Adgully Exclusive | Real estate boom has helped our business: Dicitex's Rajjnish Aroraa

The home furnishing industry falling under the textile industry in India has seen an unimaginable growth over the last few years. The textile industry contributes close to 4 per cent of the total GDP. This furnishing market is estimated at the moment is around Rs. 9,300 crore. By the year 2012, it is predicted to reach Rs. 20,000 crore. Also many foreign brands are attracted to the country due to the liberal foreign policy, which further increases in the revenue. The steady increase in the consumer's purchasing power has resulted in this market growing even further.

Dicitex Furnishing is one such player in the market that has managed to create a niche for themselves. It is a supplier of upholstery fabrics, embroidery fabrics, curtain fabrics, beddings, cushions, curtains etc. Recently this textile manufacturer has been looking at earning Rs. 400 crore in revenues by the fiscal year 2012 and has earmarked Rs. 100 crore for increasing production and brand building over the next year. They have currently a production capacity of 24 million meter annually and growth rate of 30%. They also plan to tie up with almost 200 major retailers for selling their products. The company distributes its products to a wide range of clients which includes Marks and Spencer's, Pride, Bharat Furnishing, Novelty, Jagdish Cloth Store, Floor Furnishing, Drape Shope etc. Dicitex also supplies furnishings to luxury hotels like Westin Hotel and has an exclusive right to vanity décor of Volvo buses and Czechoslovakian Skoda car.

Vice Chairman, Rajjnish Aroraa of Dicitex Furnishing talks to Adgully about the existing market in this segment and various marketing techniques.

Dicitex Furnishings is one of the 5th largest furnishings company in the world. It is a vertical integrated unity having factories in Tarapur and Surat. This company was initiated in 1999, with the family having a background in textiles for over 45 years.

They have strong exports network, catering to 65 countries like USA, Qatar, Muscat, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar and so on. The economy is growing in India and there is a lot of potential, everyone tends to change their furnishings within a year or two especially during festivals, also the real estate boom has helped our business", says Aroraa.

Dicitex Furnishings also recently came out with a collection of 24 sample books which have a variety of designs and colours and each concept that is being introduced in the Indian market will be stocked with the company. These books will be given to retailers, so that they need not keep a stock on the rolls. This is a part of direct retailing. "In today's market real estate is booming and so it is difficult to get space to show all designs, so in this sample book presentation we are saving on the space and can show more designs. The inventory level and the cost of maintaining the fabric stock is much less. This scheme we have come out with is a unique marketing technique", he further said.

Dicitex Furnishings has seen a tremendous growth in the last ten years and Mr. Aroraa is very hopeful for future growth and believes in investing back into the industry than investing in other segments like real estate.

He believes that this segment is going to grow at an incredible rate in India with the potential for their product becoming more and more appealing to the masses.

Furnishing companies are now looking at roping in Bollywood stars as its brand ambassadors, to woo the consumers in this segment. Dicitex Furnishings announced Bipasha Basu as their brand ambassador quite recently. This trend could be catching on because it may be easier for consumers to have a better brand recall with these known faces in a segment that is so niche. | By Janees Antoo [janees(at)adgully.com]