New Delhi: Rajesh Jain, managing director and chief executive officer, Lacoste India is not too optimistic about the business outlook for the financial year 2023-24.
Jain said that in FY 2023-24, there was a clear slowdown globally and in India mainly driven by inflation and the ongoing turbulences in several parts of the world amid certain geopolitical tensions.
“However, it doesn’t mean that there is a degrowth or anything, there is a decent growth,” added Jain.
Jain compares the outlook for FY 2023-24 with previous years and adds that the growth rate will not be as high as it used to be earlier in the last two years.
However, he is optimistic about the growth in FY 2024-25. On the key focus areas of his business for 2024-25, Jain added that his company is emphasizing a lot upon three Cs, collection, convenience and care.
On the collection part, he added “We are using a lot of new fabrics, which include recycled fabric, organic cotton and that kind of designs that we have. And people love it,” added Jain.
The second ‘C’ which deals with convenience is on the approaches like upgrading the online website of the company which is lacoste.in, opening relatively larger-sized stores encompassing the latest concepts and premium looks.
The company plans to give extra care in areas like sustainability and the social responsibility aspect.
Commenting on the upcoming Phygital Retail Convention (PRC) 2024 to be held in Mumbai in May, Jain added “PRC is a wonderful platform. We all love it,”
However, Jain said the industry has realised the importance of tech in retail especially post-pandemic and he added that the PRC should give a fair share to tech-related discussions.
“Technology is critical, but that has become quite a routine thing. Everybody knows that technology is one of the most important aspects and we have to implement it,” said Jain.
Technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), and generative AI will play extremely important things.
Jain added special emphasis on sustainability and how businesses should aim at reducing carbon footprint.
“We have very defined timelines to reduce our carbon footprint by a certain percentage,” said Jain “I think sustainability is one aspect that can perhaps be taken up in PRC as well,”
