Reliance Retail to 'leverage' Reliance Jio's strength to consolidate position

Reliance Industries' retail arm will leverage the strength of group's telecom vertical, Jio, to further consolidate its position in the organised retail sector in India through aggressive expansion plans, according to RIL's latest annual report.

Reliance Retail, which crossed USD 10 billion sales and became the first Indian company to enter the world's top 200 retail chains, would continue to expand network in tier II and III cities in the country. 

It has identified four key pillars to achieve expansion that includes -- augmenting geographical reach, innovating newer store concepts and channels, enhancing customer experience and leveraging technology. 

"Reliance Retail has the ambition of reaching the hinterlands of the country and is putting together a framework of expanding each store concepts across tier 2 and tier 3 cities and beyond to achieve market leadership," RIL said in its annual report for FY 2017-18. 

It further said: "It will leverage and interplay strengths with Reliance Jio to execute this." 

According to the company, the retail sector has huge scope to grow as "organised retail has a 9 per cent share in the overall Indian retailing market, providing significant growth opportunities to the formal sector".

Reliance Retail's revenues grew 104.9 per cent Y-o-Y to Rs 69,198 crore, sustaining a revenue CAGR of 45 per cent over the last 5 years. 

"Reliance Retail is the only Indian retailer to rank among the world's top 200 global retail chains," said RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani in his message to shareholders.

During the year, Reliance Retail rolled out and expanded newer store concepts like 'Project Eve' and 'Trends Woman'. 

"In order to cater to growing and diverse customer needs, Reliance Retail will continue to innovate and partner with revered international brands to bring world-class products and services to Indian consumers," the company said.

The company also plans to enhance customer experience by proving reach and would take more initiatives.

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"In order to enhance this reach and augment customer experience, more initiatives are being planned, which will be rolled out in a phased manner," it added.

As part of 2.0 initiatives, Reliance Retail is operating a connected store adopting omni channel system by integrating online and offline retail.

The company would also address the millennial generation customers, which are connected, digital-savvy, brand conscious and quality oriented.

"Reliance Retail will be adopting next generation technologies that is robust to handle ever increasing volumes, flexible to meet diverse customer expectations and automation to improve productivity, efficiency and agility," it added

During the year, Reliance Retail further expanded its retail footprint and now operates 7,573 stores in over 4,400 cities.

"Reliance Retail added 221 stores and 3,736 Jio Points stores during the year and now operates 17.7 million sq/ft of retail space, the largest footprint of any organised retailer in India," it added.