Ratnadeep has become a household name today and very few areas in the city remain bereft of at least one branch of the supermarket — bustling with people at any given time of the day. The rise of Ratnadeep makes for an incredible story and the men behind it, Managing Director Sandeep Agarwal and Director Manish Bhartiya, tell a gripping tale that illustrates their journey.
Sandeep took up the business while pursuing his bachelor’s in commerce, and had never anticipated that a small departmental store would one day become such a large chain of 30 supermarkets within Hyderabad. “It all started in 1991. I was still in college when my uncle, Brijkishore Bhartiya came to know of this opportunity. It was just a small kirana store with the name Ratnadeep. My uncle was a very enterprising businessman and he had heard that the store was being sold. Since I had no concrete plans about my future, he thought I was the best person to give this responsibility to. It was quite daunting in the beginning; but I knew I wanted to do business, so the sooner the better!” reveals Sandeep.
Since the family had no experience of running a retail business, Sandeep says they had to struggle a lot for the first three years. “It took us time to get a hang of things. Most challenging was the in-house pilfering that was happening. Money kept getting stolen right under our noses, and it was not until the third year that we realised it. We incurred a lot of losses. Once we caught the thieves and started monitoring the business cautiously, we could finally see some physical cash in the counters,” he says.
The journey from being a small hole-in-the-wall kind of a shop to a grand supermarket, with central air-conditioning and bright lights, was, one could say, a sort of a culture shock to the owners themselves. Sandeep adds, “From 1995 to 1997, Foodworld and other supermarkets came up with their retail models that had beautiful lighting and air-conditioned spaces. We were affected badly by them and we started thinking about how we could adopt this model as well. We travelled a lot — to Chennai, Bengaluru and many other places around the country for a thorough understanding of how supermarkets should be run. We then finally renovated our space and were overjoyed to see that it was received well by customers.”
Just as the company was beginning to stand tall, having already opened its first branch in Srinagar Colony, a tragedy struck the family — Brijkishore Bhartiya passed away. It was then that Manish Bhartiya, his son, stepped in.
“Even when my father was in the business, I was never involved because I didn’t have any plans to join it. “I was preparing to become a chartered accountant and was writing my exams seriously. I never thought even in my dreams that I would be doing business one day. But when my father passed away, I decided to join the business and help out since it still had to grow a lot,” says Manish, who learnt everything about business on the job.
“We had about three outlets by 2007. In 2008 came the turning point. Inflation was at its worst and rent prices were hefty. We wanted to open a store in Madhapur since that was an area that was growing in popularity and population — but the rent was a whopping eight lakh rupees per month! It was too much, but we took a leap of faith. It was a shock for our family members. They asked us, ‘Are you opening a supermarket or a jewellery store?’” Manish says with a laugh, and adds, “But, we were prepared to incur the losses since our appetite for risk had grown by this time and we had calculated just how much loss we were capable of withstanding.
“We thought we’d give it a shot; if it fails, we can always wrap up. The only thing on our minds was that we wanted to expand and we were not willing to back off without trying.” This store, too, became a super-duper success, and that was it for the family. “Despite the huge amount of rent that we had to pay, we were still making profits. We then understood the real value of what we had built. Since this store was also successful, we got the confidence we needed and started an expansion spree,” says Manish. The result of their “leap of faith” can be seen in the form of 26 more stores that Ratnadeep now has — constructed within a span of just nine years!
The duo is planning to reach a milestone of 50 stores in the city by March, 2018, and has begun contemplating the idea of taking the store beyond Hyderabad. “We thought we’d expand in other cities only after we saw no more scope within Hyderabad.” says Sandeep.
The timeline
1991: Took up the ownership of Ratnadeep, a small departmental store
1997: Opened first store in Vikrampuri
2001: Srinagar Colony branch opened
2007: Opened the third store
2008: Turning point — Opened store in Madhapur
By 2017: Opened 26 more stores
