Officer aiming for 30-40 percent growth per annum

Officer the brand, launched in 1990, is looking at achieving 30 to 40 percent growth every year coupled with aggressive retail expansion. Explains Asif Iqbal Memon, Director, Officer Fashion Craft, “For the last four to five years, we are

witnessing very good growth. We have about 1,200 MBOs and on an average, every year we add about 100 MBOs. We may have our own EBOs in 2014.”

He adds saying, “We understand the tastes of an area and offer personalised service. We have direct interaction with dealers and there is an obvious price difference. We cater to Tier I, II and III cities. These do better business than metros. In fact, business is growing in Tier III but since the last festive and 2012 year-end season, business was good all over, metros, Tier I, II and III cities.”

The brand is present all over India except Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, UP and Chattisgarh. The company plans to cover these areas this year. Commenting on the competitive scenario, Memo says, “We have no major competition with bigger brands. They have their own segment, we have our own segment. Their customer base is totally different. The competition we have is within our segment.”

“Retail was sluggish from May to October, but from the sales point of view, we haven’t seen a downturn. Our business has been steady or has shown marginal growth. There hasn’t been negative growth,” states Memon. He expects the forthcoming season to be positive. “We are gearing up for the season. Hopefully the economic situation will improve. Looking at the current market scenario and the conditions, we may have 10 to 15 percent growth,” he sums up.

The product portfolio consists of trousers in polo fit, slim fit and pencil fit. For summer, the brand has slim fit shirts and fabrics used are linen and cotton in colours like pink, sea green, light green, basically light and fluorescent colors. Shirts have smaller checks with fluorescent colors and collars have become smaller.