ITC Education and Stationery Product Business has drawn up plans to double its revenue by increasing its offerings, entering into new markets, and increasing multiple channel of distribution.
According to the Chief Executive of Education and Stationery Product Business, Chand Das, the company is planning to enter SAARC region and Gulf Co-operation Council soon with expanded basket of products. And, these products will be sold through modern retail outlets, institutional sales and e-commerce.
Currently, ITC sells products under Classmate and Paperkraft. The customer spend (Maximum Retail Price) for these brands is around Rs.1,300 crore. Classmate accounts for 90 per cent of the sales, of which notebooks of different array accounts for 85 per cent of it.
Classmate brand is targeted at students, and Paperkraft at executives. Apart from notebooks, the unit sells different types of writing instruments, mathematical instruments, and art and stationery products. Until two years ago, these products were imported from China. Depreciating rupee, increasing labour costs in China and payment of countervailing duty on imported goods forced ITC to source products locally.
According to Mr. Das, this unit has around 35 small and medium enterprises as vendors, over 900 distributors, and about a lakh retail outlets. The production of notebooks is reserved for SMEs.
“In the last three years, the Indian stationery market has grown bigger with most of the firms either being acquired, merged or a new company has been floated. We also received several enquiries, but we will like to carry on our. We are the leaders in notebooks and occupy second and third slots in pens, pencils and arts and stationery,” he said.
