Term Report Marketing.docx

GROUP MEMBERS:

Adeen Tariq-14380, UMAR ALI14132, MUSHAHID SIDDIQUI- 12763, SHAYAN JAMALI- 12820, AZEEM UL HASSAN-14556

TERM REPORT Principle of Marketing – slot 3

Table of Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 3 About the contact person ................................................................................................ 3 Industry ............................................................................................................................ 3 The Company ....................................................................................................................... 4 Mission statement, Vision and Core value. ..................................................................... 4 Internal cultural ................................................................................................................ 4 Growth Strategy ............................................................................................................... 5 Marketing Research ...................................................................................................... 5 Micro Environment .............................................................................................................. 6 Consumer ......................................................................................................................... 6 Suppliers ........................................................................................................................... 6 Competitors ...................................................................................................................... 7 Macro Environment ............................................................................................................. 7 Demography ..................................................................................................................... 7 Technology ....................................................................................................................... 7 Economic and Political ..................................................................................................... 8 Swot analysis ..................................................................................................................... 10 Strength .......................................................................................................................... 10 Weakness ....................................................................................................................... 11 Opportunity .................................................................................................................... 12 Threat ............................................................................................................................. 12 Marketing Mix ................................................................................................................... 13 Product ........................................................................................................................... 13 Product lines and segmentation ................................................................................. 13 Product lifecycle.......................................................................................................... 13 Differentiation and Positioning .................................................................................. 14 Price ................................................................................................................................ 14 Place ............................................................................................................................... 15 Nature of distribution channel ................................................................................... 15 Factors considered when designing distribution channels ........................................ 16 Supply chain management ......................................................................................... 16

Promotion ...................................................................................................................... 17 Marketing Channel and Promotional Mix .................................................................. 17 Appendix ............................................................................................................................ 19 References ...................................................................................................................... 19 Secondary Research ....................................................................................................... 19 Transcript ....................................................................................................................... 20

Introduction Marketing is only seen as a promotion by masses, but it is an entire process of adding value which starts from understanding consumers and ends with satisfying consumers. The process embraces all departments and decisions made by the company, as the culture of the organization must be consumer-centric to provide maximum satisfaction for consumers. Pleasing the consumers is important not only for repeated sales and profits but also for the long-term survival of the company. This term report will apply all the marketing concepts and theories to an existing and functioning brand to observe the viability of all these principles studied throughout the semester. The report is based on both secondary and primary research done — the secondary comprised of examining the brand's website, social website pages and profiles, going through articles on various online forums and newspapers, and analyzing advertisements shared by the brand on social media. While the primary was conducting a market visit on four out of six outlets of the company in the city, conducting an online survey, and an open-ended face-toface interview of the Assistant marketing manager of the brand.

About the contact person The interview was conducted from Maham Aslam, the Assistant Marketing Manager of Sana Safinaz. She graduated from Institute of Business Administration in 2015 with a degree in General Human resources. She has been with Sana Safinaz for almost two years now. Our group met her through another colleague at Sana Safinaz, the Operational Manager, Mr Shabeel, who is friends with Adeen Tariq’s cousin.

Industry The apparel industry of Pakistan is linked to the textile industry. With Pakistan ranked fourth among world cotton producer and having the third largest consumption of cotton among its people in the world, it was able to see rapid growth in both its textile and apparel industry (FIBRE2FASHION, 2014). Although the textile industry has suffered from the energy crisis and increase in production cost, the apparel industry has grown smoothly (Arifeen, 2017). The major credit goes to the increase in income levels and the rise of the middle class in the country. The middle class does not only have the buying power to back their demands but also have a rising brand consciousness which fuels this demand even more. The desire to wear branded clothes and compete with their peers are all learned and reinforced by the media, with television and fashion shows legitimizing the branded clothes as the good value of money and changing the mindset of the youth and adults alike. Pakistan’s apparel industry is almost able to meet the local demand for clothes and even export clothes contributing to the international market. It can be seen with the recent increase in Pakistani brands to open outlets on foreign soil mostly in the UAE; this trend is being seen to continue in the future. The growth rate and the potential for even more growth have given rise to institutions for arts and fashion that has developed many designers and will create more so in the future. Hence the apparel industry has seen rapid growth and will continue this way in the future with people trying to create a better lifestyle for themselves and wanting to be associated with the elites.

The Company Sana Safinaz was established in 1989 by Sana Hashwani and Safinaz Muneer. Sana Safinaz proudly finds itself as Pakistan’s only premier luxury retailer offering a range of clothing line from ready-to-wear printed fabric to suits. In addition to this, it also offers accessories and footwear to go with its elegantly designed clothes with ever-improving consumer care and to your doorstep service via worldwide express delivery. It started as a partnership business between the two co-founders of the company and till date remains a partnership. Sana Hashwani and Safinaz Muneer said in an interview with Daily Times that it is their friendship and ease of communication which have made this partnership work this long and will continue to help Sana Safinaz grow. Sana Safinaz was started by two women at a time when women were not a major part of the workforce, so the founders wanted to inspire other women to be more independent. This theme is still alive within Sana Safinaz products. During the initial years it focused on haute couture for the Pakistani apparel industry but later introduced other product lines that had a growing demand in the country for instance pret.

Mission statement, Vision and Core value. The mission of Sana Safinaz is to touch the lives of every woman. This can be seen from its extension from haute couture to bridal trousseau, pret, diffusion, and lawn. It caters to all these needs by its elegant and sophisticated design that makes a woman stand headstrong and confident. Sana Safinaz is considered as one of Pakistan’s top-selling fashion brands, which provides new fascinating and affordably designed clothes for all girls, which is recognized even outside the home country. As it works with the vision of creating a deep association of the consumers with the brand, Sana Hashwani pointed out in an interview by Aurora that Sana Safinaz is focusing and building on engaging with the consumer at all touch points (Baig, 2015). In short, as stated simply by the Assistant Marketing Manager, “the mission is to be the number one concern consumer choice in fashion apparel brands and the vision is to be the most aesthetically appealing and aspiring brand of Pakistan.” While the core value that Sana Safinaz tried to deliver is providing affordable designer wear to all the women out there, who want to feel confident outside their home, where ever they may be from colleges to workplace, Sana Safinaz has their back. Thus, Sana Safinaz works to provide the best in a budget. This consumer value is very appealing especially to the growing middle class of Pakistan and the rise of women being part of an important managerial position in the workforce.

