Every new thing begins with an idea, and then it turns into an action. Idea, has fluidity in its characteristic and hence the action based on it should also be fluid or flexible enough to achieve the optimum. In case of #entrepreneurship, the basic idea turns into a business model, again the model should be flexible.
We were inspired to enter organized food-grocery retail industry after my visit to Big Bazaar. Big Bazaar had a different scale and a different business model. We did enter the same space but with very different format, model and business idea.
#HeartyMart at Juhapura had two unique things about its brand identity – two brand propositions. In any brand communications, the brand proposition is unique and it is based on the inherent strength of the #brand. So having two different brand propositions wasn’t in sync with industry norms. We promoted Juhapura store with following taglines :
– The Friendly Super Market
– Sabse Khaas Ghar ke Paas
Our opening a store at Juhapura gave us a valuable experience of entering into an unexplored area. And in the process, we also realized that – The Friendly Super Market tagline wasn’t scalable and it was Juhapura area specific, to fight the negative perception of the Macro-environment of the area. We removed the tagline from our future communications, while promoting stores of other areas.
Armed with this experience we offered #HeartyMart franchisee in the locations which weren’t mapped even on Google Maps. When we started store at Juhapura we never thought of going rural way initially, but we remained flexible with our business idea and did what seemed right.
In order to support our rural franchisee business, we floated a new vertical in #HoReCa (Hotel/Restaurannt/Cafe) supplies. And we managed to create micro-enterprises to serve our clients ranging from 5 star hotels, to clubs to resorts. This turned out to be our cash cow, the profit we generated helped us in beefing up our back-hand support system that managed the rural franchisees. We created a wonderful ecosystem to help a rural #entrepreneurs in creating their own organized retail store at their home village/town.
Now, the brand was no-more a retail brand only. The fluidity in our actions helped us in moving from just a retail store to creating a business venture which had a strong presence in food sector. The Brand Proposition moved from retail store specific to something more!
When we started our retail store, our brand identity had an emoji of a smiling bag, to depict our happy customer. Then the brand moved to other businesses along with the retail, and started creating #microentrepreneurs we added corporate brand identity depicting a man with a smile and celebrations. This was to convey our promise of offering financial independence to those #microentrepreneurs who join us, by way of a retail franchisee or a #HoReCa venture. We ask them to have ‘Faith’ in us, keep ‘Hope’ and look for ‘Development’.
