The FINANCIAL — Wissol Group is diversifying its business activities and investing tens of millions of USD in development of the supermarket chain Smart, according to Samson Pkhakadze, Head of the Wissol Board of Directors.
“Smart will be a high-technology supermarket chain and will provide broad service to clients. There has been investment of approximately tens of millions in the chain, both Georgian and foreign capital,” said Pkhakadze.
The first branch of the new supermarket Smart was opened on Aghmashenebeli Alley 13 kilometre.
“The equipment for the supermarket was brought from Italy. We will be importing products from Italy and Germany. Moreover, we will be oriented on the development of Georgian production. Smart will offer healthy products and all necessary services will be available for its clients in one place,” added Pkhakadze.
Within 2-3 years the Smart supermarket chain will incorporate 20 supermarkets throughout Georgia, out of them 20% will be close to Wissol stations and the remaining 80% will be in different locations, occupying between 2,000-5,000 square metres.
The next destination of Smart is Vazis Ubani, a supermarket will be opened there in three months. Moreover, there are ongoing works in Poti currently. The company plans to expand its chain to Batumi, Zugdidi, Kutaisi, Gori, Marneuli, Samtredia and Akhaltsikhe.
“Wissol Group has been developing the concept of Smart for 2-3 years. During this period we had evaluated and purchased places and buildings and wrote a concept for the project’s further development,” Pkhakadze declared.
“One of the major strategies of Wissol is not to enter fields in which the company does not have expertise. What we are developing in the supermarket sector currently is a retail chain where we already have 15 years of work experience in its creation and management,” Pkhakadze added.
“The strength of Smart lies in its combination of leading technologies, well-managed systems, concept of everything located in a single place, and prices, which all together will bring success to the company in the competitive market,” said Tornike Guruli, Marketing Manager of Wissol.
“The concept of Smart is having everything available in one place. We are managing to provide all necessary services in one place. If an individual needs money they have the opportunity to withdraw money directly from an ATM on the premises. They can pay their utility bills, purchase medicine at the chemist, use the free Wi-Fi zone, take-away or drink coffee in the building – the principal of take-away and take-out – purchase of newly-baked products directly from the bakery and at the same time purchasing all needed food and household products,” said Guruli.
“While we were conducting market researches, exploring markets and speaking to our clients, there was huge demand for supermarkets that would incorporate all these above mentioned principals. Despite this fact we will have quite competitive prices and what’s vital – high-control on the quality of products,” declared Guruli.
As Guruli declared, one of the concepts of Smart is to be oriented on novelties and constantly providing new offers to its clients.
The symbol representing the Smart chain is a squirrel named Smart. As Guruli explains, squirrels are creatures which gather things and carry them home, similar to the concept of shopping in a supermarket. An individual gathers products, takes them home and thus stocks up their supply. Consequently the most logical creature to represent this was Squirrel Smart, which also had quite positive feedback from testing with focus groups.
In designing the corporate colour of Smart Wissol Group did not use its corporate yellow and green but instead chose the colour orange.
“We would like Smart to develop as a separate direction, not associated with petroleum products. Consequently, we decided to use other branding and not use Wissol’s well-known colours,” Guruli explained.
50 individuals are employed at the newly opened Smart supermarket. According to Pkhakadze, the company will be employing 3,000 staff members over the next 3 years.
“The opening of the new supermarket chain is firstly a great opportunity to employ members of the population. In total 3,000 work places will be created,” said Gigi Ugulava, Mayor of Tbilisi.
“This is good model of City Hall and private business cooperation. At City Hall we have a database of the unemployed, which includes 30 municipally. We are cooperating with the chain and from our database recommend which individuals to hire,” Ugulava added.
In the new Smart branch in Vazis Ubani, from the recommendation of City Hall 50 more individuals will be employed, according to Ugulava.
“It is important to create long-term work places in the private sector. Such initiatives are indicators that the economy is gaining ground and problems are slowly becoming solved. We believe there will be more economic activities in the next year,” added Ugulava.
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