Internal cultural Sana Safinaz is a partnership business and has kept its workforce small, according to the owler.com; it has 100-104 employees, which is very small compared to how fast Sana Safinaz is expanding. Keeping a small workforce has made the work environment more accepting of everyone’s ideas and values their feedbacks. This helps not only the creative team as stated by the Assistant Marketing Manager but also all the other employees. As the employees get to voice their opinions, they all share their ideas and help Sana Safinaz become better. In addition to this, the turnover is less. Hence all the employees work to contribute to add value to the organization.

Sana Safinaz has always been product focused with all the employees working towards putting in innovation in designs, product categories, and delivery system. Recently, as the Assistant Marketing Manager informed us that now Sana Safinaz has started doing even more consumer research to understand their consumer better as the competition is getting tougher, and the company is trying to make the tilt. The Manager was positive that Sana Safinaz will be able to make the shift as the internal culture of the company is very responsive and supportive. The microenvironment consists of the company, its suppliers, marketing intermediaries, competitors, public, and its consumers. Sana Safinaz is one the most prominent bands in designer clothing. The company itself has a very interactive work environment. One of the most important reasons that the contact decided to stay and work for Sana Safinaz is because of its inclusive work culture. The directors are approachable, the employees get to voice their opinions, and these opinions are heard. These opinions are not disregarded and are kept in account when decisions are being made. This decentralized environment encourages employees to work for Sana Safinaz.

Growth Strategy The Ansoff matrix shown in figure one is a portfolio planning tool for identifying company growth opportunities. It has four strategies; Market penetration, product development, market development, and diversification. A company can opt to have more than one strategy for a product line and different strategies for different product lines. Sana Safinaz has been operating in the market for around thirty years and for a very long time; it has been following market penetration and product development. These strategies were used because they wanted to continuously increase Figure 1 their public awareness and innovate, as stated by Sana Hashwani, in an interview with the tribune. Currently, Sana Safinaz is also working on market development. With the introduction of its omnichannel, the online retail business now makes almost 20% of the total revenue. In addition to this, Sana Safinaz is looking to open more outlets, even in small towns as the new approach of lowering prices will compliment these strategic locations. Marketing Research Sana Safinaz is a product-centric company which drives most of its attention in making the product better. For this, the company keeps conducting small surveys of the relevant consumers through questionnaires which are both open and close-ended for all the product categories and product lines that Sana safinaz has so that it can build a product strategy for that product line accordingly. They have included this process of conducting these small surveys into their marketing strategy as it keeps them informed of the current tastes, fashion trends, pain point and so on. However, Sana Safinaz has not conducted major research as first because it

had a product-centric approach which is an inside out approach and a little research into taste and preference is sufficient. According to think with Google, Sana safinaz’s partnership with Google helped them understand their consumer better and kept Sana safinaz updated on the consumers' online habits. This partnership helps to quantify how online promotion impacts offline sales, and how online traffic has influenced consumers buying behavior. This partnership is to give Sana safinaz to leverage the interest in digital that the world is experiencing and also aid sthe company in understanding its consumer better. The researches done by Sana Safinaz are all primary, whether it is to understand the consumers or to find new designs and inspiration. The design team goes around the world to different places to find inspiration and research into the international fashion trend so that it can also incorporate in their product lines to give it a blend of eastern and western look in its designs.

Micro Environment Consumer Sana Safinaz was a niche brand, usually compared with the likes of Maria.B; however unlike before, the company now targets various segments of the market. Previously it used to target only higher income household women, mostly between the age of 25 and 40. The company now intends to change this perception and focus more on the market. They have been focusing on SSC B and SSC+ for quite a while now. They have also started targeting teenage girls now and have launched a teen collection too. The company intends to focus on the market more and eliminate the niche perception that it had for many years now. When buying a Sana Safinaz product, the factor which persuades the consumer the most to buy the product is the class symbol. Sana Safinaz is considered a niche designer brand. Therefore, its consumers feel confident wearing it. This is perhaps one of the key factors. The prestigious name communicates something about the person wearing it. Although the brand wants to eliminate its niche image, it still wants to hold a somewhat prestigious image in the minds of the consumer.

Suppliers Sana Safinaz imports its raw material from various countries however all the processing, including dyeing, stitching, etc. is done here in Pakistan. As the company imports its raw material, the final product is of superior quality as compared to local brands however this also makes the company sensitive to the country’s economy. Financial downturns which often result in currency devaluation affect Sana Safinaz more in the short term. Although Sana Safinaz was not affected in the recent devaluation of PKR as the raw materials for the year had already been imported but continuous devaluation can greatly increase production cost. Sana Safinaz does not have a fixed supplier of raw material, but rather there are many suppliers who are approached. Price quotations are taken at first and then the company goes with whatever option the management thinks is best for the company.

Competitors Sana Safinaz has two product categories; luxury collection and Muzlin. Sana Safinaz started as a Niche brand catering to the needs of adult women of high-income households. At that time, its main competitors were other designer brands like Maria.B. With the launch of Muzlin collection, Sana Safinaz now also targets SSC C and SSC C+. Its main and direct competitor is Khaadi while other brands like Al Karam and Gul Ahmed are its indirect competitors. Since Sana Safinaz has been trying to eliminate its niche image, its main competitor in the market has been Khaadi. Khaadi has stayed ahead of Sana Safinaz up till now and maintained its position as the market leader.

Macro Environment All companies operating in Pakistan face many problems from the macro environment, especially in the areas of politics and economics. In addition to this Pakistan is not technologically advanced and companies have to look for technological solutions in the international market which comes with huge installment and maintenance costs. However, the one element that can work in a company’s favor is the demographics. Pakistan has the youngest population and with the emergence of the middle class, there is huger consumer potential in them.

