Vandana Luthra interacts with students of IIM Joka. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

Wednesday was premier B-school’s date with the face of the country’s fitness and beauty business. Lecture Hall I of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Joka, played host to the evening interface between students of the institute and Vandana Luthra.

The talk, organised jointly by the entrepreneurship and innovation in entrepreneurship cells of the institute, was aimed at providing a peek into the brains of the VLCC founder. And she did not disappoint, fielding queries by students as comfortably as she deals with clients.

Starting with a single outlet in New Delhi’s Safdarjung Enclave in September 1989, Luthra, a mother of two daughters, has transformed VLCC into a Rs 300-crore company.

“I always wanted to work on the concept of wellness, which requires both health and fitness. Initially, the concept was not taken seriously. But we started at the right time — when obesity was on the rise and women had started going out and needed to look fit,” said Luthra.

The questions posed by the students ranged from her expansion and marketing strategies to challenges posed by competition.

“The only real competition we faced was from Personal Point. I have great admiration for the company. While it associated itself with glamour, we adopted a more medical point of view,” said Luthra, adding that she has over 1,000 doctors on her rolls. “Our approach is more holistic and we don’t separate beauty from health and fitness,” she observed.

Luthra revealed plans to set up stores in the Saarc countries, West Asia and London. She has set her sights on making VLCC a Rs 1,000-crore company by 2010. In Calcutta, VLCC is eyeing retail centres and a management institute.

“She is a very successful female entrepreneur and we have a lot to learn from her. Which is why she is a suitable speaker at IIM, Joka,” stated student Abhishek Saha, who took part in the interaction.