Brands
Sports accessories brand D:FY clubs quality with affordability
MUMBAI: Affordability is every Indian’s first thought when purchasing anything. However, quality sports shoes tend to be high priced and the likes of Nike Air or Adidas Superstar are beyond the reach of normal people’s budgets.
Enter the latest entrant to try to make the impossible possible – D:FY (read: defy). Launched by fitness enthusiasts Prashant Desai and Rajiv Mehta, who are marathon runners themselves, it aims to make great sports gear accessible to the Indian makes with great technology and breath-taking looks.
For Desai and Mehta, the idea for D:FY seeded with a personal need to buy quality sports products at an affordable price as running was becoming expensive for them. “As runners, we had to buy products by global brands that are heavily priced which has always pinched us. There are enough brands available in the market but they don’t give enough quality products and technologies required to run well,” says Desai.
The company competes directly with Indian brands in the same category such as Action, Power, and Red Tape but aspires to compete with international brands including Sketchers, Nike, Adidas, Puma and Reebok in a year’s time. On this, Pradeep says, “We definitely aspire to compete with bigger players in the market. If you compare a product of D:FY’s which is priced at Rs 5500 with a competitor’s Rs 5500 product, ours is definitely way better in terms of technology. But most people compare apples to oranges whereas they should compare apples to apples.”
Backed by FMCG mogul Kishore Biyani along with Farhan Akhtar and ex-cricketer Anil Kumble, the company has Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya and actor Nidhi Agerwal as brand ambassadors.
The company wants to target a mass audience and hence has decided to price it at a sweet spot. D:FY footwear range targets Indian fitness sensibilities — walk, gym and multi-sport that starts from Rs 2200 whereas apparels start from as low as Rs 799.
Marketing the product efficiently is equally essential to ensure brand awareness and recall and this is where most companies get it wrong. Since digital is available at a much cheaper rate than television D:FY wants to advertise heavily on digital and BTL. It wants to reach consumers at as many touchpoints as possible but will refrain using television at the moment as it comes at an exorbitant cost.
The company is set to invest Rs 10 crore for advertising during the first year of its operations. An optimistic entrepreneur, Mehta says that they are extremely aggressive about their capital spending and will invest in outdoor, digital, BTL, radio and maybe in-cinema advertising along with influencer marketing.
The co-owners don’t want to be just another online brand but will look at ramping up the offline presence by opening stores where consumers can touch and feel the product before buying them.
D:FY is planning an aggressive physical presence with 22 store launches across nine cities of Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Surat, Vadodara, Mohali, Bareily and Hubli by the end of September and plans to take this to 100 stores by 2022.
Online sales are equally important for any brand and especially if you are just starting out. Usually, brands partner with multiple e-commerce websites to sell the products which help them in reaching out to a large set of audience. But D:FY has tied up exclusively with Amazon to sell the merchandise which kind of narrow downs the scope of reaching a mass audience that shops online.
While the products will be available across all channels, the company does not want to sell the products at a discounted rate as it believes the price-point is pretty much justified.
Though major sales for the brand will come in from metros and mini metros, the co-founders want to reach the rural consumer as well. It will also face a stiff competition from local players that sell sports shoes for as low as Rs 200 and apparel at a mere Rs 100-200.
Where most manufacturers – national and international – are looking at shifting their manufacturing units to India in order to promote the government’s Make In India initiative, the duo wants to continue manufacturing the sports products in China. They will, however, bring the apparel manufacturing business to India which is also manufactured in China.
For 2020, the company has set huge targets where it will become more aggressive in terms of marketing and advertising the products, with an increased number of stores and SKUs. The sports brand targets to have revenue worth Rs 60 by the end of its first year’s operations.
The store has all the feels you get when you walk into a Nike or Adidas outlet. It will, however, be interesting to see if D:FY can create a niche for itself in an already cluttered market where Indians still prefer buying international products for the sake of quality.
Brands
YES Bank hands the keys to SBI veteran Vinay Tonse as it bets on a new era
Former SBI managing director appointed as YES Bank’s new MD and CEO
MUMBAI: YES Bank is done rebuilding. Now it wants to grow. The private sector lender has appointed Vinay Muralidhar Tonse as managing director and chief executive officer-designate, with RBI approval secured and a start date of April 6, 2026 confirmed. The three-year term signals the bank’s intent to shift gears from crisis recovery to full-throttle expansion.
Tonse, 60, is no stranger to scale. Most recently managing director at State Bank of India, he oversaw a retail book of roughly $800bn in deposits and advances, one of the largest in the country. Before that, he ran SBI Mutual Fund from August 2020 to December 2022, a stint that saw assets under management surge from Rs 4.32 lakh crore to Rs 7.32 lakh crore across market cycles. Add stints in Singapore and four years leading SBI’s overseas operations in Osaka, and the incoming chief arrives with a genuinely global CV.
His academic grounding is equally solid: a commerce degree from St Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bengaluru, and a master’s in commerce from Bangalore University.
The appointment follows an extensive search and evaluation process by the bank’s Nomination and Remuneration Committee. NRC chairperson Nandita Gurjar said the committee unanimously backed Tonse, citing his leadership track record, governance credentials and ability to drive the bank’s next phase of transformation.
Non-executive chairman Rama Subramaniam Gandhi was unequivocal. “I am certain that Vinay Tonse, with his vast experience as a senior banker, will propel YES Bank to its next phase of growth,” Gandhi said, adding that the bank remains focused on strengthening its retail and corporate banking franchises and expanding its branch network.
Rajeev Kannan, non-executive director and senior executive at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, the bank’s largest shareholder, said Tonse’s experience across retail, corporate banking, global markets and asset management positioned him well to lead the lender. SMBC said it looks forward to working with Tonse and the board as YES Bank pursues its ambition of becoming a top-tier private sector lender anchored in strong governance and sustainable growth.
Tonse succeeds Prashant Kumar, who took the helm in March 2020 when YES Bank was in freefall following a severe financial crisis, and spent six years painstakingly stabilising the institution, rebuilding governance and restoring operational scale. Gandhi was generous: “The bank remains indebted to Prashant Kumar, who is responsible for much of what a strong financial powerhouse YES Bank is today.”
Tonse, for his part, struck a purposeful note. “Together with the board and my colleagues, I remain deeply committed to creating long-term value for all our stakeholders,” he said, pledging to build on Kumar’s foundation guided by his personal motto: Make A Difference.
Beyond the balance sheet, Tonse played cricket at college and club level and represented Karnataka in archery at the national championships — sports he credits with teaching him teamwork, situational leadership, discipline and focus. In quieter moments, he reaches for retro Kannada music, classic Hindi songs, and the crooning of Engelbert Humperdinck, Mukesh and Kishore Kumar.
YES Bank has its steady-handed rebuilder in Kumar to thank for survival. Now it has a scale-obsessed growth banker at the wheel. The next chapter starts April 6.