Demography Pakistan is the fifth largest population in the world, and recently is facing rapid urbanization at an annual rate of 2.77% (Pakistan Demoghraphic profile 2018, 2018). While the gender ratio is almost equal to one which shows that half of the population comprises of women (Pakistan Demoghraphic profile 2018, 2018), and the increase in dual-income families has also taken a rise in the last couple of years (desk, 2015). Lastly, there is increased awareness and effort for women education and for providing them with employment opportunities. A survey conducted by the Pakistani Bureau of statistics 2013-2014 reported that 26% of women are in the labor force. These demographic elements all work in the company’s favour as the essence of Sana Safinaz is to make these girls and women feel confident at their workplace and colleges. In addition to this, the rise of urbanization has led to an increase in the middle class which has a demand for affordable branded clothes. Sana Safinaz considers these demographic elements as they possess large profit potential. It has introduced the Muzlin brand which has a very reasonable price range from 2300-2500 PRS for the working women (desk, 2015). The pret, on the other hand, starts with the lowest price in the market of branded clothes with Rs.1500, catering to girls in their teens and early twenties.

Technology In the clothing industry, there are major advancements in the production and the delivery system, especially the delivery with the introduction of online retailer stores. Pakistan has been lagging the technological advancements in the production of fabric and manufacturing of clothes. It is because of the high cost related to the textile industry which is passed on to the apparel industry; this forces many companies to import raw material. However, the

advancement in the availability of internet has been great for Pakistan, with the introduction of 3G and 4G connections, most of the retailers have started their online stores as well as their retail outlet. Sana Safinaz has worked brilliantly to introduce its omnichannel, capitalizing on the vast availability of the internet, which links all the channel of distribution for a seamless experience for its consumers. Sana Safinaz was able to do this by partnering with Magento which helped them develop a state of the art website and a communication system which helps all retailers know exactly where the consumers are and keeps track of the stock. As for the cost associated with the raw material, Sana Safinaz imports its raw materials and produces it in the country. This helps them save a little cost but the devaluation of currency and the economic situation pose a threat.

Economic and Political Pakistan has the most flailing economy, which is mostly because of the internal and external political stances. Many of the industries in our country are extremely dependent on imported goods which include raw materials to high-end machinery, especially for the textile and apparel industry. As most of the machinery and the technology used are all imported, and the fuel in these types of machinery is oil , this all adds and causes one textile or manufacturing plant to be very expensive. During recent times, importing has become even more costly as the Pakistani currency continues to devalue and the country is looking at a new government which has increased the cost on duties and imposed more taxes on luxury goods. All the companies will soon be facing higher cost and tougher competition in the years to come. Sana Safinaz handles all its process from production to retails but it imports all its raw materials from various countries and suppliers. When asked about how the recent events of Pakistan’s currency devaluation and the new government reforms have impacted Sana Safinaz, the Assistant Marketing Manager was pleased to inform us that these events were predicted and sufficient raw material for the end of this period and next year were already procured however in the years, to come they will be facing a higher cost. She added that this problem would not just be faced by Sana Safinaz but all of its competitors as well. So, Sana Safinaz can create a cartel of prices because everyone will be impacted by these policies and devaluation.

Swot analysis

Strenght •Quality and assortment •Omnichannel •Lower turnover •Cutwork and designs •Loyal Consumerss

Weakness •Controversial issues •Lack of awareness about the change is position of the brand

Opportunities •Product line extension into other segments and products •Opening international retail outlet

Threats •Energy crisis •Devaluation of currency •Stricter import reforms •Inflation

Strength Sana Safinaz is the only brand that offers affordable designer brand clothing. It has been operating for around 30 years and its experience contributes to all of its strengths. The most important strength that Sana safinaz has is its consumer base, which Sana Safinaz tries to maintain by regular promotional messages and updating them about sales before it goes public. These small steps keep the consumers loyal to the brand. One of the outlet managers told us on our market visits that their consumers often know more than they do because they are always so curious and are up to date. The assured quality, unique designs, and cutwork keep Sana Safinaz collection fresh and trendy, which made possible by the extensive research done by the designer team and the internal culture where everyone contributes by adding value to the product. Lastly, Sana Safinaz is the only brand which has an omnichannel in Pakistan retail business. They were able to reach this by investing and partnering with magneto to link all their stores together and Google to make their promotion, and search of the website easier. This gives Sana Safinaz a great edge because the online store helps open doors internationally as it does not

have international outlets unlike its competitors. It also helps them collect information about the consumer buying behaviour and the pain points of these consumers. (Think with google, 2017)

Weakness The major problem that we noticed after conducting our interview was the positioning of Sana Safinaz. We conducted a consumer survey among our fellow batch mates to find out more about what people think about Sana Safinaz, the responses of 15 respondent can be seen in figure 2. Figure 2 It shows that what Sana Safinaz is trying to achieve, a designer brand for all women especially the lower middle-class women contradicts with how most people view Sana Safinaz. When this finding was taken to the assistant marketing manager, we were informed that it is the top of the mind recall of people because how and where the brand started. Sana Safinaz is trying to eliminate this overpositioning. It has recently started a campaign to change this mindset. They have started adding the price range to their ads (mostly on digital media), but currently, much success in it cannot be seen. Sana Safinaz also found itself surrounded by controversies which are not good for any business’s public relations. Sana Safinaz in the start of 2017 was called out in a tribune blog for allegedly coping from a Spanish brand, Pronovia. This was a very harsh blog which pointed out how Sana Safinaz has supposedly done it with other brands in their 2013 collection as well and how it makes Pakistan as a country look

Image 1: 2018 Summer collection campaign

bad in an international world where it is already in the red. There is no proper response by Sana Safinaz on this issue. The most recent problem that came towards Sana Safinaz was the backlash it received on its summer collection 2018 campaign (image 2), which was based on the inspiration the designers got when they were in Africa. This got coverage than the plagiarism controversy because

Image 2: 2013 Photoshoot

people were reminded of Sana Safinaz photoshoot of models with coolies without their consent in 2013 (image 1). Many people raised the question of whether Sana Safinaz is this insensitive and racist. Sana Safinaz made a public apology and explained their idea behind their summer 2018 campaign to avoid their competitors from gaining from this mishap. The Assistant Marketing Manager did reassure that Sana Safinaz’s sales were not impacted although the competitors did fuel the fire.

