1. On Sight
Flowers Worth Sixty Crores
A couple of years ago, nobody would have ever imagined that flowers
could be sold through the retail channel in India, that too with high-tech
assistance. While everyone else thought this was a potty idea, Vikaas
Gutgutia grew from one retail flower shop to a diversified business worth
sixty crores, with just a little help from a blossoming website!
1
8,000 orders this season, of which Whether it is your parent’s anniversary, we were spellbound by the flower-filled
more than 1200 were from the your girlfriend’s birthday or any other ambience. Soon we were escorted to
Web! That’s the kind of traffic occasion to celebrate, flowers are Vikaas’ chamber. Born and brought up
Ferns N Petals experienced this indispensable. Breaking the myth that in Vidyasagar, a small town on the
Valentine. The most sought after retail retail flower shops don’t exist, Vikaas Bihar-West Bengal border, Vikaas’
florist in India now, FNP has grown Gutgutia started Ferns ‘N’ Petals in family was into the business of flowers
from strength to strength over the years. 1994, which was the beginning of the for the last two generations. They were
It is about to introduce m-commerce, country’s largest retail flower chain. supplying flowers to retailers in Kolkata.
in collaboration with Hutch. So within It was a warm Saturday morning Later, when the Gutgutia’s moved to
a month from now you can use your when we set out to meet Vikaas, Kolkata, they continued their flower
mobile to order and deliver flowers. Managing Director, Ferns N Petals. The business. However, it was not easy as
Have you ever heard a daisy head office of Ferns N Petals is in a catering for flowers from afar increased
speak…An orchid chatter? There may farmhouse located far away from the the prices and quality needed to be
not be such a thing as a talking flower, busy city. As we patiently waited at the compromised as well. However, in spite
but they do communicate your feelings. nicely kept reception to meet Vikaas, of all the odds they did not give up and
BenefIT / March 2006 / 15

2. On Sight
Achievements
• FNP has been awarded a trophy by the Delhi Florist
Association for bringing exotic flowers to New Delhi.
• FNP has bagged the Franchise Award 2003.
• Franchising World Magazine awarded FNP with a
Certificate of Excellence for the best retail florist and the
Recognition of Excellence Award for the best customer
services.
• Vikaas Gutgutia was nominated for the Ernst and Young
Entrepreneur of the year in 2005.
in the late 80s decided to set up their own retail outlet in
Kolkata named, the Plants and Flowers Boutique. After Vikaas
completed his graduation he moved to New Delhi in 1994 to
start afresh. He began with a small shop in the GK-I market.
Today, a decade later he has a workforce of over two hundred
people working with him.
Vikaas takes us down memory lane, to his initial years of
struggle. ‘Probably the timing was right and there was a
vacuum in the industry for a retail flower shop then,’ Vikaas
suggests. Coming from a family that had traded in flowers for
two generations now, Vikaas had his basics right. However,
he had to face his share of struggles too. Procurement of
flowers, streamlining the supply chain management cycle,
hiring people with the know-how of this business and
maintaining the quality of the products were a few of the
many roadblocks. In spite of numerous problems, he stood
bravely by his commitments, suffered losses as well but
continued to work with a singular vision towards success. Special Valentine Arrangement
From giving incentives to managers to hiring friends, he did
all that he could to make business better. He married Meeta
in 1995 and while she took care of the shop, Vikaas began
focussing more on marketing and business development.
The misconception that a flower shop is a roadside affair was
demolished. Slowly but gradually, people started accepting
the concept of a flower boutique and Ferns N Petals became
a more familiar brand.
A few years later, in 1999, Vikaas realised that with
business growing at a faster pace it was getting difficult to
handle operations. He then took a bold step to adopt the
franchising model and within the next three years, the
number of outlets grew to thirty-three, all over the country.
With a royalty of six per cent on the sales, anybody with a
shop size of 400-500 sq.ft. could opt to open up a franchisee
outlet. Another deciding factor is the location of the shop.
Today there are fifty flower outlets of Ferns N Petals across
twenty major cities in India. Six of these outlets are owned by
the company and the rest are franchised. Vikaas also set up
the company website (www.fernsnpetals.com) in 1999. Three
years later, in 2002, the company ventured into e-commerce.
Now customers could buy flowers with the click of a mouse.
Over a period of time, he ventured into wholesaling of flowers
through a division called FNP Marketing. He also launched
Special Valentine Arrangement
FNP Weddings which primarily was meant for designing and
16 / March 2006 / BenefIT

