2014
71
A Case Study on Excellence at Titan Industries
Rana Singh & Amit Singh
Titan is one of the fastest growing entities under the
umbrella of the Tata enterprise. If you are in touch
with a person from India (or Indian origin), chances
are that you might have noticed that person sporting
a fine watch- typically from one of these brands-
Fastrack, Sonata, Raga, Xylys, Regalia, or Octane
and last but not the least, Titan. It is staggering
figure that 1 out of 3 Indian wears a watch which
is somehow linked to Titan. The name Titan has
now become a synonym for watches- not just in
India, but worldwide. Titan Industries Limited is
currently the fifth largest wrist watch manufacturer
worldwide and India’s leading producer of watches.
Titan Industries was started as a joint venture
between Tata Group and Tamil Nadu Industrial
Development Corporation, in 1987. The venture
started as a core producer of watches, and has now
spun off to include accessories and jewellery as well.
With over 900 retail stores (including standalone
Titan and Titan World Stores), in over165 cities,
Titan has India’s largest retail network today. The
company has over 364 exclusive ‘World of Titan’
showrooms and over 140 Fastrack stores. It also
has a large network of over 742 after-sales-service
centres.
Today, Titan has three main divisions- Watches,
jewellery and eyewear for the end users. A fourth
category, for precision engineering also has place
in the company, which deals with manufacturing
of specific engineering parts.
What and How of Titan
In the mid-1980s, the Indian watch marketwas
dominated by HMT and Allwyn, the only major
players in the sector. Titan brought to India a new
way of wearing watches- at affordable prices and
thus transforming the whole market. The company
has sold 150 million watches world over and
manufactures over 15 million watches every year.
Entering the largely fragmented Indian jewellery
market with no known brands in 1995, Titan
Industries launched Tanishq, India’s most trusted
and fastest growing jewellery brand. Gold Plus, the
later addition, focuses on the preferences of semi-
urban and rural India. Completing the jewellery
portfolio is Zoya, the latest retail chain in the luxury
segment.
Titan Industries has also made its foray into eyewear,
offering a variety of differentiated products to the
end consumer consisting of frames, lenses, contact
lenses and accessories. Frames are available in
both international brands (Levis, Esprit, Hugo Boss
etc.) and in-house brands – Titan, Eye+ and Dash
which is an offering for children. The company
has leveraged its manufacturing competencies and
branched into precision engineering components
& sub-assemblies, machine building & automation
solutions, tooling solutions and electronic sub-
assemblies.
Titan Industries is also the largest jewellery retailer
in India with over 150 Tanishq boutiques and 2
Zoya stores, over 30 Gold Plus stores. It also sports
over 225 Titan Eye+ stores.
Vision and Mission
The vision of the founders of Titan is to be a world
class, innovative, progressive organization and
to build India’s most desirable brands. This is
backed by their mission, which is to create wealth
for all stakeholders, by building highly successful
businesses based on customer centric approach,
and to contribute to the community.
All holdings and ventures of Titan are supposed to
adhere to the below mentioned values:
√ Total Customer Orientation
√ Employee Appreciation
√ Performance culture and team work
√ Creativity and innovation
√ Passion for excellence
√ Corporate citizenship
√ Excellence- ingrained in the day to day working
Titan has, following its people centric approach,
always held people at the centre of its working. The
company boasts of the lowest attrition rate in India
at 9.5% [1], in this particular industry- a firm proof
of the effort put in the culture and practises followed
at Titan. The core competence of the company- is
kept intact by training and development of all the
72 Amity Global Business Review February
employees, along with lateral movements across
divisions and functions.
Titan Industries began its operations with an
innovative offering - quartz watches - that changed
the face of the Indian watch industry. Innovative
ideas at Titan Industries have led to significant
achievements such as Single Point Solutions to
every Original Equipment Manufacturer customer.
“Innovation School of Management” (IScM) has
been started to address the objective of creating the
ability to innovate and making it a culture among
the employees.
At IScM, students are trained on various tools
and techniques to develop innovative thinking
capability, and the Head of Departments are trained
as a Mentor to use the innovation outcomes. Tools
and techniques enable students to think out of the
box and beyond the obvious. The graduates from
IScM deploy this learning to resolve problems at
work, as well as in their personal lives.
Innovation is the prima-facia here at Titan. To
foster innovation and to provide a platform for all
employees to come up with their innovative ideas,
Titan Innovative Council has been formed. It is a
cross functional team, with representatives from
senior as well as middle management. Some of the
innovative steps taken up by the Titan innovative
council are [1]:
1. Innovation Bazaar: aimed at cross functional
learning and development, this “bazaar” or
gathering, is held at regular periods to showcase
the learning/innovation across all divisions
of Titan industries. The four major sectors,
viz Process, Services, Design / Product and
Marketing / Retail / MSG83.9466
Customer service all send representatives to edify
others about their developments, while learning
about the latest trends in the other sectors from
the same.
