Future Group - Branding Private Labels

India's largest domestic retail group, the Future Group, is pursuing a novel private label strategy. In a country dominated by small scale retailers, it is using its scale to launch private label brands in several product categories. It is planning to delink these new offerings from the store brand and make them available through other retailers. Future Group hopes to derive most of its growth over the next few years from this initiative.

The case enables students to take on the role of the group's brand advisor, and deal with some basic questions: Will private label brands erode customer loyalty or build it? Will they build traffic or cannibalize it? Will they add to the complexity of retailing or simplify it? More fundamentally, is the private label brand stratgey sustainable in the long-run in the highly competitive Indian retail?