Ranger Farm (earlier Reliance Fresh), which has now been hived off from being a vertical of Reliance Retail and spun into a new company, is undergoing operational and structural changes as it plans to tap the capital market by next year-end.
The company has toned down its fast paced property acquisition and has also withdrawn contracts as it moderates its roll out plan from its initial target of 2,000 stores by next March to around 780 stores.
Marking a change from its earlier strategy of being a fully invested business before the retail venture breaks even, Ranger Farm, has shifted its focus from store roll out to operational efficiency so as to break even by March -April 2008.
The changes would entail decentralisation of decision making to the state-level to make the operations more flexible and region specific. For instance, decisions such as the kind of assortment to be kept in a store will be given to the state teams to decide in co-ordination with the broad guidelines of the national headquarters team. However, a source pointed out that the decentralisation will be done in a calibrated manner, over a period of time.
?Splitting Reliance Retail?s separate verticals into different businesses, will mean that the profit making verticals can be separated from the other division and taken to the markets faster, rather than waiting for the entire business to reach the break-even threshold?, said a company official.