2. Interweave: In line with the Innovation Bazaar,
Interweave provides a platform for presenting
the innovative ideas applied across different
businesses.
3. Tata Innoverse: is a social networking platform,
for all subsidies of the Tata family. Employees
from various organizations of Tata interact
together to discuss about various topics, ideas
and compete with and along each other on
various challenges thrown up by the senior
management.
4. Innovation centre: the most celebrated and
distinguished initiative of all, Innovation
centre provides the employees with a physical
space to experiment and meditate as well. The
innovation centre consists of two parts: first
hall, called the Xerxes Hall of Creativity houses
the “exploration” laboratory, a state of the art
library and study area. The second hall is the
Bhaskar Bhat Hall of Tranquillity, is the hall
where prospective innovators can meditate,
introspect, listen to lectures or practice yoga.
5. Titan Innovation HUB: Set up at IIT- Madras
Research Park, Chennai, it enables Titan to
leverage the specialized expertise of the faculty
and students and to utilize their facilities, labs
in creating a collaborative environment between
industry and academia through joint research
projects and consulting assignments and in
creating a self-sustaining and technologically
fertile environment.
Success Stories
Titan has come a long way from just being any other
watch manufacturing to becoming a household
name. In the words of Mr HG Raghunath, CEO,
Watches & Accessories, “One of our biggest
milestones was starting our own assembling and
manufacturing assemblies. Watch manufacturing
involves precision engineering- very high level
of quality measurements and manufacturing
tolerances of micron levels, and that was a very
big challenge we overcame”. Today, “Titan
manufacturing unit is one of the best in the world”,
comments Mr. Raghunath [3].
When Titan entered the watch industry, the top
management soon realized that the Indian market
still perceived watches as rather a necessity than
a fashion accessory. They began changing the
perception- by introducing fashionable and trendy
watches, which were aimed at not just the youth but
for people of all ages. And thus the watch market
in India started to grow and soon the demand for
high profile (and easy on money) watches grew.
The watches then began to be seen as a fashion
accessory, which prompted the management to
introduce new and innovative designs at a faster
2014 Rana Singh & Amit Singh
pace. Thus, the company made its own market,
introducing opportunities on the way.
Titan started introducing stories around its watches,
to bring about a feeling of connectivity from the
people. Raga, the women’s line of watches, was
aimed at the independent, young and free Indian
woman. Fastrack, was projected as the “uber cool
watch”, while Sonata remained the common middle
class Indian’s watch. The management also realized
the importance of the looks and appearance of the
stores as an important factor for finalizing the
sales. Titan has around 900 stores spread across
the country, which is one of the largest in India.
“A very significant portion of our sales-over 50
percent-comes directly from our showrooms”,
explains Mr. Raghunath.”[2]A question remains, as
to how do Titan, starting from something as simple
as watches, was able to branch out into other
segments as well. According to Mr. Bhaskhar Bhatt,
Managing Director, “We are a unique enterprise.
We are brand owners, as well as retailers and we
are market leaders in each of the retail businesses
we are in. The external world looks at us and they
don’t see a comparable company”. The company
has worked hard to remain a people oriented one,
compiling research data from all major cities of
the country. There are representatives who are
connected to the consumers on a daily basis as well.
Another important aspect of their business was
the major emphasis on franchising. All franchise
partners are chosen after a thorough check of their
ethics and terms of business. The idea of long term
partners is always encouraged, rather than people
who were to support the company in terms of
money [2].
So how does Titan manage to bring out new and
innovative designs every now and then? [4] “Designs
for us are about extremely creative people working
within a well-defined process”, explains Ms Revathi
Kant, GM Designs. “It is a fine balance between
the two, not so much process that it subjugates the
creative instinct, and not so much creativity that the
process is derailed”[4]. Titan implements the 3 “I”:
Immersion, implementation and inspiration, along
with detailed customer research and insights.
The culture of the organization is remarkably
different from what other Indian companies
normally exhibit. It is quite common to see the
senior management walking down the office in
73
casuals, the CEO riding a bicycle to work and the
MD using the public buses for trips to the airport.
Also, most of the top management has remained
unchanged over the years- showing the trust which
the founders of Tata have over the company, and the
satisfaction which employees have been garnering
from their work.
Tanishq, Titan Eye+ and Precision
Engineering
Boosted by the unprecedented success of the
watches segment and continuing on the fashion
accessory segment, titan came out with Tanishq,
in 1994. Building on the same framework as
Titan, Tanishq soon became a household name
for branded jewellery and ornaments. Apart from
the bringing out new and fashionable designs,
Tanishq introduced new concepts like the Karat
meter, which validates the quality of gold for
the consumers. They have provided local tastes
depending on the regions- Maharashtrian, Bengali
(for the states of Maharashtra and Bengal), while still
using the franchise concept for opening up stores.
Gold, women and India, proved to be a very strong
combination, and it did not came as a surprize that
Tanishq actually overtook Titan Watches in terms
of annual sales.
