Given the ever increasing consumer aspirations, beauty and wellness players across India are constantly innovating themselves. This has lead to a swift transition from being unorganised' to 'organised' and is all set to be recognised as 'specialised chain
Given the ever increasing consumer aspirations, beauty and wellness players across India are constantly innovating themselves. This has lead to a swift transition from being unorganised' to 'organised' and is all set to be recognised as 'specialised chains' by constantly diversifying themselves.
WITH the society advancing into realms of modernity, the concept of beauty and wellness has taken a whole new dimension. Besides with the proliferation of mass media, rapid urbanisation and rising affluence, people are increasingly becoming conscious about the way they look.
As the willingness to experiment with looks and style permeates through the mindset of Indian women and men, India is becoming a major consumer of beauty, hair care and wellness services. Although at a nascent stage, the organised hair care, beauty styling and wellness segment is turning out as one of the fastest growing segments in India.
The unprecedented growth of this industry is indicative of the lucrative opportunities through franchising that exists in the current business economics of India. Indian wellness service market is USD 2.2 billion (INR 110 billion). Wellness covers a spectrum of services ranging from beauty therapies to ayurvedic and slimming solutions.
According to a report, the Indian beauty and salon industry is a significant part of the growing wellness business in India and is estimated at INR 35 billion of which organised segment only stands for 20 per cent of the total value.
Beauty of franchising
Although franchising in beauty salons is quite a recent phenomenon but this has not restricted the brands to eye expansion only in metro cities. Rather, franchising has contributed in a big way for brands to penetrate markets deeper with outlets in the tier-I and II cities. Another fostering trend is diversification of service bouquet, which has now become mandatory for majority of franchisors in health, beauty and wellness industry. Big brands are constantly expanding into wider segments to enlarge the consumer base, for instance, the Strands Salon Pvt Ltd which has launched Bourjois Spa as well as Strands Academy and now has the Perfect 10 nail salon. Jawed Habib, Jawed Habib Xpress and training academy are synergistic businesses to each other thus extending extra services. Similarly, L'Oreal Professional, a division of L'Oreal, has invested in technical centers (Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore) along with franchising their branded salon business.
Although, diversification is being practiced as a growth strategy by many brands, it is recommended that companies whilst diversifying should be confident about the diversification being well aligned with the company's core strength. It is a step forward from the company to offer a 360 degree service paradigm to the customer thus benefiting the franchisee by increasing his target segment as well as bringing in extra revenue. Majority of renowned brands like Lakme, Jawed Habib, Naturals, Shahnaz Husain salons and several others share similar opinion that franchise centers offering varied services under one roof is the ardent need of the current times.
The writer is a Senior Consultant with Francorp.
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