Opportunity The fashion industry has much potential in Pakistan. With the income level and brand consciousness rising, the companies are trying to exploit this development. Sana Safinaz is a well know brand which has been doing great with the middle-aged women segment and the higher middle-class segment with its luxury and formal product lines. Sana Safinaz has been slow in bringing out more product lines as it has been product-centric since the beginning which has caused it to have a myopic view and lose the first mover advantage in bringing the product line of perfume, kids and other accessories. Recently it did bring its accessories line and will be launching its shoe line soon, but it missed it one opportunity to be among the first few and now is more of a follower than a leader. Sana Safinaz still has time to come in the market with their new product line in perfumes, bags, kids and so on, as it is necessary to stay within the pace of the competitors like Maria B and Sapphire. In addition to this, Sana Safinaz can use its strength of excellence in bridal and luxury product to be the first to have a branded retail outlet for its bridal wear which can will help them create an entirely new segment and cash the loyalty of its higher middle-class consumer. The lower middle class can also be tabbed if they can cut cost and make it a mass product. Sana Safinaz has a marketing expansion strategy which going into these product lines can aid. The Assistant Marketing Manager informed us that Sana Safinaz is planning to change its approach to their business from product to market, which we believe will be the first step to start working on these opportunities and come to an equal stepping ground with its competitors before they are left behind too far.

Threat As discussed before in the economic and politics section, the current economic and political developments pose a threat to all businesses alike. The other businesses, as well as Sana Safinaz, will face troubles with a higher production cost which has already been an issue for the apparel business because of high fuel cost in the previous years. This will hinder the reduction in prices of the expensive product lines that Sana Safinaz is planning to accomplish, as it was to position itself as an affordable designer brand and no more a niche that it used to be. This threat will get aggravated if the competitors who already are the consumers' first preferences like Khaadi and sapphire are not as badly affected. It can be very damaging not only regarding sales, but it can also result in a halt in Sana Safinaz expansions strategy.

Marketing Mix Product Product lines and segmentation Sana Safinaz has carefully divided its brand into nine categories; they are Basic, Embroidered Essentials, Embroidered Premium, Signature, Exclusive, Silk Tunics, Black and Gold, Pants, and Accessories. The first seven categories have different clothing line within it; for instance, they have a lawn in basic as well as premium and signature. All these categories come with specific designs, prints, and color plate. As Sana Safinaz’s mission is to be a part of all the women’s lives, it does so by having an expanded product line that fits in all needs of its target audience. Sana Safinaz started with targeting the elite class with its haute couture, but with the growing middle class and intense competition moved to mark the middle class as well. It targets all women from the age of 18 to 35, and even has especially designed clothing line of semi-formal wear for girls starting their colleges and work to a bridal wardrobe collection for the newly-wed and future brides. The other segments that Sana Safinaz target are the SSC B and SSC C+, with the Muzlin collection specifically for the SSC B category and the basic and DIY unstitched collection for specifically for SSC C+ category. It was important to go into this category for the audience that is price sensitive but has great potential that is the SSC B. This way Sana Safinaz tries to cater to as many of women’s needs as possible with its clothing line which is further complemented by its tailor-made accessories and footwear to go with it. Other than these major categories, Sana Safinaz also has pants and other accessories like dupattas, footwear, and bags. One of the main reasons why people buy Sana Safinaz is its association with higher socioeconomic class. Its niche perspective allowed its consumers to stand out. However, as Sana Safinaz is now eliminating the niche perception and it is introducing affordable clothing items, its new attribute perhaps would be quality designer wear in affordable price. According to Assistant Marketing Manager, Sana Safinaz’s products still stand out among its competitor because of the unique designs and cutwork which stays fresh unlike its competitors Khaadi, Elaan, and Sapphire.

Product lifecycle The Fashion Industry does not have a defined Product lifecycle, with the product category which is a necessity will never decline the main challenge is style and design. So, clothes as a

product don’t die but rather modifies from time to time. Sana Safinaz has been a major player since it was founded in 1989. Since then the company has launched and retired various articles. Like most clothing brands, Sana Safinaz launches new products at least twice a year; every summer and winter within which they have various volumes. These launches reach the consumers via various communication channels that Sana Sasfinaz has in place like social media, television, billboards, and text messages. Products in the clothing industry do not stay mature for long as fashion keeps changing. Same is the case with Sana Safinaz, and quite frequently, new articles are launched while the old ones are retired. The brand takes extensive measures to find inspiration and to come up with various unique designs. The top hierarchy and the designer team went to as far as Kenya in search of inspiration. Differentiation and Positioning Sana Safinaz for long has been known for its haute couture as a brand for the elitist women, this brand became so strong in that and even not the first recall that it has is an as high-end brand. A survey was conducted among our batch mates, and that result was not surprising, and all the people had the same response related to its premium and exclusive image. After going to retail business Sana Safinaz does not see itself as a niche brand, but a highly affordable, good quality designer wear which has the same essence as before of selling confidence and class to the women of today. Although this position has not been ingrained that well among the public and extensive reposition promotion is required to achieve success. Apart from this the reason for people to still positioning Sana Safinaz as exclusive is the retail outlets which provide a high-class ambiance which can throw people off and make them perceive it as expensive and high-end. This positioning can be very damaging in an economy like Pakistan, where the population is sensitive to changes in prices and is constantly looking for a good value for their money. Not including the fact that there is much competition here in Pakistan among branded clothes. There are all these big brands like Khaadi, alkaram, Junaid Jamshed and others. In such a competitive environment, it is quite difficult to differentiate, with so many another offering somewhat similar products with the different price range. The positioning of Sana Safinaz as expensive probably leads to loss of sale. The position of Sana Safinaz has always been second best to Khaadi in the mind of consumers according to the assistant marketing manager, but lately, it has moved to third due to the rise of Sapphire and the failure to change the positioning of Sana Safinaz among its audience and potential audience.

Price Sana Safinaz uses product line prices, where they have different price ranges for the different product line. They have tried to keep these prices at the lower end for their two collections which is targeting to the more price delicate segment (SSC B and SSC C+). The company is trying to lower its prices and beat the competitor, but it is not able to do it for all its product lines because of the high industrial cost. However, in the future people can expect a cartel of prices due to the current economic condition and the expectation of the economy doing even worst. The factors that Sana Safinaz considers while pricing is the segments that product line is targeted too and the values that are being delivered to these segment, so the DIY unstitched

collection, the basic and the Muzlin is targeting to the lower-middle-class women. The prices start from 1000 to maximum 4000 Rupees. The value that Sana Safinaz offers is designer wear of good quality which is not heavy on people’s pockets. This is a very good value proposition because Sana Safinaz used to be for the higher upper class when it was just limited to haute couture, but their strategy to penetrate the market to empower women through their dresses not charging a premium unlike the competitors is praised worth.