3. On Sight
Brands Under FNP
• Ferns N Petals (Retail & franchising)
• Ferns N Petals (E-commerce)
• FNP Weddings (Wedding décor)
• L’amour FNP (Wedding management)
• FNP Marketing
• FNP Rentals
• Valaya FNP (top end floral boutique)
• Desir FNP (interior decoration)
managing weddings. Gradually he diversified into other
divisions like L’amour FNP (wedding management), FNP
Marketing and FNP Rentals as well.
Vikaas accepts that apart from the website of the company,
which is used to serve on-line customers, he has not used IT
in a large scale to build upon the business. FNP uses the Tally
Basant Lok outlet
7.2 accounting package to manage their finances. And despite
a workforce of over 200 people, he has not been using a HR
management software. He believes in being personally
networked with his employees. In his view, being emotionally
bonded with his employees is necessary to make FNP a better
place to work in. He spoke to us about his plans to shift the
current location of the office to another place in about three
months time. “We would become more techno-savvy when
the business grows further.” Vikaas adds. With FNP venturing
into new markets and hiring more people, he was positive
about setting up a HR management software.
All the technology that goes into the handling and
performance of the Web engine of FNP is managed by Rajiv
Bose, General Manager, e-commerce, FNP. Rajiv has a
master’s degree in management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute
of Management Studies and over 15 years of experience in the
IT industry. In our brief conversation with him, we discovered
that the website’s (www.fernsnpetals.com) server
Aurobindo market outlet management is outsourced to Olive in the US. The server runs
on the ASP platform and Windows 2003 Server. It is robust
enough to handle more than a thousand online orders in an
hour. They have also tied up with many B2B and B2C websites
like indiatimes.com, rediff.com, indiaplaza.com and
indiamart.com, to deliver flowers. They have various payment
modes—through credit card, debit card, smart cards and also
an offline payment option at ICICI. When a customer orders
through the Web, the software (which is built in-house)
captures the order and then each order in manually allocated
to the nearest outlet. If a city has one outlet, then the order is
sent automatically to that place. However, if there are more
than one outlets, the allocation of the order to the nearest
outlet is done manually. They have a tracking number assigned
to each order placed so that customer’s can check the delivery
status on the Web. Rajiv also talked to us about the introduction
of m-commerce to deliver flowers. Very soon they are getting
into a collaboration with Hutch to provide this service.
In the near future, Vikaas is planning to take the FNP
Inner view of an outlet
brand to Dubai, Singapore and London. “The kind of expertise
BenefIT / March 2006 / 17

4. On Sight
we have in terms of flower
management, in the designing and Our recommendations to FNP about technology
arrangement of flowers, customer • To adopt an HR Management software to handle the 200 strong, and ever-
service and about a growing business growing team.
model, I am sure we will be equally • Flowers are for managing relationships. CRM software manages customers for
successful abroad”, Vikaas adds. In increased business.
addition to this, they are also planning • To adopt RFID to track logistics and deliveries when business grows.
to launch a fast food chain (six to begin
with) under the brand name, Chatak Hence, FNP is planning to introduce long, relating to business. He normally
Chat. “This will bring the traditional m-commerce (mobile commerce) for finishes his day at 9 pm at night, when
chaat to air-conditioned food joints.”, delivering flowers all over the country. he leaves for his residence. “The flower
Vikaas adds. When asked about his personal taste business is seasonal”, Vikaas replies
The FNP Group is creating a couture of flowers, he says that his favourite when we wondered about no time being
lifestyle brand called L’amour to lead flower is the Anthurium (a part of the left for recreation. He has a lot of work
the group’s foray into the high end décor of his cabin). We also spotted the in festive or seasonal months. On the
wedding management business, beauty lucky bamboo in another end of his other hand, off-season he unwinds with
and health spas, and fashion labels, office. He thinks that there are no his family on vacations. He visits health
including accessories. It will target the specific flowers for a CEO. It all depends clubs and practices yoga as well. Vikaas
rich and famous with an exclusive, and on personal taste and the interiors. is also an ardent cricket lover.
luxurious collection. In September Vikaas’ normal day begins at 9 am On a parting note, Vikaas
2005, FNP launched its new home when he reaches his office. He then goes summarises that over the years, enough
accessories store, Desir.FNP in New on to meet his employees in various hard work has gone into laying a strong
Delhi. Vikaas envisions that the number departments. He also charts out plans business foundation. Setting up the first
of people having access to a mobile to be implemented on a regular basis. thirty shops was very difficult. However,
phone outnumbers the number of At around 10.30 am, he arrives in his now FNP is poised at the stage wherein
people with access to the Internet. cabin where he meets people all day they can open up a shop every week,
across the country. Talking about his
ambitions about the FNP weddings
division, Vikaas revealed that in about
five years time, every woman in India
would insist on her wedding décor being
handled by FNP. Which is when we
made our suggestion to Vikaas to deploy
Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) software to handle the
personalized needs of such a large and
diversified pool of customers. He also
plans to open a training institution in
the near future, to impart education in
the floral sector and groom people for
this segment. FNP may go public in the
first quarter of 2007, may consider
venture capital funding or even private
placement. The group would also focus
on the fast food segment with Chatak
Chat, which is about to come up very
soon and look forward to the FNP brand
moving to foreign markets as well.
Jim Collins, the author of ‘Good to
Great’ and ‘Built to Last’ identifies the
humble CEO as a common denominator
in truly visionary companies and Vikaas
is undoubtedly one of them. !
Vikaas and Meeta Gulgatia —Ashutosh Pradhan, BenefIT Bureau
18 / March 2006 / BenefIT