Miraaya: the trendy women's wear brand

Subject area Brand management, marketing management and retail. Study level/applicability This case is applicable to postgraduate business management students. Case overview Mr Rajesh Jain promoted Miraaya chain of stores in the year 2010. Currently, Miraaya is a fast-evolving retail chain selling women's wear, and this case describes Miraaya's journey since its inception and its attempt to build a brand with limited resources and to carve a place for itself amidst growing competition and fast-growing customer awareness. Though Rajesh almost singlehandedly led the brand, the organization has professionals in each function and there has been process orientation – both for front-end functions as well as back-end functions, right from the beginning. In the second year of operation, the revenue grew very rapidly, but in the third year, when faced with the challenge of stagnant revenue, the organization could still increase the profitability. With a focus on product innovation, he and his team have been able to retain the customers' interest, which is at a premium with widespread competition from both organized and unorganized women's apparel retailers. With innovations like salwars in knitted fabric and cropped trousers with elastic waistband, Miraaya remained ahead of the pack. To keep the costs low, Rajesh and his team worked constantly on expanding via franchising and shop-in-shop formats as well as on online sales, thus also increasing the brand awareness. Students might come to the class with an understanding that brand building is done mainly through active communication in the media, while this case would create an opportunity for the students to appreciate that word-of-mouth, online media and building customer relationships via product innovation can be very exciting, affordable and successful media. Expected learning outcomes With the help of this case, students would learn about customer-based brand equity model and its factors. The case would also help to understand the challenges of brand building in retail in a country like India. It also defines the latest buying behaviour of Indian women and their aspirations. Social implications The case illustrates the challenges and opportunities for a retail entrepreneur in an Indian environment. The case is a nice piece of work to showcase how a new retailer should build the brand in a highly competitive market. This case can be a source of inspiration among budding entrepreneurs. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.