Place Nature of distribution channel Distribution channels are mainly of two type; business to business and business to the consumer. Many companies take the business to business approach to distribute their products to the consumer. These businesses sell their products to retailers or wholesalers who in turn sell it to the final consumer. The benefit of this is that these businesses can reach a vast amount of audience and save the distribution costs the company had incurred if they had directly approached the consumer. In the clothing sector, almost all brands manufacture and then retails for their products, because fashion is so dynamic the business must stay close to the consumer to be with the trend or even predict the coming of a trend.

Imports raw materials

Sana Safianz manufactures it in its factories

Sana Safinaz has its own retail and online store

Final consumers

So, Figure 3 Sana Safinaz takes a business to consumer approach; they sell their products to the consumer directly through their retail outlets and their online store. The reason behind this is that both Sana and Safinaz are concerned about establishing their brand image in such a competitive environment, and for that reason, they need to ensure that their standards are met and the only way to ensure that is to open their retail stores. Besides, Sana Safinaz enjoys a competitive advantage in direct to consumer channel with its interlinked stage of the art omnichannel. This helps them to collect and analyze all the consumer data, which results in better services and experience for their loyal and good consumers. The only business to business interaction done by Sana safinaz is when buying raw material for

Image 3

Image 4 production.

There has been a shift towards direct to consumer channel; many industries are now going into retail outlets especially with the introduction and progress of online stores. The reasons given for these are better consumer information, and most importantly the companies now want their consumer to experience the brand all the way (Claire Hopwood, n.d.). Sana Safinaz leverages this interest by making its retail stores as interactive as possible and presents itself as a powerful brand, which gives Sana Safinaz its high-end brand looks as well.

Factors considered when designing distribution channels Sana safinaz uses three channels for distribution; its retail store, its online store, and its other online stores like daraz. The reason for a retail outlet was discussed above is the trend among all the Pakistani retail clothing brands like Gul Ahmed, Al-Karam and so on who already were in retailer before Sana

Figure 4 Safinaz entered. Thus it had to follow this trend or would have been left behind. While Sana Safinaz already saw the emerging interest in digital and wanted to control that area, and it was beautifully able to deal with it by investing in a very interactive and easy to navigate website. This was reinforced when we asked a few people to go to the Sana Safinaz website and ask about how they liked it. Figure 4 shows the part of the survey questionnaire and the response of 30 respondents on a closed question about the website.

Supply chain management The supply chain is a core element for business when creating value and then transferring value to the consumers. The supply chain basically consists of the raw material provider, the business itself, the suppliers, the sellers, and so on. The supply chain of Sana Safinaz starts from the point where they import raw material from a foreign country, which includs the fabric. After that all the stitching and dying is done here in the factory run by the Sana Safinaz. After this, the packaged product is transported to the respectable retail outlet or storage for later distribution and for online stores. Sana Safinaz for its online delivery uses courier service like TCS, so that touch point is the one point that Sana Safinaz does not get to experience. However, it has a post-purchase division in its online store department which makes sure to get

feedback and provides return policy. Sana Safinaz has a good supply chain as it controls most of the channel and touch points which gives them an ample amount of consumer data which it can exploit.

Promotion Marketing Channel and Promotional Mix Marketing channel is basically how the firm communicates about the product to its consumers and through which channels make it available to the consumers to get their hands on the product. Sana Safinaz has a zerochannel approach as it manufactures as well as retails for its product, this helps it not only to save cost on the intermediary but also to be close to the consumer and provide them an experience of their retail outlet.

Image 5 Sana Safinaz has adopted the similar approach and occasionally releases its ads on TV. According to the assistant marketing manager, Sana Safinaz launched its TVC once every year but it could not this year because of technical difficulties. Other than that, it spends a good amount on online ads on websites like daraz, home shopping, YouTube, and some other websites which they feel that their target audience uses. At the time of the secondary search that we did for this report, we saw an increase in the number of ads. A screenshot of one of the website is shown in image 5.Sana Safinaz has an extensive promotional mix which has ALT TVC to digital ads to promotional text messages. It spends a great deal of expenditure on promotion to have this 360-degree approach that is the integrated marketing communication approach. This is used to break the clutter which is extremely important for Sana Safinaz as it wants the more price sensitive segments to change their mindset about Sana Safinaz from expensive high-end position to an affordable and classy option for all women. That is why Sana Safinaz started to mention the starting prices of its product lines in their ads, especially on the digital platform, the screenshots are shown in image 6 and 7.

Image 6

The non-personal communication is also done through the atmosphere that Sana Safinaz tries to create in their retail outlet, which does give as designer brand appeal so much so that many other competitors has adopted the way Sana Safinaz’s Figure 7 layout its outlet. This is a strong force to convince customer of their quality and uniqueness. However this backfired and made them look unapproachable to the lower segment which Sana safinaz is targeting as well. The company is trying to remove this inconsistence with its promotion on other channel which constantly mentions the price ranges as discussed above.

Appendix References Arifeen, M. (2017, feb). The Pakistan Economist . Retrieved from http://www.pakistaneconomist.com/2017/02/06/bright-prospect-fashion-apparelindustry-south-asia/ Baig, M. A. ( 2015, Nov-dec). Aurora. Retrieved from Aurora dawn: https://aurora.dawn.com/news/1141319 Claire Hopwood. (n.d.). Retrieved from Visioncritical: https://www.visioncritical.com/direct-toconsumer-marketing-channel/ desk, M. (2015, May). Instep today. Retrieved from The news : https://www.thenews.com.pk/magazine/you/76490-%E2%80%9Csana-safinaz-is-adesign-house-that-has-the-power-to-change-the-perceptions-of-an-entire-population FIBRE2FASHION. (2014). Retrieved from https://www.fibre2fashion.com/marketintelligence/countryprofile/pakistan-textile-industry-overview/ Pakistan Demoghraphic profile 2018. (2018, Jan 10). Retrieved from Indexmundi: https://www.indexmundi.com/pakistan/demographics_profile.html Think with google. (2017, march). Retrieved from Success stories : https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-apac/tools-research/success-stories/howpakistan-sana-safinaz-broke-onto-world-stage/

