Sachin Jain, President, Forevermark Diamond joined the group as Retail Head in the year 2010 and soon climbed the ladder of success with his hard work. He was promoted as the President of Forevermark Diamond in the year 2013. Sachin throws light on the current pandemic situation and how the Diamond industry, as a whole, is planning new business strategies for the future. Recently Sachin answered some important questions regarding future business strategies.
What would be Forevermark’s strategy to recover from Covid19?
First and foremost, we will be taking care of the safety part of our retail stores that we are operating in. We have 250 stores all over India. The current situation has created enough fear among customers. We are making sure that required sanitization is done at our stores for customers. We are taking all the precautionary measures. Our consumers and all employees must be safe. That is our priority at the moment. Another important thing is that we are continuously in touch with our consumers. Staying connected with consumers is important. We are in touch with consumers online. On Akshay Tritiya, we placed an ad for consumers, not exactly asking consumers to come and buy our products. Once things start getting normal, we’ll be focusing on marketing strategies.
How would Forevermark support its clients in these tough times and thereafter?
By the end of March, we started 10 sessions with all our retail partners and manufacturers on digital media, finance, and merchandising. We can proudly say that within a month, we completed over 400 sessions. They have been very value-centric. We have been conducting training programs for our sales ambassadors. Every day over 4000 ambassadors is taking benefits of these programs. The response is really good. We have developed our advertising communication keeping in mind the current COVID19 situation. We have shared our content with our partners and they have been using it in all their social media handles.
How different would be your retail business module now since we have seen the imperfect phase of our business cycle?
Collaborations will be at an all-time high. Our partnership with Dee beers is well known. The extensive collaboration of retailers working in collaboration with manufacturers and with brands is important during this tough time.
How would you attract more customers to your brand and new marketing ideas?
The marketing will play a vital role in bringing consumers back to the category and to the brand. We have been redesigning certain long term and short term campaigns, keeping in mind the COVID19 situation. The year is going to be an action-packed year for us. Ours was the only brand that placed an advertisement on various mediums, on Akshay Tritiya.
How do you forecast about polished diamond prices once the market is open?
At the moment it is tough to predict anything as everything is on hold. The mining and manufacturing are stalled completely. Prices depend on demand and supply, which is totally on hold currently. Everything will be opened phase-wise. It is not at all going to be an easy journey. The good news is that we haven’t witnessed any order cancellation till now. Those orders that were placed on Akshay Tritiya are still on, which is a good sign. We all are planning businesses with whatever we have in hands.
