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Supermarkets in India are unusual in various aspects, owing mostly to the range of customers and, as a result, the retail sector’s different distribution strategies. The food business in India works throughout channels, from mom-and-pop shops to major supermarkets to online grocery stores.
We all have heard about the Big Bazar, one of the largest Indian retail chains of hypermarkets. All groceries, food, clothing, and retail stores are united underneath one rooftop. The retail chain of the company was founded by Kishore Biyani’s parent firm, Future Group, which is well-known in the Indian fashion and retail sectors.
Kishore Biyani founded the Future Group, an Indian firm headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. With prominent grocery chains like Big Bazaar, as well as lifestyle outlets like Brand Factory and Central, the firm is well-known in the Indian fashion and retail industries.
Future Group – Company Highlights
| Startup Name | Future Group |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Industry | Conglomerate |
| Founders | Kishore Biyani |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Products/Services | Retailing, Insurance, Logistics, Integrated foods, FMCG |
| Website | www.futuregroup.in |
About Future Group and How it Works?
Future Group – Industry
Future Group – Name, Logo, and Tagline
Future Group – Founders
Future Group – Startup Story
Future Group – Mission, and Vision
Future Group – Operations, and Subsidiaries
Future Group – Business Model
Future Group – Joint Ventures
Future Group – Competitors
Future Group – Controversies
About Future Group and How it Works?
Future Group, an Indian conglomerate, is well-known in the Indian fashion industries and retail, including prominent supermarket chains such as Big Bazaar, as well as lifestyle boutiques such as Brand Factory. The company is also well-known in the FMGC and integrated foods production industries.
Future Group is a business conglomerate that manages practically all of its operations through its several operational entities depending on target industries. For instance, its retail business segment, Future Retail Limited, operates retail hypermarket or supermarket chains Big Bazaar (now owned by Reliance), FBB, Food Hall, Food Bazaar, Hometown, and others, while its clothing and fashion outlets Central, Brand Factory, and Planet Sports are run by another one of its business units, Future Lifestyle Fashions Limited. Furniture is sold at HomeTown stores around the country as well as digitally.
The Future Group also advertises its style and sporting brands such as Indigo Nation, Lombard, Spalding Bare, and FMCGs such as Clean Mate, Tasty Treat, Fresh, Ektaa, & Pure, Sach, Premium Harvest, and others through these numerous retail boutiques and supermarkets. It has operational firms that handle internal financial concerns and consultancy for the rest of the company.
Future Group – Industry
Future Group is a conglomerate or a multi-industry company.
Retail:
The retail industry in India is expected to increase to $1.5 trillion by 2030, up from $0.793 trillion in 2020, due to social-economic reasons such as industrialization, rising incomes, urbanization, and the expansion of nuclear families. The Indian e-commerce market, on the other hand, is anticipated to reach $350 billion by 2030, with a CAGR of 23%.
Financial Services:
India’s financial industry is broad and quickly increasing, both in terms of new entrants and the robust expansion of current financial services organisations.
The industry includes commercial banks, insurance companies, co-operatives, pension funds, mutual funds, and other smaller investment companies. The banking regulator has recently approved the establishment of new firms, such as payment banks, extending the sorts of entities that operate in the market. Nonetheless, India’s financial business is predominantly a banking sector, with commercial banks accounting for about 64% of the total capital in the financial system.
Ria Puneyani
Future Group – Name, Logo, and Tagline
According to the Future Group’s website, more than two million people visit their digital networks and stores every day to explore their product brands and collaborate with them in procuring, producing, and transporting items that meet the requirements and ambitions of a newer or future India. This is where their name is derived from.
Future Group’s tagline says, “Shaping India’s consumption journey.”
Future Group – Founders
Kishore Biyani founded the Future Group in 1987.
Kishore Biyani
Kishore Biyani, began his career selling stone-wash denim fabric in Mumbai in the 1980s. He is the CEO and creator of Future Group, as well as Big Bazaar and Pantaloon Retail, two retail firms. His ambition was to make something that only the wealthy could purchase available to everyone.
He planned to develop his own brands and commerce channels, and spend extensively on building the country’s top consuming ecology in the near future. Along the way, he invested in and mentored a number of other entrepreneurs and companies. He exemplifies the company’s motto, ‘Rewrite Rules, Retain Values,’ and believes Indianness to be the organization’s fundamental value.
Future Group – Startup Story
Kishore Biyani, the founder of Future Group, started working at his father’s, brothers’, and two elder cousins’ fabric-trading firm, “Bansi Silk Mills,” but was disillusioned and dissatisfied with the way they operated the company. Kishore noted that several of his friends used to wear “stonewashed” cloth pants at that time.
His first entrepreneurial breakthrough came when he discovered a local fabric producer who specialised in that type of cloth and marketed it to garment manufacturers and distributors in the city. In 1983, he established his own company, ordering the production of attractive cloth for sale to garment makers.
Pants were once known as “Patloon” in Hindi, from which they derived their brand name Pantaloon. Kishore later founded the Future Group to give his “Pantaloon” brand a new dynamic. Using a franchise concept, he developed the “Pantaloon” brand into retail. Afterwards, when, in 2001, the basis for Big Bazaar was established, Future Group added a slew of new brands, including Home Town, Ezone, Factory, Food Bazaar, Central, and Fashion at Big Bazaar.
Kishore listed 60 percent of his firm on the Indian stock market to acquire funding for retail upgrades, development, and advertising in 1992. By 1994, the Pantaloon franchise company had grossed 9 million rupees.
