Page 25 - DMGT522_SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Services Management

Notes Win-win/synergy: LBS gets the right positioning for its service through the association,
while Taj gets to offer, a la Total Product Concept, a high value component to its offer,
enhancing its competitive advantage. The pricing at these salons would be at a higher
mark-up compared to other Lakme Beauty Salons. Also in the offing were value packages
for the services available in these salons and the introduction of a loyalty programme.
Offer: Lakme Beauty Salon is striving to offer that extra something which one expects in
every aspect of beauty care services, which includes facials, manicures, pedicures, makeup,
hairdressing, coloring and grooming. They wait on their customers ‘hand and foot’ to
make them look gorgeous, feel divine, gently letting them discovers the whole new
aspect for themselves. LBS offer the following services:

Bridal service

Hair care
Mehendi
Beauty
Lakme products
Skin care
Open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. the Lakme Beauty Salon has been positioned
as “gateway to a fuller, more beautiful you”.
Expansion plans: By 2005, Lakme has plans to open 150 beauty salons to consolidate its
position in the ` 1,000 crore (` 10 billion) salon market of which a mere ` 170 crore comes
from the branded segment. The intent is to further increase market share in both categories
(cosmetics and skin care). With 60 Lakme Beauty Salons spread across 22 cities, the target
for end-2004 was to open 30-40 more salons in eight more cities.
The salon business today contributes to 15 per cent of revenues from the Lakme brand and
is expected to go up to 30 per cent over the next three years. The LBS brand is relatively
absent in the east, which was due to the recently adopted franchisee model: it got built
around the four original salons at Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Bangalore. Entry into
Kolkata was made in the beginning of 2005. LBS expected to grow at a rate higher than the
industry average of 13 per cent.
Education: Lakme stuck to its plans to start beauty treatment and hair styling courses in
2004 through the Lakme Beauty Academy in Mumbai, Chennai and New Delhi. The mission
of the training Academy was to provide people with skills required in the beauty business.
The courses include basic training and up gradation skills for professionals costing between
` 5,000 to ` 15,000. LBS have a requirement for at least 400 people to manage their expansion
plans. There was a dearth of skilled manpower, which the Academy sought to fill. There
are also plans to take the Academy to major metros. “Beauticians trained by the academy
will get absorbed both in Lakme Beauty Salons and in the industry in general,” a Lever
spokesman says, explaining: “The future growth of the industry will require more trained
beauticians.”
Business generation: Lakme Beauty Salons have a fairly vast spread presence across SEC A
and B cities: Delhi, Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Amritsar in the North; Mumbai,
Goa and Aurangabad in the West; and in the South, in Bangalore, Chennai, Mysore,
Mangalore and Coimbatore. Lakme was the first corporate house to enter the salon business
in the country. The concept of salons has been to a great extent redefined since Lakme
Beauty Salons were introduced.

Contd...

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