The Prime Minister in his address to the Nation six months ago stressed on the term ‘Vocal for Local’ and in every other forum he has been stressing on this point. PM Narendra Modi had made a clarion call to support local brands. During this time of crisis it has made us realize the importance of local traders who have helped the country sustain during this long period of Lockdown due to the Coronavirus, he said.
As per many Experts despite the PM’s call, India will remain an open market and home-grown brands are not going to get any preferential treatment from the government. They have to win the consumer on the back of quality, innovation, pricing, and the right marketing mix.
CLS Lighting is a leading Lighting Solutions as founded in 1991 and is part of the iconic Chandra Group of Companies. Aligning itself with the government’s vision to “MAKE IN INDIA”, the emphasis has been on manufacturing international quality products and offering same locally at Indian pricing, offers a portfolio of products that are innovative, combining efficiency with elegance with a strong focus on customization to suit various applications and client needs. The company aims to penetrate the underserved market by launching its E commerce website, Space Allure, the highest number of SKU’s across product categories that are Decorative Lighting, Technical/Functional Lighting and Outdoor Lighting.
Devendra Goyal, Managing Partner at CLS speaks about the brand’s new initiative, brand journey, and much more:
The journey so far?
CLS Lighting, also fondly known as Chandra Lampshades by our veteran clients was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Bangalore. CLS Lighting is part of the iconic Chandra Group of Companies – a well-loved and trusted group with a rich history of sustained success for over 100 years across various verticals.
One of the 6 companies under the Chandra Group, CLS began as dealers for other lighting brands and vendors, but over time we transitioned into developing state-of-the-art products for our very own flagship brand. This was a great move which benefitted both the company and clients alike as we began to design and manufacture customized and complex lighting products in-house. CLS specialises in both technical and decorative lighting solutions for both indoor and outdoor use, most of them manufactured at our very own 15,000 sq. ft. manufacturing unit in Bommasandra, Bangalore. We also work through a pan-India supplier and OEM network for various components and products.
What marketing metrics do you value the most at CLS?
Given that we are a B2B company, wherein almost 96% of the sales come from various verticals including Corporate, Residential/Builders, and Commercial, Hospitality as well as Co-Working & Co-Living spaces. Our focus has always been more on sales rather than marketing. Instead of direct marketing to consumers, we have a business development team and they conduct face-to-face meetings with prospective clients.
How is CLS ensuring customer retention with the help of social media?
Currently our social media strategy is to keep our clients engaged and updated with the work we have been doing and our latest product offerings. Now that we are ready to penetrate the B2C market with our E-commerce website, our focus on social media will increase. A digital marketing agency will be handling performance marketing and PR for us. Besides this, we also have a dedicated social media team for posting, monitoring and tracking our social media pages.
What are Chandra Lampshade’s mission and vision for the Indian Market?
CLS has steadily maintained its position as a cut above the rest, our main USP being the ability to customize and manufacture bespoke products to meet client and project requirements. Most of the big lighting brands in India have a fixed catalogue and do not provide any solutions outside of that, CLS, on the other hand, has a fixed catalogue of products and also has the capability and resources at hand to design & manufacture bespoke products as required. We are on a constant mission to increase our local manufacturing ability to provide our clients with the best quality products at affordable prices.
While it is our constant endeavour to increase our project verticals as well as our dealer network for the B2B vertical, our long-term vision is to establish a global presence by starting to export CLS brand products.
CLS Lighting B2C is all set to penetrate underserved markets by launching its E-commerce site, Space Allure, what would be the media mix and target audience for that?
With Space Allure, we want to enter the B2C market and increase our retail focus. Due to the pandemic, even people who were previously hesitant to do any online shopping, are now opening up to the idea of buying from E-commerce websites. Through the website we want to reach as many people as possible, especially the underserved markets of Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.
As far as the marketing efforts are concerned, for now we will focus on performance marketing and PR to increase website awareness amongst the target audience.
Which are the various strategic alliances and partnerships CLS has signed up to boost the new initiatives?
We are determined to increase our in-house manufacturing capacity by focusing on our back-end supplier and OEM network. Currently, we are manufacturing a large percentage of our products in India. Our plan is to completely cut our dependency on imports and manufacture all new products in India.
How is CLS Lighting riding on the festive buzz to build connections with the audience?
Our E-commerce websites Space Allure is set to launch just in time for the festive season. Diwali being the “festival of lights”, we plan to launch with some exciting festive offers. This site will not only boast the highest number of SKU’s across product categories that are Decorative Lighting, Technical/Functional Lighting and Outdoor Lighting but will also offer free shipping pan-India.
How is CLS Lighting ensuring that its products and plans are accessible to Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities across India?
At CLS, our focus has always been to manufacture international quality products within India and offer the same locally at Indian pricing. We are already manufacturing in India and proud of the fact that we are able to meet complex client requirements in both decorative as well as technical lighting through our ability to manufacture in-house as well as sourcing high-quality components via our vast OEM network over the years while maintaining the final assembly and quality control in-house. This allows us greater control over efficiency, quality and cost which further aligns with our plans to make their solutions hyper-accessible to Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities across India.
