Restaurants

The road to Mars

Sanjay Narang President Mars Restaurants

With interests extending across the hospitality spectrum, Sanjay Narang, president, Mars Restaurants, believes that what India has exploited till date is only the tip of the iceberg when measured against its immense potential

The mettle of homegrown brands in a burgeoning hospitality industry can be assessed primarily on how they hold forth in the face of foreign brands. But Sanjay Narang, president, Mars Restaurants, feels differently. "The position of the Indian hospitality in the global scene has to be assessed against its inherent potential, which in turn depends on how soon and how effectively both, public and private sectors, can provide the inputs required for sustained growth in this sector," he believes.

Meanwhile, Narang is doing his bit. Mars Restaurants started out with its flagship restaurant, now christened Not Just Jazz By The Bay a decade ago. Today the group, promoted by the Narang family, has diversified interests within hospitality with a smorgasbord of brands ranging from boutique to celebrity-driven and theme-based F&B outlets. This year it launched the Waterstones Country Club and Spa, spread over a six acre plot near Mumbai's international airport and a restaurant in New York City fashioned after the ubiquitous Mumbai dabbawalas named, what else, Dabbawala with an investment of one and a half million dollars.

The game plan

This Cornell University alumnus gives an outline on how he fashioned the group's culinary juggernaut. The division of the family business followed by his stint at Taj's catering business helped conceive Mars Restaurant. Its mission - to give guests an incredible experience while continuously innovating food, service, ambience, entertainment, and empowering employees to be decision makers.

With an unconventional foray into the industry, Narang shut down the successful Talk of the Town to introduce Jazz By The Bay - a decision questioned by many. "At that time everyone wondered whether the new concept of having live jazz performances would work. There were predictions that we would shut shop in six months. But we're in our tenth year now," he exclaims.

Success has been a result of following its mission to the T and comprehending trends ahead of time. Be it Polly Esther's or the tie-up with India's best loved cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, the group has been pioneering concepts. It's the difference in thinking, Narang explains, throwing the safety net to the winds and choosing untrodden paths.

The surface currents belie the fundamentals under it. Standardising product quality in each restaurant within a brand is imperative and the company processes raw materials at its central commissary in North Mumbai - a strategy that has reduced the ratio of kitchen to service space in its restaurants thereby saving on expensive real estate. The company is currently setting up a state-of-the-art 25,000 square feet food processing and manufacturing facility in North Mumbai. "We're nearly doubling our turnover every year and it is all done without my active involvement," he adds. He credits this to the great management structure in place with almost 3,000 employees across India and growing.

Complementing this is technology, the company has adopted software for project scheduling and monitoring and yield management among other things while enhancing the group's efforts at corporate social responsibility. Mars Restaurants is also looking at entering into arrangements with various Web-based hotel reservation agencies for room sales.

On the horizon

The gastronomical ride has not been entirely without its potholes; the Narangs divested their majority stake, with the Malaysian Navis Capital Partners picking up a 74 per cent stake in the company last year. But today, the group is poised for expansion on all fronts with plans for investments to the tune of approximately Rs 100 crore per year for the next three years.

The focus will be to set up Gordon House Hotels in metros and tier-one cities. "The cities we are looking at are New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Our preference would be for a vanilla management contract or franchise agreement," he adds. Only in exceptional cases the group may pick up a minority equity stake in the owning company and lease or purchase the land/building outright for setting up the boutique hotel. The company already has a Gordon House Hotel in Pune while another, within close proximity to its Waterstones Country Club and Spa, will open by this year end.

Also in the pipeline is an expansion of Skygourmet, the airline catering unit, which is currently supplying upto 10,000 meals a day to Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways and Air India Express. The company is in the process of setting up a catering unit in Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai within this fiscal year having just opened units in Bangalore and Delhi.

Mars Group is now looking to format its fast food brands as food courts in malls and technology parks. Citing the experience the group had in Pune, Narang says, "We found that this format works much better than having standalone outlets so we are consolidating all brands under one umbrella. A venture at a single location with common production facilities translates to lesser overheads, lesser staff, lower rents and common management."

The next stop is a deal with a developer to put all brands out in the form of 100 food courts in the next ten years (and 28 in the next three years) across malls and technology parks.

Narang believes…

Assessing India's hospitality scenario, Narang strongly believes that it has developed to a greater extent than other developing countries, particularly those in Africa, Middle East and South Asia. But the crux of the issue remains that it is only the tip of the iceberg. "Other countries particularly in Europe, North and South America and South East Asia have been able to exploit the hospitality potential in their countries to a far greater extent. If measured in this relative manner, we must have probably lost some market share in the last few years," he speculates.

On a micro note, Narang believes that future hotel design trends will spell out distinction and uniqueness in all aspects with an emphasis on personalised service over automated efficiency, and employing cutting edge technology across all segments. He adds, "We also foresee a number of real estate companies keen to invest in the hospitality sector and hand over their properties for management to successful operators."

A critical participant in this growth story is the government; its participation restricted to providing better infrastructure, making land available at an affordable rate, providing utilities and creating an environment conducive to private, domestic and international participation. While he is of the opinion that lack of infrastructure is hampering growth, he adds, "If we make a concrete and planned provision for it, the growth potential is immense and far beyond than what has been achieved by any other nation," he concludes.