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Scaling New Heights in Store Design

By VJ Media Bureau | Vjmedia Works | January 05, 2017

From creating customised furniture for corporates in 1970s to designing more than a million square feet of retail space in the current year, JCA Architects have come a long way since its inception. VM&RD chatted up with Jayant Chheda, Founder of JCA Architects to understand the 44 yr old design firm's approach to retail design and how they see it growing in the near future.

It is often said that if you are passionate about what you are doing, you are sure of succeeding. Taking the passion for design and turning it into a roaring business, Jayant Chheda founded JCA Architects in 1972. Started with humble beginnings of designing customised furniture for various corporate houses in the early seventies, JCA Architects now is a multidisciplinary design services company, involved in project management and turnkey solutions for residential, workspaces, retail, institutional and hospitality projects.


So how did they enter the world of retail design? As a globe trotter, Jayant Chheda was fascinated and inspired by the retail design concepts he observed across the world. And this pushed him to pursue and educate retailers across India for the need to opt for a professional approach towards retail design.


Today, Jayant Chheda and the other two directors of JCA Architects, Vikesh Chheda and Deodutta Mulye, have a huge clientele from corporate and regional giants to unorganized retailers and budding startups. In retail, JCA has designed across all categories such as fashion, super stores, departmental stores, footwear, consumer goods, specialty stores, and jewellery too!


The firm offers its clients complete design solutions including store fitting concepts, lighting solutions, turnkey solutions, visual merchandising and other allied retail solutions. Speaking about their scope of work for retail design, Jayant shares, “Although we do aspire to construct what we design, not all projects are turnkey solutions and many projects turn out to be purely a design based service.”


With the ability to deliver projects from conception to operations, JCA Architects has a large team of dedicated designers, visualisers, graphics & VM designers and project managers working out of their offices in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Dubai. “None of our work has been outsourced as we believe that the high quality of our projects can be maintained and delivered by our in house team,” Jayant adds.


Explaining the USP of the design firm, Jayant adds that their strength lies in offering retailers a comprehensive and high quality solution in the specified time frame and budgets. “We associate with the best in the industry and strike partnerships resulting in the rich sharing of ideas, technology and details. We have worked very extensively and brainstormed with the large unorganized retailers and provided them with solutions to create brands that are ready to compete at a global level,” Jayant explains.


Speaking about the opportunities in the retail design sector, Jayant expresses that the Indian retail market is very huge and has the potential to grow exponentially over the coming years. “The international designers teaming up with homegrown designers are only adding knowledge, richness and value to the domestic retail market. We don’t see it as a threat, instead it’s this sharing of ideas, concepts, materials, technology’s etc which has given a big boost to the retail sector,” he adds.


Eyeing the big and bright potential of the Indian consumer story, JCA Architects believes that the only challenge to the retail industry is on the economic front.


“Large budgets are required to create, nurture and expand a brand. Unless there is a sudden economic slowdown in the world I don’t see any challenge to the industry. The industry is keeping in pace with the world in all aspects ranging from design and merchandise to management and technology,” Jayant shares.


Having grown from a retail design firm to a company that provides design services to most sectors, JCA Architects has seen its workforce and scale of projects growing every year. The company has designed more than a million square feet of retail space in the current year.

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