Many pundits have passed judgement on the inevitability of ‘organised retail’. Yet, around the world, independents continue to thrive.

One may think that at least in difficult economic phases – such as the one facing economies around the world right now – large retailers are better equipped to survive. Yet, often it is the flexibility of the owner-driven small business that rides out the trough. Service levels and personalisation – that are increasingly critical in an impersonal world – are often far better delivered by a small retailer. [See “Playing with the Big Boys”]

And when it comes to business across borders, I can’t think of any retailer that is truly global. Most retailers that have successfully run international businesses in multiple countries (Carrefour, increasingly Tesco and others) have had to localise significantly – often sacrificing scale to achieve localisation.

A well-written article by Paul Chapman in Mint (February 18, 2007) raises some of these points using India as an illustration. Worth a read: The Rocky Route to Modern Retail.

As a working wife and mother who wants to run her home as competently as she runs her business, the advent of ‘organized’ retail, super markets and well formatted MBO’s seemed like an answer to one’s prayers. Yes, this was certainly what I dreamt of whenever I raced against the clock to get the month’s grocery shopping done in time to get home to cook dinner; or when the family had to subsist on instant noodles because picking up one’s dry rations and veggies from different locations at the end of a working day didn’t work out because of time and logistic constraints.

‘Organized’ retail is the answer to everyone’s prayers – the consumer and the producer…..or is it?

Products sit beautifully packaged on shelves which are easy to access, saying – BUY ME!!! Or BUY ME and get another like me free (oops, sorry! The free stock just ran out!)! Today I whiz around well lit and well laid out stores picking up products I need, and also don’t need, in double quick time to end up in a traffic jam at the cash counter!! And while I stand there watching the harried sales clerk struggle with the operation of a temperamental bar-code reader and the rush of shoppers waiting their turn to pay, I begin to notice (and miss) the many differences in my shopping experiences of the bygone days. I miss the ‘soft’ skills of the friendly neighborhood Lalaji who would notice and gently point out deviances to one’s standard shopping list; his mammoth memory bank that didn’t require him to cross check prices of unmarked/bar-coded products; his verbal promotion of new products; his ‘home delivery’ service of products that may not be in stock ……and all in all the complete warm, social and informative shopping experience.

For ‘organized’ retail in India to become an indispensable part of the shopping needs of the emerging segment of the urban Indian working women, retailers need to address many issues that go beyond large stylish stores, slick visual merchandising and bargains. Store planograms need to stock merchandise as per an Indian housewife shopping list which follows a pattern of ‘Dal’, ‘chawal’, ‘atta’, ‘tail’, ‘masala’…..rather than the western format which starts off with breakfast foods and so on. Shopping for Groceries in India follows a monthly pattern rather than a weekly pattern, and this needs to be taken into account while merchandise planning and stocking is done, so that stores are adequately and correctly stocked. Most importantly, deployment and training of staff needs to address peak and trough periods of the store traffic, and the ability to deal with client claims and returns efficiently.

Till then, either which ways, instant noodles will be the standard family fare on the nights that ‘mom’ goes grocery shopping!

It’s quite amazing that “store productivity” doesn’t grab the attention of most people in the retail trade in India, despite the fact that real estate costs are riding an all-time high. It’s become quite typical for rentals to range 20-25% of sales, and in many cases even higher than that. (In those instances, a retailer could only hope to make money out of illegitimate activity or illegal merchandise, which is not part of the business plan of anyone I know!)

Many brands will (and possibly can) justify paying absurdly high rentals with the rationale that in the store portfolio, some locations will never make money, but are needed as marquee locations for “must-have” visibility. This can work if you do have a balanced store portfolio. The question is whether the low-rent locations actually have the capability to generate enough margin to support the unprofitable locations.

While some of the rentals are comparable to expensive real estate in the developed markets, gross margins in India are typically thinner than in Europe, USA etc., reducing the spread a retailer has for its operational expenses. Add to the mix over-estimation of consumer demand, and the scenario looks even gloomier.

