An article by Shailesh Dobhal and Bhanu Pande in The Economic Times today refers to a growing inequality of income in India. ("India Rising, Bharat awaits for the trickle to turn flood") The change for all of urban India is reported to be 15%, which is quite visible, especially in the larger cities where the change is possibly greater. What is worrying is that even in rural India the change is 13%. And these figures are for 2004-05, from a report authored by NCAER's Dr. Rajesh Shukla. My guess is that the difference would be even higher now, 3 years…
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…
A few days back I met a friend, a mother of a six year old and a primary school teacher by choice (so that she can be "gainfully occupied"!). We exchanged the woes of being a working woman, and she exclaimed that she was planning to begin getting her lunch and dinner organized through a "dabbawala". This would free up the time spent on "non productive" chores of buying monthly grocery, the weekly veggies and stocking up to spend on "more important" activities in life. No, she is not necessarily representative of a particular consumer segment, nor can one say…
Creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem is absolutely critical to a healthy and vigorous society and economy. Creating a "democratic" entrepreneurial ecosystem is even more critical to sustaining that health. A democratic entrepreneurial system is like all other democracies - inclusive and widespread - and vital to improving the baseline quality of life. As we've pointed out elsewhere, retailing is not just a fundamentally entrepreneurial business, it also offers up a platform for the birth and growth of other entrepreneurial businesses. Obviously, big retailers offer a change for companies to scale up faster, once they meet the performance criteria set by the…
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…
As legacy retailers balance speed with customer experience, is near-instant delivery a sustainable goal for fashion, or will the costs outweigh the rewards?
@devangshu
#Retail #SupplyChain #Strategy #India #Fashion #SupplyChain #Omnichannel
Ikea has been around in India for about eight years. and has taken a long-term view on India with product and format customisation, and future investment plans of over $2 billion.
Modern retail, consumption, brand building, M&A, balance of power between brands & retailers/platforms, sustainability vs growth and more; tune in if you're building for the long run
@vishalkrishna @devangshu
Youtube:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2G48xN2jhtSyIBhoZj7LCH...
