Reverse franchise

Ravi Jaipuria is often considered to possess golden touch with foreign food giants. After Pizza Hut and French ice cream major Cream Bell, n...

Ravi Jaipuria is often considered to possess golden touch with foreign food giants. After Pizza Hut and French ice cream major Cream Bell, now it is the turn of the British coffee chain Costa Coffee to receive his touch, to open eight-nine Costa outlets in the national capital region NCR by December this year. Increased aggression in the tycoon8217;s original plans appears to have been built on the response received by the first Costa outlet at Delhi8217;s Connaught Place, which receives almost 350-400 footfalls every day. The tycoon is also betting on the commercial potential of the new Metro train stations in Delhi, where he will open another seven outlets. The coming four years will then, if plans stay on course, see the tycoon invest Rs 150 crore to open 300 outlets across the country. These expansion plans he claims will be financed through internal accruals too!

Costa, apart from its traditional menu in India, takes care to offer food especially tailored to suit the Indian taste buds, i.e sandwich fillings such as chicken tikka or cottage cheese tikka. But given how Britain, Costa8217;s home, already embraces Indian tastes, Ravi may soon have an export line in sandwich fillings to Costa back home.

Animation move

Ronnie Screwvala has always had a knack for spotting a business opportunity. He sensed the potential of animation as a key revenue stream quite early in the day and floated a separate division UTV Toons. Recently the media baron concluded an Rs 45 crore outsourcing deal with US-based BKN Media. Under the contract, Ronnie would produce animation content for BKN over a period of three-four years. The tycoon is striving to think big and will be adding 200 animation techies in the coming three months to his Mumbai studio just to service BKN.

The tycoon has already scaled up his studio technologically to increase his productivity by 20-30 per cent. The software changes will also help the tycoon improve the delivery time of his products as well.

The tycoon8217;s strength in the animation segment is expected to show up more vividly in the coming days. And with new software and people-ware muscle, he may just about be able to do what he is targeting.

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