In this context, to my mind, each store needs to be made as productive as it can be. There needs to be fairly sharp focus on store performance and category performance data.

However, in the last 18-months or so, conversations with Indian and international brands and retailers operating in the Indian market, showed that topline (sales) growth and new store openings were the focus for most retailers (even till a few weeks ago).  Most branded suppliers have also shown unprecedented sales growth on the back of new store openings – their own exclusive stores, as well as new sites being added by department store chains carrying their brand.

For instance, in March 2007, one (new) brand said that their business plan called for 50 stores by the end of 2007, and 100 by the end of 2008.

When sales growth can be achieved just by opening more new boxes (stores), productivity and efficiency don’t appear to be important.

I believe 2008 will see a change in management priorities. I don’t think the unnamed brand above will open its 100 stores. It is very likely that they will want their already opened stores to work harder.

Productivity is obviously linked to store operations (people, process, technology) – when the merchandise and the customer are both in the store, you need to make sure the two are matched quickly and effectively, and that there is a focus on conversion, average transaction values and efficient inventory management. But that is only one part of the story.

Support functions, such as marketing, supply chain, buying and merchandising have a huge role to play as well.

Category management, efficient and responsive supply chains, optimising store-footprint and catchment to ensure maximum walk-ins … these are some of the issues I believe top management needs to look at carefully in the coming 24 months.

If you are in a senior management position in a retail business, what are your priorities this year?

Last year in an impassioned memo, Starbucks’ Howard Schultz identified several strategic and operational decisions that, according to him, were responsible for a deteriorating customer experience at Starbucks.

Starbucks faced the classic problem of any company scaling up (especially a retail brand) – how to be large without being bureaucratic, how to be efficient without losing the soul of the brand, how to be consistent without losing the differentiation edge.

The problem created by Starbucks taking the certain decisions was compounded by the fact that competitors have not stood still either. Competition has improved its core products (coffee), as well as the augmented product (store ambience, service, wait time etc.), and in comparison Starbucks has possibly stood still or slipped back.

Now, almost a year after that memo, Starbucks begins 2008 with Schultz stepping back into the CEO role. It’ll be interesting to see how his passion for the brand is infused back into the stores and the operations in the coming months.

On a separate note, the classic “founder vs. professional” conundrum also comes to mind, along with the notable examples of Apple (Steve Jobs), The Body Shop (Anita Roddick) and others. (Though Howard Schultz was not strictly the founder of Starbucks – the company was founded in 1971, and Schultz bought the company in 1987 when there were less than 20 stores in the chain – he is pretty close to being one.)

The question is: for iconic brands that are more than just the physical product or service being sold, can a ‘professional CEO’ ever take the place of the founder(s), replicate their passion & vision and maintain the integrity of the brand? I believe there are examples to support both answers: ‘Yes’ and ‘No’.

What do YOU think?

Management consultants, the media, financial analysts have had one phrase tripping off their tongues the last few years … “organized retail”. … The growth of “…”, the inevitability of “…”, the power of “…”

Some highly visible people have even made statements that essentially mean – “if you want to play at the table of retailing, bring big money with you, because stakes have now risen, entry barriers have now gone up”.

In our opinion, nothing could be further from the truth – retail is fundamentally an entrepreneurial business, and even today, you can start with one shop, or even a corner in a shop.

We did write about it in May 2005 (read here : “Playing with the Big Boys“), prompted by some of the profound observations people were making on the inevitable demise of the small retailer.

Typically the only people who seem to talk about small retailers amongst these loud voices are the market associations when an ‘organized’ retailer opens a store in or near their market, and those activists who despise anything that has a whiff of corporate.

In that context, it is interesting to read the BusinessWorld article by Vishal Krishna, M. Allirajan and Manashwi Banarjee titled “Squaring Up To Survive”. It mentions companies that are enabling smaller retailers to streamline their operations, and describes what individual store owners are doing to compete with Big Business.

Yes, things are tough for small business people, but don’t write them off just yet. Almost every business that is big today was once very small.