franchisees," said one company executive. The delegates were extremely rejuvenated and left the venue with big new ideas and practical suggestions on how to start their own business, inspired by business opportunities in the industry.
Franchise India has received a large number of queries from several franchising companies in India and overseas who have shown keen interest to take part in future shows.
Wrap-up
The participants and exhibitors revealed that several deals were discussed and many were under active consideration, numerous trade leads and business potential were also mentioned in the post event survey. The franchise and retail event has set the trend for future growth of the franchising industry in India.
The expo proved a milestone for the franchisors, franchisees, retailers and their proven brands. Over 150 companies from various business sectors exhibited their products at the expo and meeting with participants opened new doors for business opportunities as it provided a platform to new concepts and services from national and international franchise markets.
Franchise and Retail Opportunities Expo and Conference in Mumbai was the first in a series of exhibitions and conferences to be held in 2007 in Chandigarh, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Bangalore in months of April, June, August and September, respectively. The curtains would come down in December in Delhi with the concluding Asia's largest Franchise and Retail show 'Franchise India 2007' encompassing Expo, Conference and Awards.
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