Secondary Research Tribune https://tribune.com.pk/story/379806/sana-safinaz-to-open-retail-stores/ https://tribune.com.pk/story/897814/t-diaries-sana-safinaz/ https://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/47983/why-is-sana-safinaz-plagiarising-and-giving-copyright-notices-at-the-same-time/ https://tribune.com.pk/story/1656172/4-proud-work-stand-sana-safinaz-responds-racist-lawncampaign/ https://tribune.com.pk/story/1654567/4-sana-safinaz-faces-backlash-racist-campaign/ https://tribune.com.pk/story/135448/lawn-royals-sana-and-safinaz/ https://tribune.com.pk/story/664056/women-higher-education-and-leadership/ https://tribune.com.pk/story/1350176/new-report-49-nations-girls-not-attending-schools/ https://tribune.com.pk/story/1526859/textile-sector-losing/ Dawn https://herald.dawn.com/news/1153369 https://www.dawn.com/news/1058171 https://www.dawn.com/news/1361404 https://images.dawn.com/news/1179622 https://aurora.dawn.com/news/1141319 https://www.dawn.com/news/1433668 Other sources

https://www.techjuice.pk/sana-safinaz-ecommerce-store-featured-as-a-case-study-onmagento-official-website/ https://www.ptj.com.pk/Web-2018/01-2018/Apparel-Knitwear-Dr-Noor.html https://www.fibre2fashion.com/market-intelligence/countryprofile/pakistan-textile-industryoverview/ https://www.ukessays.com/essays/economics/analysing-the-garment-industry-of-pakistanbusiness-essay.php https://www.thenews.com.pk/magazine/you/76490-%E2%80%9Csana-safinaz-is-a-designhouse-that-has-the-power-to-change-the-perceptions-of-an-entire-population http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/pakistan-population/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Pakistan/Female_labor_force_participation/ https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-apac/tools-research/success-stories/how-pakistansana-safinaz-broke-onto-world-stage/ https://www.indexmundi.com/pakistan/demographics_profile.html http://www.pakistaneconomist.com/2017/02/06/bright-prospect-fashion-apparel-industrysouth-asia/ https://dailytimes.com.pk/63837/pride-of-pakistansana-safinaz/ http://www.secretcloset.pk/Sana-Safinaz/profile/50.html https://www.pakpedia.pk/sana-safinaz https://www.owler.com/company/sanasafinaz http://www.kluchit.com/sapphire-and-sana-safinaz-the-market-giants/ https://www.visioncritical.com/direct-to-consumer-marketing-channel/

Transcript 1. Can you please give a brief introduction of yourself and the Sana Safinaz before we proceed with the interview? Hello okay so I am Maham Aslam I work as an assistant marketing manager at Sana Safinaz and I've been working here for about one and a half year so. 2. What is SS’s mission and vision? SS mission and vision so basically the mission is to be the number one concern customer choice in fashion apparel brands and the vision is to be the most aesthetically appealing and aspiring brand of Pakistan. 3. Is SS more market focused or product focused? SS is more product focused at the moment why I say that is because we are constantly putting up innovation in our designs in the categories however now we are trying to make that tilt. We are also doing some research to try to understand our customers better because it's tough competition you need to be on your A-game so now we're actually diverting towards being a little market Focus but currently we are more product focused 4. Sana Safinaz is one of the prominent brands under designer clothing, how does SS define its core customer value?

Question is kind of self-explanatory Sana Safinaz is one of the most prominent Brands under the designer clothing the core customer value I believe is the USP I believe is that when a woman wears on a sana Safinaz they feel confident they feel that in their budget they get a designer label and we believe that delivering the best in a budget is what we believe in. 5. How long have you been working here, what made you stay with SS? I said I've been working here for more than an year now I come from the retail background only and what made me stay with sans Safinaz is the open door policy here you know the directors are approachable you get to voice your opinions whatever you believes are about whatever your believes are here they are heard that is exactly what made me stay in Sana Safinaz. 6. Even though SS is a big brand it kept itself small, does this make the internal organizational culture more inclusive of its employees in decision making and pooling of ideas? Oh yes like I said this is one of the reasons and meaning stay here also is that the culture here is such that every employees research work and whatever they have to say and their ideas like they are kept into account while making the big decision and every bodies point of views are valued here and its very very decentralized internally 7. What is SS’s corporate strategy? What is SS more concerned with expansion or diversification? Part of the corporate strategy both expensive expansion and diversification expansions because currently we are like 31 stores overall but we are planning to open more and going to like smaller towns as well so the expansion bit but diversity yes like what one thing that to we strongly believe in every ream has to has have like a balance of recourses when it comes to gender and all your qualifications are valued and your ability to handle situation is more valued as regardless your gender. So, Sana Safinaz is currently expanding in terms of more stores and expanding its diversity in its workforce so yeah that’s how it is. 8. How did SS manage to create such loyalty? When the customers have been associated with buying Sana safinaz for more than its retail history because we can into the retail business like seven years or so ago but before that also this is a niche designer brand and was catering to women around the globe like we used to go through distribution Channel and the lawn was present in our distributors stores so the loyalty is you know it's very strong with a costumers because it goes back. 9. What type of researches has SS conducted? When and why? Please explain. Can keep conducting these small small surveys questionnaires both open ended and close ended ones and all of these over the times for different different categories we want to build in and the strategy is that we want to keep with it in the marketing and all. 10. How does SS make its customer this informed? How does it help in the search and evaluation stage of its customer’s buying behaviour? The content that produces different if you go to our Facebook page will be able to figure out the kind of content in terms of videos and captions and everything that we've been practicing other then that we use various tools of marketing to keep our customers informed like send out

