Dear shareholders,
Greetings of the Season
It is a pleasure to be with you once again, sharing the highlights of your Company's
performance for FY 2018-19 (FY19)- the second year after your Company's spin off as an
independent listed Company.
Sustained Growth in Turnover and Customer Reach During FY19, your Company achieved a
turnover of Rs. 684.23 Crore, recording a same store sales growth of 10%. With the opening
of 6 new stores across India, we added about 1 Lakh sq. Ft of retail space. Our brand
"hometown" is now available in 48 stores across 9.6 lakh sq. Ft of retail space.
Customer First
The growth was strongly enabled by the core beliefs at Praxis- that customer
satisfaction is the most important factor in long term business growth, and that we can
continuously satisfy our customers by providing an unmatchable Value in all the product
and service categories we offer to them. During FY19, enhanced customer satisfaction and
loyalty were visible in a higher Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 83% in the last quarter of
FY19, and the Average Google rating of hometown stores at a high of 4.7 out of 5.0.
Another measure of customer satisfaction "On Time Delivery" stood at 92% in the
last quarter of FY19. We continue to stay committed towards continuous improvement in
customer satisfaction and loyalty through happiness.
Initiatives for Leadership through Technology Our aspiration to be the market leader
continues to ignite creativity, energizes us and enables us to deliver what we commit.
This ultimately generates greater value for our shareholders. During FY19, we took several
strategic technology led initiatives towards market leadership, primarily driven by
digitalization. Here is a quick report on each:
Endless Aisle -
This is an interactive in-store kiosk. It provides a large touch screen display that
allows our customers to browse through the entire product catalog irrespective of whether
the products are displayed physically in that store or not. This enables the customers to
check and order the widest possible range of our products. We have implemented this
technology in 30 stores as part of Phase-1.
Responses from both customers and the sales team have been severalpositive. Stores has
been boosted by this initiative. We plan to invest further in Endless Aisle to make it
more user friendly and expand it to our remaining stores.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) -
Most of our stores now have a robust CRM System, that benefits both, our salespeople
and our customers. It provides to the Sales teams a 360-degree view of each customer
including the customer's purchase history. It enables a much faster check out process.
Salespeople can also check stock availability on real time basis with help of "CRM
Tab".
Digital Web Experience -
Growth in our digital presence is driven by our revamped website – hometown.in and
the hometown app with improved product discovery and user onsite experience. During FY19,
this enabled us to welcome more customers and fulfill more orders than ever before.
Governance
We believe that effective Corporate
Governance is a pre-requisite for the attainment of excellent performance. Your Company
endeavors to institute systems and procedures that help statutory compliance and
facilitate management in greater transparency and institutional soundness. We believe in
embedding the best of corporate governance practices in our day to day operations to build
and retain the trust of our shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, regulatory
bodies and various other stakeholders.
Sustainable Profitable Growth
Our focus on Customer Satisfaction and loyalty has yielded positive results with growth
in sales numbers. We are confident that sustained growth will bring profitability sooner
than later.
We have, therefore, continued to make meaningful investments in organizational
capabilities, people, processes and technology. These are vital investments for the
future. Wewillcontinuouslystrivetobecome more accessible and affordable for our customers,
by efficiently utilizing the resources, through expansion aimed at reaching more
customers, while we strengthen our processes constantly. We will keep seeking potential
profitable avenues, to create long term value for the Shareholders.
Gratitude
We are thankful to our valued Shareholders for their continued support and trust in us.
Our earnest thanks are also due to vendors and partners for their commitment and support
extended to us. I feel proud in acknowledging the commendable efforts and commitments
shown by our most valued resource-our people -who have always contributed their best and
who continue to set new benchmarks. I end with a reassurance that we shall strive
ceaselessly to enhance value for each stakeholder!
Thank you
Viraj didwania
Chairman & managing director