Continuing on the success of the two brands,
Titan then came out with Titan Eye+. Spectacles
were once again viewed as a necessity, rather
than the style statement as seen in other countries.
“There they are style accessories. We sensed an
opportunity to bring that thought to India”, says
S. Ravi Kant Sharma, CEO of the division [4]. The
spectacle industry was largely unorganized in India
and thus this idea again proved to be a hit among
the customers, mostly the youth.
The manufacturing facility at Titan, which had set
examples for top notch efficiency and effectiveness,
paved the way for the precision engineering
department. Set up in 2005, the department has four
divisions- one that provides solutions for aerospace
and oil & gas industry. The second division caters to
automotive, pharmaceutical and other businesses,
the third for tooling the high accuracy products and
the last one to assemble the printed circuit boards.
Community Development
As responsible parts of the society, Titan Industries
74 Amity Global Business Review February
has a number of corporate initiatives lined up.
These initiatives are aimed at giving something
back to the society, which include [2]:
Education of Underprivileged children
Women empowerment
Environment Management Programs
Artisan Parks
To make these initiatives a success, a Community
Development Forum has been established, with
over 250 volunteers. The community acts as a link
between the volunteers and the people for whom the
activities are aimed at. The main objectives covered
are: Aids Awareness campaigns, providing work
to the unemployed, vision check and improvement
programs, community rehabitilation, tsunami relief
funds, campaigns against child labour, to name a
few.
Also, in house measures are taken up to minimize
wastage and to make the manufacturing process
as effective as possible. The manufacturing
unit at Hosur has acquired the prestigious ISO
9001 certification- Quality Management System
Standards and the ISO 14001:2000- Environment
System Standard. Also, the “War on Waste”
initiative encourages all employees to reduce waste,
at all level of work [1] [3].
A few of the current initiatives include Titan
Scholarship, awarded to around 550 students from
the economically backward section. Titan town-
ship a programme launched with collaboration
with two non-government organizations- MCA and
Ashraya, to provide housing to 1300 residents.
Titan, a Celebration
Having completed twenty five years, Titan owes its
success to its people centric approach. With highly
competent individuals joining the organization over
the years, Titan has access one of the most reliable
and effective talent pool in the sector. Moreover,
a loyal consumer base, that offers more than just
the normal demand for the products, backed by a
continuous improvement spirit will definitely help
Titan to branch out into more domains and externs
their reach to more consumers.
References
1. h t t p : / / w w w . t a t a . i n / c o m p a n y / a r t i c l e s / i n s i d e .
aspx?artid=zhRSC/Em76Q=#sthash.SiOi4k7O.dpuf
2. h t t p : / / w w w . t a t a . i n / c o m p a n y / a r t i c l e s / i n s i d e .
aspx?artid=+EDecBknW6k=#sthash.CbmygX3p.dpuf
3. h t t p : / / w w w . t a t a . i n / c o m p a n y / a r t i c l e s / i n s i d e .
aspx?artid=P1EgeLXMRaw=#sthash.S8s9Dt4l.dpuf
4. h t t p : / / w w w . t a t a . i n / c o m p a n y / a r t i c l e s / i n s i d e .
aspx?artid=Qga/DOK20zw=#sthash.hjtVhLDX.dpuf
Exhibit I
Titan Industries –Vital Statistics
• Titan has close to 700 stores spread across the
country and 810,000 sq. ft. in total of retail space.
• The watches division has 340 stores and 829
service centres. Tanishq the Jewellery Division
has 151 stores.
• Titan Eye+ the eyewear business has 185 stores,
and the company’s youth brand Fastrack has 47
outlets.
• Titan produces more than 13 million watches a
year making it the fifth-largest watch maker in
the world. It has sold over 135 million watches
till now.
• The watches division commands an impressive
market share of over 45% in the Indian watch
market and it recorded an impressive growth
of 25 percent in 2010-11.
• Titan has more than 5,200 employees and an
attrition rate of 7.5 percent which is considered
to be one of the lowest in the industry.
Reference: http://www.tata.in/company/articles/
inside.aspx?artid=+EDecBknW6k=#sthash.
CbmygX3p.d
Exhibit II
Financial Performance: 2010-2011
Jewellery 50.14
Watches 13.09
Others 2.49
Total Income 65.71
Profit After Tax 4.34
All figures in Billion Rupees
2014 Rana Singh & Amit Singh 75

Exhibit III

Source: moneycontrol.com. http://www.moneycontrol.com/financials/titanindustries/balance-sheet/TI01

further increase the employee retention? Suggest
Questions for Discussions
the various measures to be adopted.
1. Analyze the feasibility of Titan’s foray into eye-
care segment. Can they further branch out into 4. Recommend strategies for Titan Industries to
other similar segments? attain and sustain global competitiveness and
how to maintain leadership in the Indian market.
2. Comment on the marketing mix and USP of the
Titan Watches.
3. Initiatives like “IScM” are considered a big
measure for employee retention. How can Titan
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