Starting with the Middle East, The Good Glamm Group is targetting $150M revenue globally in 3 years
The Good Glamm Group is looking to give a beauty makeover globally, starting with the Middle East.
In July 2022, beauty and personal care conglomerate announced it would be launching in Dubai and appointed Asad Raza Khan as its Global Commercial Officer.
Headquartered in Dubai, this division functions as the international distribution and sales platform for various beauty and personal care brands within the group. It targets growing a team of 45-50 employees by April 2023, onboarding senior sales and marketing professionals.
At the recently concluded 13th edition of YourStory’s TechSparks, Darpan Sanghvi, Founder and Group CEO, The Good Glamm Group, said, “It is time that Indian companies made a beauty makeover globally, not just in India. It is time to take a beauty brand from India to the world. We have some great strengths—the technology and the R&D we have created for our personal care products.”
Founded by Darpan Sanghvi, Priyanka Gill, and Naiyya Saggi, the Good Glamm Group is one of South Asia’s largest DTC beauty and personal care conglomerates. The company’s focus is to house and grow innovative and fast-growing brands using its proprietary digital ecosystem of content and creator assets.
Globally, The Good Glamm Group aims to touch $150 million in three years. With an eye on international markets, its brands—both online and offline retailers—are tailoring their focus and brand impact suited for each geography.
“Many startups and companies are looking to build their brand out of the UAE. They get a lot of facilities and benefits in the region,” Asad explains in a conversation with YourStory Gulf Edition.
Why the Middle East?
Speaking of why the D2C company chose the Middle East, Asad says, “While Asia has all the beauty brands, it is divided between entry-level beauty brands and super-premium brands. The mid-segment is missing. Our products are organic, clean, and we give you affordable luxury. Thus, looking at the demographics, spending power, and the target clientele, the Middle East plays well.”
Apart from this, the Middle East also has a huge middle class that is willing to spend for quality and value. The UAE is also home to a global, multinational community which makes it a fertile ground for learning and innovation.
Asad brings with him nearly two decades of experience in the FMCG and beauty industry. In his last role as the Global Business Leader for Procter & Gamble’s The Art of Shaving (Gillette), with stints in London, Geneva, Dubai, and South Asia, Asad led and built its global business and operations outside of the US.
Speaking about how the team intends to crack the Middle Eastern market, Asad says, “Our strategy is a trifecta model. One, it needs to be backed by strong innovation and brands at the core. The product quality needs to be top-notch. Today’s consumer isn’t brand conscious but is loyal to the product. Even in a country like the US, only 4% of women use all products from the same brand. This is true even in the Middle East; women mostly use multiple brands. It is all about the product story.”
The second aspect is localisation—which is what Asad identifies as the major factor most brands miss out on. Many brands tend to copy-paste their gold standard from their home country to elsewhere, and he says that is where most of them fail. While the brands will gain some momentum initially, to establish themselves in any market, they need to pay attention to localisation.
The market
“We are thus strongly focused on localisation—language, faces, branding, and even the consumer story,” adds Asad.
After strong innovation and a solid product, he says the third sphere of the company’s strategy is focusing on a strong competitive advantage. This could be—the product, channel, or expertise. For The Good Glamm Group, it is the D2C angle.
“While we will play in retail, in the Middle East, we will try to see if we can be the first company to disrupt the ecommerce space in the region,” says Asad, specifically the organic segment which, he adds, is growing in the region.
“The international division gives Good Brands Co an opportunity for global growth, leveraging the group’s content-creator-commerce moat as well as the central infrastructure for strong offline and online growth. We aspire to build our brands across offline channels, e-marketplaces, and DTC via leveraging the growth and digital marketing capabilities of the group already in place.”
In fact, the $3 trillion fashion and beauty industry, which contributes towards 2% of the global GDP, is believed to be ranked just after oil in terms of pollution. And yet, the industry grows and thrives, especially in the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) region. The region rakes in a whopping $50 billion in annual fashion sales, according to a McKinsey report.
The sustainability segment is also growing strong in the Middle East. Safir Anand, IP lawyer and strategist of Anand and Anand in an earlier conversation with YourStory had said,
“The Middle Eastern countries appear to be enthusiastically working towards building a sustainable fashion regime. For e.g., the Arab Fashion Council (AFC), launched the AFC Green Label, supporting sustainable designers, in an attempt to promote a more ethical and responsible fashion industry in the Gulf region.”
The Good Glamm Group’s target segment across the portfolio is 18 to 45 years old. Asad adds the company is looking at a $6 billion market size just with the beauty segment. However, it’s still early days for the company, which has over 400 SKUs to work with.
He explains that the market is currently in nascent stages, and the small but growing team is now looking to explore the region. “There will be more news in the next six months in the region, where we hope to have more growth,” says Asad.