Setting New Benchmarks in the beauty salon industry
BRIEF US ABOUT KEY PERSON
Vaijayanti Bhalchandra, a serial entrepreneur & Pioneer in the Beauty & Salon industry has been instrumental in transforming the Indian Salon industry. Along with Co-Founder Rahul Bhalchandra, the couple has brought for the first time to the salon industry Institutional VC & PE funding, organised operations and India’s 1st organised home services. Vaijayanti is a BTech from VNIT Nagpur, MTech (Hons) from IIT Mumbai and Rahul is a graduate of IIT Kharagpur with a PGDM from IIM Calcutta.
PLEASE WALK US THROUGH YOUR COMPANY
The Bangalore-based YLG (You Look Great!) Salon chain operates over 52 Company owned salons across Bengaluru & Chennai and is Bangalore’s favourite salon chain with over 600,000 loyal customers. The brand was established in 2008, with YLG Institut, now one of India’s finest beauty training schools. Which was accredited by global certification bodies CIBTAC, CIDESCO and is a L’Oréal partner academy. YLG is acknowledged for Path breaking work in Training and has trained over 6,000 professionals in the industry.
It has been bestowed with many awards, the latest being Enterprise of the Year (beauty) – at the MSME India Business awards by the National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC). Forbes rated YLG one of the five hottest start-ups. It has also earned many accolades e.g. CII Customer Obsession Award, Best Regional Salon Chain (South) at the Indian Salon & Wellness Awards for 5 consecutive years, Best Retail Chain at South India Retail Summit, Best Salon Chain South at L’Oréal Indian Hairdressing Awards.
Entrepreneur Insights: WHAT HAVE BEEN THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES YOU’VE HAD TO OVERCOME?
Upgrading India’s waxing experience, bringing hygiene to the forefront of services for every skincare customer by the shift to Single-use kits instead of bulk packing.
Entrepreneur Insights: HOW HAS THE INDUSTRY CHANGED OVER THE YEARS?
The overall Beauty Business in India is booming and has caught pace now with the cosmetics market growing at 15-20 percent annually. The retail beauty and cosmetics market in India, currently estimated at USD 950 million is pegged at USD 2.68 billion by next year. The Beauty care market in India is likely to become the main contributor to the growth of Indian wellness industry and it consists of salons, cosmetic products, cosmetics treatment centres and cosmetic products. What’s most exciting is that women contribute to over 85 percent of the Salon industry revenue and are expected to continue to dominate the sector!
TELL US ABOUT THE CLIENT BASE
“The new customer is more aware and have access to a lot more information. At YLG, we understand that customers are gradually looking for more sustainable and personalized solutions to address their beauty concerns. Using nature based products and services, which allow them to take care of their skin and hair in a holistic manner and integrating technology to provide personalized counsel are some of the ways we hope to achieve this.
The introduction of cameras for skin consultation gave the customer a chance to understand their key concerns on a deeper level and be more confident in their choice of products & services. YLG has taken the most intriguing aspect of Indian customers’ beauty related demands, and mixed it with the right proportion to introduce a marvel. We have always strongly encouraged the “fashion with care” approach with all our customers.
Entrepreneur Insights: WHEN IT COMES TO THE COMPANY, WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?
Even before YLG’s parade of success in the Indian beauty industry, the founders laid the corner stone for education in this field. The duo had committed to the fact that they needed to upgrade whoever comes to them and educate across the board. Vaijayanti takes pride in having trained over 6,000 beauticians and hairdressers till date at YLG Institut. She firmly believes that educating women across social strata and underprivileged candidates is the best way to give back to society. Besides this, it immensely contributed to the industry standards going up and the best practices being adopted by many others. YLG has built a reputation over the last 10 years for its own academic courses. So, the certificates that YLG Institut confers has great value enabling every student to find employment.
Vaijayanti was conferred with the Mahatma Gandhi Samman at UK’s House of Commons in October 2018 for her work in education. She has turned the tables for the Indian beauty & salon industry. Care for customers, transparency, respect for the individual, ownership and passion for excellence, these are the values YLG lives by. But most importantly, the Dynamic salon chain wants its customers to be able to look at themselves in the mirror and say “I look & feel great”.
–Indrani Banarjee