Analysis of Titan watches’ company

Introduction;
Titan watch is a joint venture of Tata Group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO). It was established in 1984 and setup its production facility in 1987 for the manufacture of quartz analogue electronic watches at Hosur near Banglore.

Expansion and growth;
Within three years of launch Titan appeared as the leader in Indian quartz watch market. And it had 60% share of the quartz watch market in the 4th year of launch. Titan’s watches are sold in from more than 6000 retail shops spread throughout the country covering 1200 towns. Titan has 140 exclusive showrooms (world of Titan) and 150 multi-brand showrooms (Titan Time Zones). The company’s watches are also currently sold in about 40 countries of the world through marketing subsidiaries based in Landon, Dubai, and Singapore. Titan is the sixth largest global player in the manufacture brands category.

Condition of the watch market before the Titan entered the watch market;
HMT was the leader of the watch market and was producing mechanical watches. And the mechanical watches dominated the watch market. HMT was producing 5 million mechanical watches per year. So it was a tough time for Titan to make a good decision whether to go for mechanical watches or for quartz or for both mechanical and quartz. It finally decided to go for quartz.

Why did Titan choose quartz route?
Ø Due to the changing world trend toward quartz;
It was the right time to go for quartz because the globe was already changed toward quartz and quartz was the right product to conquer today’s watch market as well as tomorrow’s watch market. Making a wise decision helped Titan to dominate India’s watch market and, in addition it enabled Titan to go global.
Ø Setting up a quartz watch plant required less investment comparing to mechanical watches plant.
Titan has made a very sensible and rational decision to go for quartz; Hence Titan could invest heavily on the effective promotion, advertising, huge product distribution, a high quality product, and etc, instead of investing too much money on the plant. In fact from the very beginning Titan showed its wisdom. Because in every start up an understanding is required this has been done by the Titan. At the end of the day no regret can compensate the damage or destruction of any wrong decision taken by anyone with the fruit of success.

How did the company succeed?
Through Effective Strategies;
The company put on the market a wide and attractive range of quality watches and they were also contemporary in style. The company developed new watch movements including dual time, world time, alarm and longe-bettery-life watches. Titan set new trends in which new designs and innovative and the best technology was used. Titan offered a choice of over 1000 designs long product line and wide range of models. And Titan also offered jewelry watches. Titan launched digital watches and an exciting brand for children (Dash). Titan also targeted semi-urban and rural customers.

Why and how the company did so many things?
In simple words; the company did not leave any vacancy that required to be filled. It was always seeking for opportunities. In fact it attempted to conquer all the segments in the market according to demographic en, social and culture en, economical en, psychological factors and etc. the company knew all the changing environments through research and carefully watching the market. All these efforts could help the company to increase its market share in the long-run. Even the children were targeted in order to bring them into the Titan fold at an early age.

An effective positioning strategy;
Variety in product offer was Titan’s real trump card and Titan built its positioning strategy.
Watch is not a time telling device anymore; it can be an ornament, a gift, a fashion wear or a style.
Why? Titan studied consumers’ behavior. Consumers were giving more attention to dress, ornament, and even footwear. So Titan decided based on psychological factors of the consumers to attract and target customers through effective positioning.
Titan made the product available at locations like bookstores, gift shops, boutiques, and opened counters in restaurants, photography shops and in fashion wear shops.

The company knew that if its product is an ornament or gift so it should be available every where rather than a watch shop. It definitely helped Titan’s product to be sold, because a product is always preferred and sold due to its availability and different varieties with different price-range. Titan also voted for the showroom idea and started franchising a network of trendy Titan showrooms. As the product was positioned as a fashion wears so the store image was also too important to be in tune with the overall product positioning.

How did Titan go global?
The next logical step was to move into the world market. And Titan’s first step in its internationalization journey was the Middle East.

Why the Middle East? The decision was based on market research and one simple indisputable fact that the region had a large Indian population for whom Titan was already an established well-known brand.

In addition entry into the global market fortified Titan’s position at home.
Why? In simple words, customers now recognize Titan as an international producer.
And in fact customers always perceive that the products from abroad are better than products at home. So going global give a fresh edge to Titan’s marketing strategy at home. In customers’ view now Titan is more reliable because the world has accepted it.

In brief overall;
In my points of views the key elements of the Titan success are proper and accurate appraisal, well formulated marketing strategy and decision making due to the changing environments such as; social and cultural environments, demographic en, economical en, psychological factors and technological en. The company built a powerful brand and developed an efficient retail strategy within a short time.

Titan has continued to seek out ways to meet customer’s changing needs. The company has been making changes in its strategies. It proves that the company is always concern about its profitability. And from the very beginning the company is concern about the evaluation of the market segmentation whether; is it sizable? Is it growing? Is it profitable? Is it accessible? And is it compatible with the firm’s resources and capabilities? Going global was another logical step as I have mentioned above. The company has a wide distribution network, attractively designed retail outlets, efficient after-sales service and focused advertising. These are issues that Titan had already and successfully addressed at home.