Bata's transformation for the aspiring modern Indian

Gunjan Shah, MD and CEO, Bata India Image: Madhu Kapparath

Prague, September 2018. The then President of India was about to reiterate an unmistakable perception, belief, and ‘reality’. “Bata is a brand with which all Indians have grown up and which all of us consider our own,”  Ram Nath Kovind underlined during an official trip to the Czech Republic in 2018. “Bata shoes today walk in every village, every town, and every city in India,” Kovind reckoned, illustrating the omnipresent nature of the footwear brand, which had clocked staggering numbers in 2018.

Bata India sold 47.25 million footwear pairs, had 1,415 outlets, 10,296 employees, a revenue of ₹2,928.4 crore, a net profit of ₹329.6 crore, and occupied a staggering retail space of 3.07 million square feet across the country in FY18. Indeed, ‘our own’ brand had a bounce in its feet, and by 2018, it had populated every village, town, and city.

Rewind 113 years, Bata was taking baby steps in India. In fact, it was born out of a pinching reality. In the 1920s, out of a population of around 350 million people, only about 10 million wore footwear in India. The need of the hour was to make footwear accessible and affordable. In 1931, Bata started its first workshop on the west bank of the Hooghly River in Kolkata. By 1933, the brand opened 86 stores and sold an average of 40 pairs of footwear every week.

Then, three years later, came a turning point. In 1936, Bata rolled out pinstriped sneakers with the distinctive rubber toe guard—Bata Tennis—created for Indian school children. Bata Tennis was made in India, made for India, and made by Indians. As the brand started to seep into the socio-cultural fabric of the country, the Indian middle class, in return, began to embrace the brand that understood their needs, emotions, and pockets. Bata found a new family that was warm, accepting, and inclusive, and the brand found a bigger growth canvas. 

As the years rolled by, the emotional bonding hardened. On the supply side too, there was intense action as manufacturing gathered steam at Batanagar. Some 622 km away in Bihar, another factory was set up at Bataganj in 1942. Over the next few years, as restless Indians started marching briskly towards freedom, Bata matched every step. The brand kept growing. Eight years after independence, India was immersed in building the foundations for a promising future during the Nehruvian era, and Bata got engrossed in walking the talk: To make footwear affordable, accessible, and durable.

A socialistic country was the perfect place for a brand that identified itself closely with the masses. In 1950 came the blockbuster Hawai—an ultra-affordable, rubber slipper—which made Bata a household name. As the brand started seamlessly slipping into millions of households, its footprint grew manifold. In the process, Bata earned trust and gained heft. In 1955, Bata produced 48 lakh pairs of leather footwear and 1.4 crore pairs of rubber footwear. By 1960, it took its store count to 779 and produced 2.4 crore pairs of shoes.

A decade later came another turning point. Bata Shoe Company changed its name to Bata India, and went public in 1973. “It was one of the few companies to get listed in the 70s,” recalls Gunjan Shah, managing director and CEO of Bata India. Over the next two decades, while the company kept expanding its reach, it was also cramped by growth pangs.



Militant trade unionism took a toll, productivity went south, losses kept mounting, and post-liberalisation, a bunch of smaller players started nibbling at the Bata turf. The brand was still durable, still trusted, but was getting rusted. In the early 90s, a new India was rising, and it needed a brand that reflected its aspirations. A fuddy-duddy Bata badly needed to reboot.

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In 2004 came the next turning point. Bata shifted its corporate headquarters from Kolkata to Gurugram. The brand from Batanagar was trying to find its feet at Bata Chowk. In 2015, India’s ‘own’ brand had a metro station in its name at Faridabad, Haryana: Bata Chowk. “Batanagar, Bataganj, Bata Chowk… the brand had a rich history,” contends Shah. Decades went by, India progressed, and companies changed, but one thing remained eternal. Bata was still a durable, comfortable, and trusted brand.

For the heritage brand, however, the writing was on the wall. It needed to add one more personality trait: Style. A rising disposable income, a smartphone boom, and an internet explosion had whetted the aspirational appetite of the Indians. They wanted fashion, swag, and a premium way of life. Bata decided to upgrade.

Fast forward to 2024. Shah reckons the gambit has started to pay off. He starts by showcasing a ‘flurry of firsts’ for FY24. Floatz, a casual slider mule, rolled out in 2021, is the fastest brand under Bata to cross ₹100-crore sales mark. Bata has revived the athleisure brand Power, opened its first exclusive brand outlet, and launched an athleisure apparel line Power Apparel. It expanded the ‘Sneaker Studio’ concept to woo millennials and GenZ, and inked a licensing and manufacturing deal with Authentic Brands Group for fashion and accessories brand Nine West.



Bata’s new game plan is to focus on six brands: Power, North Star, Weinbrenner, BubbleGummers, Comfit, and Red Label.
 
Bata’s big story, underlines Shah, is not only the way it has survived in India, but how it kept transforming to meet the needs and aspirations of Indians from all walks of life. “At the heart of Bata’s transformation has been its product,” he says, adding that the company added tech, research and development (R&D), and style to comfort and durability. “We also aggressively ramped up… offline as well as online,” he says, taking the brand to every nook and corner of the country. 

In FY24, Bata had a reach of over 1,500 retail and distribution partners across towns, 1,862 retail outlets, including franchisees, and served over 2.5 lakh customers every day (see box ‘Bata India in Numbers’). “We also ramped up marketing and advertising investment,” he adds.

Sandeep Kataria, chief executive officer of the Bata Group, explains the long-lasting innings of the brand and the company. “Our roots in India run deep. The country’s evolution is mirrored in Bata’s transformation,” says Kataria, who was elevated as global CEO in 2020. What started as a story of providing accessible footwear, underlines Kataria, has blossomed into a fashion-forward brand catering to the aspirations of new India. “My journey from leading Bata India to helming the global operations is a testament to the incredible potential that India nurtures,” he says.

Bata, reckon branding and marketing experts, has had an enduring story because of its DNA. “The brand had a certain degree of humility. It made India walk with pride and comfort,” says Harish Bijoor, who runs an eponymous brand consulting firm. Bata, which dominated the imagination of Indians for decades, understood the consumers, rolled out products that met their needs, and displayed the pomposity of being the biggest in the country. Everything worked.

What also worked for Bata was its price tag. Indians wanted quality products but at the right price point. “This price point was called Bata Price,” says Ashita Aggarwal, professor (marketing) at SP Jain Institute of Management and Research. Bata Price, she explains, emerged out of consumer insight. “₹99 was perceived to be cheaper than ₹100, and ₹999 was considered to be much better than ₹1,000,” she adds. What also helped was having an Indian ‘identity.’ “It has always been perceived to be an Indian brand. It is as desi as Tata,” she adds.

Back in 2018, in Prague (the capital city of the Czech Republic), Ram Nath Kovind continued to talk about perception, belief, and ‘reality’. And he had something interesting to point out in terms of ‘reality’. 

“A great son of the Czech Republic, Thomas Bata founded the Bata shoe company in a town not far from Prague,” he underlined the reality that is divorced from the wide perception of Bata being an Indian brand. “Bata has its roots in this country (the Czech Republic),” he asserted, adding that from here it spread to every nook and corner of the world, including Batanagar in India. The former President of India went on to underline another reality, which perfectly matches perception. “Bata shoes today walk in every village, every town, and every city in India,” he concluded.

Bata may be a Czech brand but it remains Indian, in soul and name.