Fresh Designs

Innovative And Disruptive Strategies Are Helping Kalyan Jewellers Beat Competition; Now, It Wants To More Than Double Revenues And The Number Of Stores In Five Years.

- P.B.Jayakumar

WHEN KALYAN JEWELLERS Chairman and Managing Director T.S. Kalyanaraman or his sons, Rajesh Kalyanaraman and Ramesh Kalyanaraman, go for a morning stroll around the Swaraj Round or visit the Vadakkumnatha temple of Thrissur in Kerala in the evening, they don’t have to worry about carrying a wallet to pay for wayside tea or lemon soda or masala dosa. Like the famed caparisoned tuskers of Thrissur who enjoy superstar status, everyone in this small town knows ‘Kalyan’s Swamis’, a pride of Thrissur. Despite owning private jets, a fleet of Rolls Royces and a big mansion, Swami and his sons chat with the roadside vendors in the unique local slang identifiable with rhythmic flow of Malayalam laced with open heartedness and affection. “That is because we know them very well and they know us very well,” says Rajesh.

The ‘Swamis’ of Kalyan have been part and parcel of Thrissur for at least three generations where Kalyanaraman’s grandfather had moved about a century ago from Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu to start several textile shops in Thrissur town. After years of running the centrally located textile shop that he had inherited, Kalyanaraman decided to try his luck in jewellery by banking on the trust and affection of the people of Thrissur. In the last 25 years, he has used that ‘Thrissur model’ of customer trust and affection to beat competition and spread across India and abroad. Now India’s second-largest jeweller after Tata’s Tanishq in terms of revenues, thanks to years of steady growth, Kalyan Jewellers is getting ready to shift gears. It is looking to more than double the revenue and the number of branches within the next five years.