messages we send out emails and for our loyalty we our loyalty community where we send our messages and other stuff about sales and new arrivals. 11. How does SS Segments its market? From the secondary research and market visits, we found that SS focuses on women from age 25-45, and mostly women in their 30s. What were the factors that were considered while choosing this segment? We have different different categories and the major chunk of our categories fall between the age bracket of 25-40 because the artist collection which is our ready to stitch collection. Hamari jo sab sy Zaida jo launches jo saal mai hoti hai uski hai. From the affordability point of view these age bracket that can afford that. Other than that, it's not true that we only target these segments we target like girls also who are in their teens because have a teen collection which is priced at thousand ninety and last year it was also priced at a thousand rupee as well. 12. Can you tell us all the segments SS is catering currently and why? We are also targeting SSC B and SSC C+ why you say is that because the product is priced in that way at the moment. 13. When Pakistan’s population is considered, the teen and the girls in their early twenties makes a big portion of the population. Do you see SS soon targeting this segment as well? We are currently targeting the teens it's not like we don't. Our basic all ready to wear collection starts from 1500 that's pretty much all about teens and all about college going girls who need to do by basic clothes for everyday needs. 14. How do you define SS’s value proposition? Sana Safinaz value proposition is that in a good amount one is getting the best designs a designer wear and something that's completely valuable. 15. What are the factors that are considered when designing the product? Designs well our design teems goes down and does a lot of research from around the globe what is going to be the trend in the market and that's how they come with the constant innovation, designs and all. 16. While on the market visit, we noticed that the outlet had mostly pastel colours in the pret as well as stitched? Why was this? It’s the season which is catering to the pastel colours because usually abhi we have very vibrant colours as well in our read to wear segment. 17. How is SS positioned in the customers mind? In the Customers mind we are the second-best option after Khaadi and keeping in progress of min of sapphire we are still I think the second best considering the designs are very unique and not just Chevrons and Paisleys like something common. In the consumers or customer, the position of SS in their mind is third. We are not the first choice of the customer while they are making a decision about buying cloths if it's a conscious choice. 18. Can you summarise SS’s positioning statement that is generally followed?

The position statements is that we want to create something unique that fulfils the caters to the everyday needs of women. 19. Can you tell us about how SS manages its suppliers? Does it get its raw materials locally or imports it from somewhere? Tell us about SS’s supply chain? We import the raw material, but we get everything stitched and dyed over here. 20. Tell me more about SS’s suppliers and all the intermediates it deals with? We don't really have as such suppliers we import our raw materials from various countries in the world suppliers I don't really understand what you mean like the suppliers that supply us or the suppliers that you know we distributor to. 21. Both, the ones you get raw materials from and all the retailor or intermediators SS use? Does SS have its own production plant, or it is out sourced? Materials are like majorly majorly imported from around the globe so it's not like we have like one fix person we buy. We obviously take quotations takes samples then approve those samples and then you know that goes for a QnC and then that’s how it gets selected. We have our own plants so it’s basically procurements of raw materials that we have to do, design team and you know the dying and stitching unit is in house. 22. As SS imports its raw materials, how has the current economical situation like currency devaluation affected it? Yeah it’s going to result in a high price hike in the near future because fortunately for the coming year we have already like a procured our major raw materials or whatever deals there was supposed to be we have already done them but for the years to come I think everyone's going to be you know suffering from this devaluation not just sana safinaz. So, if the competitions also going through something of the sort then you know we can create like a cartel of prices. 23. Who are SS’s direct competitors? Our competitors are Elan, khadi and Sapphire. 24. SS like all other designer wear faces problems with replicas and countries, it even issued a warning noticed recently. To what extend has this warning worked and what other measures does SS takes to retain its customers? Of course, we have tried we have issues a lot legal notices to people who tried ot copy our designs especially lawn and we take action strict action against those people who keep caught being copying our product in the local market. This is a major challenge and how do we retain our customer is by bringing new designs a new product a new cuts new Styles at each time to the table. 25. Has giving notices to the companies coping from SS helped limit this replica problem? We do give a notice to people and we have been able to you know stop the distribution and cause kind of a disruption but it's not always possible to catch these suppliers because they never come on the four front are doing it in a very subtle way so but yeah but once we find them we get on that case. 26. On what grounds do you think SS is different from its competitors.

The designs if you see khaadis design and Sapphires design you will see that Sana Safinaz stands out. 27. What are the top selling brands? And not very successful ones according to you? Gul ahmed and Alkaram they are very big brands and top selling brand but they're not very successful why because they have completely different strategy they're based on sale their target is not perfect brand loyalty. 28. Is SS working one any new product? If yes what is the strategy that is being used? Can you give us an overview? We are working on different products and trying to add more lines to the current brand by more lines I mean other categories like you know bringing Innovation shoes and bringing Innovation in other stuff also adding new lines like perfumes and all but right now it’s all in the pipe lines. 29. What sort of pricing strategy do you follow? And what are the underlying factors that are considered while pricing? Pricing strategy is a little tricky because we're trying to beat the competition that comes we trying to keep lower than them but we unable to achieve that in the moment. 30. Has SS considered downscaling or any of these sorts? As there is an emerging lower middle class which can be profitable to target. Not at the moment but we are trying to bring the prices down and meet the cut because the competition is cut throat at the moment which we are trying to meet. For our basic we have achieved that our basic categories start from Rupees 1500 and no other competition has been able to do something of that sort at the moment but for other products we are also trying to achieve that. 31. When I surveyed people about what they think of Sana Safinaz, they all had similar answers related to how it is a premium high-end expensive brand. Although you told me that it has the lowest prices in some of its product lines and is working on reducing the prices of the other lines. So why do you think people see SS like this? Please elaborate I do agree that you know when they think of Sana safinaz they do think about it being an expensive high-end brand because that is a niche from where the brand really started from you know that is the top of the Mind recall of the brand at the moment but I think they're trying to eliminate that you know the major strategy that we are using our campaigns so that people really understand that we have brief for all the women that walk into the store. 32. How does SS provide a seamless shopping experience to your online and offline consumers? Basically we have an entire digital team that is dedicated for our online shopping so if you compare like if you ask me what is a split between the retail and online you have the online business contributes about 20% to the overall revenue of the company so for that they have a dedicated team who takes orders makes dispatches accepts returns in case of faulty or miss handled goods and for every launch we have a pre-booking that starts like on the mid night on the launch date and then all the piled up orders are dispatched the same day we have like an

