“Technology is driving corporate brand merchandising”

'Technology is driving corporate brand merchandising'

Ranjith Boyanapalli, Head eTail, eYantra.

Idhries Ahmad

Monday, January 14, 2008

BANGALORE, INDIA: Corporate brand merchandising has undergone paradigm shift over the last few years and is now considered as a high potential brand awareness vehicle.

Aided by advancements in technologies, corporate brand merchandising has outgrown its traditional realms, and has now become a sophisticated tool for corporates to increase their brand awareness and visibility.

“Corporate today actually wants to flaunt their brand and want solutions that empower them to exhibit their association with the brand as per their will,” says Ranjith Boyanapalli, Head eTail, eYantra.

A far cry from the times, when brand merchandising limited itself to ‘corporate gifting’ wherein companies gave gifts to their employees with or without the company branding on them.

e-Yantra is India’s leading corporate merchandise provider and one of its divisions is providing clients with internet based domain specific online merchandise solutions that fulfills merchandising needs of various companies in India and abroad. The company caters to all employees of specific companies irrespective of their global locations to order and buy corporate merchandised products online.

Ranjith Boyanapalli, Head eTail, eYantra

Ranjith Boyanapalli, Head eTail, eYantra

In an interaction with Idhries Ahmad of CIOL, Ranjith gives an brief about e-Yantra, latest technology trends in corporate brand merchandising, and future plans of the company.

CIOL: How different is eYantra from other corporate merchandising service providers. What is the company’s USP?

eYantra’s biggest strength is it’s technology driven brand merchandising solutions and the strict quality standards that we maintain across our entire value chain The company had a rapid turnover growth from US $ 120,000 in 2001 to US $ 6 million by 2007 – 2008.

eYantra has been structured into three verticals, Retail (provides a physical brand store solution within the premises of a corporate campus.

Ctail (caters to all leading corporate houses of India by providing corporate merchandise solutions for occasion and event-based requirements and eTail (provides its clients with internet based domain specific online merchandise solutions, powered by in-house proprietary technologies)

CIOL: Can you brief about the recently launched eTail. How does it driven the process of corporate brand merchandising?

eTail division of eYantra Industries provides its clients with internet based domain specific online merchandise solutions, powered by in-house proprietary technologies. It develops exclusive online brand stores for corporates which facilitates employee buy and corporate buy of corporate merchandise, which would act as a one-stop shop for all their corporate merchandise needs.

Technology and Domain expertise play a major role in leveraging the strength of its merchandise expertise to provide solutions to its clients. An in house proprietary MerTek has been developed exclusively to act as the backbone for providing this solution.

There are a number of solutions that this vertical encompasses namely Confix, RewardX, LoyaltyX and BrandX. These are dynamic solutions that can be tweaked to fulfil client specific requirements. These solutions can serve a corporate all across the globe eliminating geographical boundaries. Cofix empowers employees to have access to company branded merchandise as and when they desire which earlier was not possible. The beauty of this solution lies in its versatility.

CIOL: How is your business model different from transactional portal like eBay?

Firstly, eBay is a basically a biding portal whereas eYantra’s online solutions are more into online retailing.

Secondly, eBay allows you to purchase stock products whereas our solutions allow you to buy customized company branded merchandise.

Lastly, eYantra differs from ebay in terms of the customer base we deal with. For e-bay their customer base literally speaking is limitless. But for eYantra, our customer base is as large or as big as the company’s employee strength. This limited consumer base may seem to be negative aspect to many but if looked closely is actually a strength.

Indian consumers are even today sceptical about the security of their financial information on the e-commerce portals but in eYantra’s case this insecurity is actually not their because the employees actually shop on their company brand store and there is a feeling of trust towards their employer.

Indian consumers are actually not inclined to buy products online as the touch and feel factor is not there. But eYantra by combining it’s offline approach models with the online models gives them the touch and feel experience and thereby increasing their confidence in online model as well.

CIOL: How do you see the way corporate merchandising has changed over the last few years?

Earlier brand merchandising was popularly known as 'corporate gifting' wherein a company used to give some kind of gifts to their employees generally at the time of AGM’s with or without the company branding on them. But today both the corporates and the employees are facing identity crises. On the corporate front brand merchandising enables them to increase awarness and visibility. Employees today actually wants to flaunt their brand and eYantra’s solutions empower them to exhibit their association with the brand as per their will.

CIOL: How has been the traction for your product among enterprises?

We have enjoyed tremendous success across all product categories that we serve our clients with. But strictly speaking apparels is the biggest revenue generation category for us. It is closely followed by bags and utilities. Our strength lies in the variants that we have across each category. It gives our clients a fairly large portfolio of products spread across 150 categories to choose from.

eYantra has entered into long-term exclusive merchandising contracts with several industries like Tech Mahindra, TCS, Accenture, Sasken, HCL, Genpact And Ing Vysya Life Insurance co.

More than 15 corporates have partnered with eYantra for their online brand stores within three months of launch, and eYantra is expecting to host 100 online brand stores by end of this year, statement added.

CIOL: Any other service offering in line?

We are planning a B2C consumer segment shopping portal.

©CIOL Bureau