Design and Experience Differentiate Indriya from Competitors

Sandeep Kohli, CEO of Aditya Birla Jewellery’s Indriya about the brand’s strengths, strategies and aspirations

- Shiv Joshi

In July this year, Aditya Birla Group (ABG) Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla announced the $100 billion diversified group's foray into jewellery retail with Indriya. The Group, which has a significant presence in fashion and lifestyle retail through its subsidiary Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail (ABFRL), chose to park the jewellery business under the larger umbrella rather than ABFRL while committing ₹5,000 crore towards growing the business.

ABG has big plans for the brand, aiming for it to be among India's top three jewellery retailers in the country over the next five years.

And it appears as if it is wasting no time trying to get there... it marked its foray by opening four Indriya stores in a single day (2 in Delhi, 1 each in Indore, and Jaipur).

The plan is to dazzle people with sprawling stores larger than 7,000 sq.ft. in size, which is about 30%-35% larger than those of most competing national brands. The stores will offer an extensive assortment of 15,000 curated jewellery pieces with over 5,000 exclusive designs.

Currently, the brand is present in Jaipur, Indore, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad through 10 stores with only one store located in a mall at Vegas Mall in Dwarka, Delhi and another one coming up at a mall in Mumbai.

The group aims to expand to more than 10 cities within six months and has onboarded FMCG veteran Sandeep Kohli to lead the group's journey into the intricate business of fine jewellery.

Kohli who looks at the business like a startup spoke to IMAGES Retail about the brand's aspirations, strategies and what it is doing to disrupt India's jewellery buying experience.

How does Indriya benefit from ABFRL'S 20 year-retail expertise? Our chairman said at the launch that being in the fashion and lifestyle business, getting into jewellery is a natural extension for us. We are gaining a lot of expertise synergy from ABFRL but we operate independently like a startup.