entire team an entire process dedicated to the online segment for the retail side we make the process seamless by creating constant brand experiences for our customers at the stores. We investing in virtual sorry visual merchandising if you have visited any of the flagship stores you'd seen that the window display is completely different as to what other bands are doing at the moment we are trying to also understand the customer better you know or by the placement of the product and making the stores welcoming and by the body language of the sales representative make sure that you know the sales rep gives the right information and entice the customer to its fullest so yes we are working a lot in order to make the shopping experience very seamless for the customer. 33. We noticed in our market visits that the street shops had less variety as compared to malls. When we asked the manger, the reason given was that less customers comes, but they often come with an intent to buy unlike many shoppers window shopping at the mall. If most customers come to the street shop with an intension of purchasing shouldn’t variety be there as well? If not, then why? You know you'll be surprised to find out that our Stand Alone stores do much better than the ones in the mall like obviously DMC which is dolmen mall Clifton is the flagship like one of the biggest and the most revenue-generating stores that we have but other than that the Karsaz one of which is our stand alone store the reason you found less variety is because of the high turnover of the inventory like people are constantly coming in and they're very loyal customer that comes in and takes supplies from us in bulk because they have to send it to some of the relatives abroad so on and so forth so we have a really good turnover there. So that's why maybe the time you went there you weren't able to do if you were not able to find that much stuff it could also be possible because it's one immediately after the sale when we are restocking our stuff into our solo stores not really I think lucky one being the biggest store that we have at the moment. Over there we face like a little less sell through because people mostly there are for window shopping and all but we cant really do a comparison between the Standalone stores. Yes in Lahore of the Standalone store that's much better as compared to the mall stores. 34. The digital age has revamped marketing for everyone, how did it affect SS and its marketing strategy? Revamping of digital age has a kind of fuelled the Budget that used to invest in our digital promotion and digital marketing. We have come up with new various partnerships with the other online platforms like TCS and we currently so working on some of these kind of promotions other than that you know like the display have kind of modernize your and you know you can always conversion rate you can get like jo be app invert karrahy hoti ho you get to know how effectively that amount has been spent on advertisement because you get to the cost per impression and everything so we have also benefit from the digital boost that has happened in Pakistan. We do vase series of advertisement prior to launch. We do mass ads. We do social media, we have allocated budgets for all various platforms and we have our own website and then we do GDN and all of that. 35. How does SS reach its target audience? Can you give us an overview of its promotion mix?

My placement of advertisement and the marketing mix and the tools that we use SS tries to reach its target audience the over view of the promotional mix. I will tell you the kinds of tools that we used for advertisements. We you go out of home which billboards and hoarding across Pakistan. Then yu have you animated out of homes and then in more brand and then text messages and promotional messages then you have for mass media you have a radio channel for mass media you have an ATL which is a TVC that comes out every year didn't come out last except for this year comes out every year and then you have you have digital and there cable ones for local channels and tell ups for local channels other than satellite ones. We have a great 360 degrees mix that we use run up our promotions 36. The lawn campaign that was launched in this summer based on the African Maasai tribe which received a lot of criticisms, can you tell us about the campaign. What was the attributes being portrayed? Interesting question actually so the campaign that we plan this year was shot in Kenya in Nairobi and in Maasimara basically we were not really targeting the indigenous people the maasi tribes men but when we went their shooting the diversity of Africaa we wanted to so how beautiful it is so our campagain aimed to deliver the message of how beautiful the world is and you know that when you travel you get to meet new people and you get to explore different culture so they were very excited and they wanted to be part of our campaign so it was a very unintentional decision like we want to show like you know how beautiful they look in the pictures but it came up but the kind of people we have in Pakistan the kind of different. Also I think much of it was fuelled by our competition people were paying bloggers to write stuff about us so that's how it got started and then everybody started domino effect people started picking up on and it started writing about are promoting the wrong kind of stuff we never had the intention of that sort so we need to do pull back a lot of the content that we could. I don't think it really impacted the brand or unsettled like our loyal customers only the people who found a reason to not buy Sana Safinaz they didn’t buy it and the competition was just trying to fuel the fire those days they got to benefit out of this the most. 37. Did this incident impact SS’s sales in the short run? No the incident did not impact the sales for the particular year or that particular launch. Why do I say that because we always get like an analysis of industry spend in that particular period. So if you compare ourselves to the other brands you know ours was still better than the competition so at that particular Point people did not really anticipate the kind of cloth that the customer was wanting so our the droppages in sales were not because of the campaign but because of the product. We realize that by to conducting a research across platforms and figuring out that you know of why a particular brand did better than another because of the fabric was breathable, this was a disposable you know they invested more on disposable fashion rather than creating assets out of clothes so a lot of other things were put into placed because of the short fall not because of the campaign I don’t think so! 38. In the marketing communication, what do you think plays a bigger role? Advertising, sales promotion or public relations? Keeping in mind the cut throat competition the custom of today is very price-sensitive if we are talking about the particular segment or particular brand for instance Muzlin. Muzlin targets like SSC B so that customers is like kind of price sensitive so I think price promotion would bring an

instant boost in your Revenue but other than that I think advertisements is very essential and that plays like a vital role in the marketing communication what you are trying to communicate you trying to build an emotional connect with your customer is very important. 39. Where do you see SS in the next 10 years? What major changes and in which areas can we expect from this maturing designer brand? The next 10 years In sha ALLAH I do see this brand doing very well with lots and lots of new lines being introduced I wish to see that you know hopefully by the time we also have a kids line I will also have like a perfume section and we have like proliferated our shoes section and we would have incorporated our bridal than into the retail channel. So you know there's a lot of scope for o growth to see over the decade I see this brand maturing most probably expanding to other cities. Like right now we are like 32 stores old so in a decade or so will be 52 or let's say maybe a hundred stores old so that is the ultimate aim for Sana Safinaz. Because that is the kind of vision we want to be able to deliver the quality and aesthetically appealing and aspiring kind of designs we want to be able to contribute to the confidence of women we want to be able to contribute to society through CSR too by bringing in and partnering with various initiatives that support women because this is like a brand by two women who have been classified as to the top 100 CEOs of Pakistan and you know they have been constantly working towards the growth and betterment of women in so they will be totally impowering you and a lot of girls like you so I see a lot of scope and growth and a lot of respect in general and in the eyes of general customer for this brand over the decade