Taking a big step into the eWorld

Manama : Rivoli group will launch its first ecommerce store with in next six weeks. For this purpose, new digital head is appointed by the company and he will be looking after ecommerce, digital marketing, website management and CRM, Ramesh Prabhakar, Managing Partner of The Rivoli Group told DT News.

He was in Bahrain to launch the first Longines mono-brand boutique in the Kingdom.

He added that the group is not expecting to have great success from day one of the digital entry; but UAE has the fifth largest internet penetration on a per capita basis and hence no progressive company can be blind to the digital developments.

Technological innovations that are coming up across the globe will force all established retail companies to start a product line that are technology incorporated. Such product lines will not be confined to the current offerings like the calorie counters and all, he added.

“We are not expecting even one percent revenue share from our digital  initiative in the early years, but we are keen on this and will be aggressive in this front,” says Prabhakar.

The biggest disruption faced by the group was the gulf war in 1991, even though many other challenges were present since our inception, the gulf war was a difficult period, he said.

“After that we decided to focus on retailing more than any other sector. We decided that we will have better control than earlier when we had a big focus on distribution.”

Speaking about the present challenges faced by the region and its implications for Rivoli, he said that his company will follow a conservative plan for the next 36 months. Even then, the group believes that watches are here to stay and the company has offers which cater to all segments of the market.

He admitted that the market size is shrinking but Rivoli will be looking to garner more share of the shrinking market size. The group expects to relatively outperform its competitors in coming year, “We are lean, mean and are investing heavily in critical infrastructure and customer experiences on an ongoing basis.”

He added that the new tech companies like Apple are enlarging the market size and new users are attracted because of them.