Biyani built his debut department store in Kolkata in August 1997, first renting and remodelling a 10,000 square foot space. This retail chain was much more than double the size of any other in Calcutta, and within three weeks, he opened 2 more such market stores. In 2001, he expanded his success by creating a network of retail establishments under the Big Bazaar nameplate. There were more than 100 Big Bazaar outlets around the country by 2009.
The Big Bazaar shops were purposefully built to seem chaotic, similar to the classic market stalls that his consumers were already used to. The Big Bazaar shops serve over two million consumers every week, while Pantaloon Retail employs over 30,000 people and has over 12 million square feet of retail space spread over 1100 locations in 75 cities. Every year, more than 300 million people, or one-fourth of the public, visit or return to the Big Bazaar outlets.
Future Group – Mission, and Vision
Future Group’s mission statement says, ” We share the vision that our customers and stakeholders are best served by creating and executing future scenarios in the consumption space leading to economic development.
We will be the trendsetters in evolving consumer brands and delivery formats and by making consumption affordable for all customer segments. We shall infuse Indian brands with confidence and renewed ambition. We shall be efficient, cost-conscious and committed to quality in whatever we do.
We shall ensure that our positive attitude, sincerity, humility and united determination shall be the driving force to make us successful.”
The organisation shares the vision and belief that the best way to serve its customers and stakeholders is to create and implement future consumption scenarios that contribute to economic progress.
Future Group – Operations, and Subsidiaries
Financial Services:
- Future Ventures
- Future Generali India Life Insurance
- Future Capital Holdings (for internal financial services)
- Future Generali General Insurance
Retail:
- Future Lifestyle Fashion Ltd
- Swathi Tiffin Shop
- Future Retail Ltd
- Future Enterprises Limited
- Foodhall
- Future Consumer Limited
Other Services:
- Future Brands
- Future Innoversity
- Future Supply Chains
Future Group – Business Model
Being in the industry of multi-brand retailing commerce is the company’s primary focus. There are roughly 20 small hypermarket easyday outlets and over 210 supermarket easyday stores available to the organisation.
Value business and home business are the two most common retail models. Food Bazaar, a supermarket; Big Bazaar, a hypermarket; Food Hall, a supermarket; FBB, a fashion destination; and Easyday convenience stores, are all part of the company’s revenue operation. eZone, a consumer durables and electronics chain and Hometown, a one-stop shop for home renovation, are two of the company’s home businesses.
Yash Taneja
Future Group – Joint Ventures
Generali Group
Italy-based Generali is an insurance firm that operates in India under the Future Generali Insurance brand. In India, Future Generali is represented by two legal entities: Generali India Insurance Co. Ltd. (Non-Life Insurance) and Generali India Life Insurance Co. Ltd. (Life Insurance).
Celio
Celio, a French fashion house, first entered the Indian market in 2008 in a 50:50 joint venture with Pantaloons Retail India Ltd, a subsidiary of Future Group (now Future Retail Ltd). Celio increased its interest in the joint venture to 65 percent in November 2013.
Clark
C&J Clark International Ltd. is accessories and footwear retailer established in the United Kingdom. The Future Group and Clarks Future Footwear Ltd have a 50:50 joint venture.
Staples Inc
Under a joint venture with Future Group, Staples Inc., a US-based office supplies store, has a presence in over nine cities in India.
FabFurnish
FabFurnish joined a Future Group company in April 2016.
Skechers
In 2012, Skechers entered India with a joint venture with Future Group. Skechers bought out Future Group’s 49 percent ownership in February 2019, bringing the joint venture to a close.
Future Group – Competitors
DMart, More, Spencer’s Retail Limited, Bigbasket, Reliance Retail, Star Market, Nature’s Basket, Mahindra, Hypercity, and Peppertap are the top ten competitors in Future Group’s competitive group.
Future Group – Controversies
- Future Group and its founder Kishore Biyani are accused by the Jeff Bezos-led e-tailer of disobeying an interim decision issued by a Singapore arbitration court in October, which blocked the asset sale. Amazon has also urged an Indian court to imprison Biyani and has requested local regulators not to accept the Future-Reliance agreement while the arbitration is still ongoing. Amazon charged Future Group of violating provisions of a mutual agreement by publicizing an asset sale transaction with Reliance, the conglomerate led by Mukesh Ambani, in early October 2021.
- Drowning in debt, Future Retail Ltd (FRL) announced in April 2022 that it has missed the deadline for repaying lenders Rs 5,322.32 crore due to continuing lawsuits with e-commerce giant Amazon and other concerns. This pushed Reliance Industries’ retail arm, Reliance Retail Ventures, to seek an amendment of the agreement’s long-stop date in order to complete the agreement with the Future Group.
- The halt on the arbitral process between Amazon and Future Group before the Singapore International Arbitration Centre was removed by the Supreme Court of India in April 2022. Future Retail’s request for a stay of proceedings before SIAC will also be heard on a priority basis, according to the Bench. According to the Supreme Court’s judgement, the interim motion will be sent to the Delhi High Court, where proceedings have already commenced, as agreed by both companies.
Pratiksha Bajikar
Future Group – FAQs
What does Future Group do?
With prominent grocery chains like Big Bazaar, as well as lifestyle outlets like Brand Factory and Central, the firm is well-known in the Indian fashion and retail industries.
Who founded Future Group?
Future Group was founded by Kishore Biyani.
Which companies do Future Group compete with?
DMart, More, Spencer’s Retail Limited, Bigbasket, Reliance Retail, Star Market, Nature’s Basket, Mahindra, Hypercity, and Peppertap are the top ten competitors in Future Group’s competitive group.
