My interview in the Indian Express!! :)

http://www.newindianexpress.com/education/edex/MBA-Demystified/2015/03/30/article2731643.ece


Your comments/ suggestions /feedback will be very valuable

Leadership – Multifarious dimensions and paradigms!

In business literature ‘leadership’ has always been an important topic considering that, it is what leadership envisions that the organization delivers. In recent times there have been many ways that ‘leadership’ has been looked at or defined, making the qualities or traits of a leader, both complex and a really long list.

 In ‘Your company’s history as a leadership tool’ by John T Seaman Jr& David Smith, the authors suggest that because shared history is central to group identity, past experiences can be used to unite and inspire people especially during challenging times. The leader is expected to have a sophisticated understanding of the past to take the organization into the future.I wonder if it is a contradictory argument, however, GautamMukunda proves with his research that ‘The best leaders tend to be outsiders who don’t have a great deal of experience’. His reference ‘outsiders’ and ‘experience’ refer to the organization. Many would suggest that leaders having a great visioning ability would be of great value and surely someone like Ramcharan would suggest that a grip on ‘execution’ would be really necessary not just useful.

The paradigm from which one views leadership characterizes the meaning of the term. From leading people, leading organizational thought, to leading a situation, there are many ways at looking at leadership. Taking control of the situation rather than letting the situation take control of you is one way of looking at leadership. VinayNadigauthor of the book ‘Leadership IS for everyone’ offers many tips and tools for situational leadership.

To prove the title of this article, I picked a few recent issues of the illustrious Harvard Business Review and looked for articles which had the expression ‘leadership’ or ‘leader’ in the title. Types of leaders, qualities of a leader, tools for leaders are the most common genre of articles, with ‘what is leadership?’ making an intermittent appearance.

Leadership Qualities

DanialGoleman’s 1998 article ‘What makes a leader?’ discussed that apart from other things, leaders need to have ‘emotional intelligence’, not surprising from DanialGoleman, who in his famous book uses the Sanskritword ‘samaskara’ which brings up another issue; whether leadership can be inherited with requisite brain wiring, this issue is good for another piece.

Steve Jobs was a leader who really pushed his people to their limits. His other ‘leadership’ qualities of Focus, simplify, take responsibility for end to end, Bend reality, engage face to face, combine the humanities with the sciences, and the famous stay hungry, stay foolish have all been elaborated by Walter Isaacson in his article ‘The real leadership lessons of Steve Jobs’.

The title of one column by Reymond Edwin MabusJr in the HBR is ‘To lead, you must focus’, He describes the need for leaders to narrow focus the organizations unique strength and role (Vision – my understanding). ‘Focus’ is also the bedrock of Daniel Goleman’s article ‘the focused leader’; however he identifies oneself, others and the wider world as three buckets for focus.

A skills/situations matrix for a business leader would really be quite complex. ‘Strategic Leadership: the essential skills’ by Paul.J.H. Schoemaker, Steve Krupp, and Samantha Howland, identifies anticipate, Challenge, interpret, decide, align and learn as key strategic leadership skills.

Types of leaders

Leadership style is not a function of personality, it is a strategic choice is the belief that Daniel Goleman shares in his article ‘Leadership that gets results’ which classifies leadership styles based on the extant of each of the emotional intelligence competencies needed for the situation. The coercive style, authoritative style, affiliative style, democratic style, pacesetting style, and the coaching style are different styles identified by Goleman.

In a HBR blogpost from Dec 2013 Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries writes about the eight archetypes of leadership and discusses the strategist, change-catalyst, transactor (deal maker), builder, innovator, processor (efficiency!), coach, and communicator.Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries has also written about ‘Coaching the toxic leader’. This type of leader has ruined organizations and was difficult to identify or tame in the past, thankfully today’s organizations are easily able to identify such leaders more easily.

Nick Lovegrove and Mathew Thomas in ‘Triple –Strength leadership’ discuss leaders who are able move easily among business, government and social spheres. The authors are convinced that a leader who is able to bridge the chasm between these sectors is better suited to solve large scale problems which generally encompass all these sectors. ‘Blue Ocean leadership’ by W.Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, is not about values and qualities a good leader should have, it is about actions and activities leaders need to focus on in the particular organizational context.

Today organizations are faced with a great poverty of values. In India, a combination of the questionable undue focus on ‘market capitalization’ and the new social order of degrading morals and values, begs for ‘Authentic leadership’ more than anything else. While this was first popularised by a book by this title written by Bill George in 2003 and is the kind of leadership that is most needed, not much has been written about it in recent years, some buzz words just take a back seat even if they are towering concepts that need to be celebrated and spread every day. With the general battering ‘values’ are getting in society, authenticity is a difficult discussion. Beyond authentic leadership is ‘spiritual leadership’ which is a concept that is creating some buzz.

In NarendraModi’s famous Madison Square address he explicitly said that people repeatedly ask him for a grand vision for India and he confesses that having been a street tea vendor, he has only tasks to do and not any grand vision. This received great applause from the audience and received positive critical acclaim.

Leadership thankfully offers great diversity and offers great opportunity for creativity and being the ‘real’ oneself.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-opportunities/what-does-it-take-to-lead/article6806748.ece

Talk - Survival and Growth of Indian Retailers despite FDI

Strategies for Survival and Growth despite the entry of large foreign retailers

“Conventional retailers, especially those that are mid-sized, will be squeezed from all sides; from larger players with better economies of scale, from smaller players with more focused selection or a greater emphasis on convenience; from electronic retailers that have few physical assets but are rich in information, and from entertainment and education oriented players that offer a more vibrant consumer experience.”

Jagdish Sheth with Rajendra.S.Sisodia - “Changing Face of Retailing” Financial Times – series on Managing Marketing – Oct 19, 1998.

To survive and grow Indian retailers will need to be smart small players who will offer greater convenience, entertainment and interesting products.

The size of the retail market is forecasted to grow from rupees 23 lakh crores in 2011-12 to 47 lakh crores in 2016-17 according to an ASSOCHEM survey. We are a nation of shopkeepers with 11 shops for every 1000 people, 97% of the number of stores in the unorganized sector. Retailing has been growing at a hectic pace thanks to continuing urbanization, growing middle class, and macro-economic growth

We must first examine if it is possible to have a strategy for growth when large international retailers are capable of bringing in large investments in the form of foreign direct investments. In my view, even if FDI is allowed in multibrand retail, not all Indian retailers will shut their shops.

Going back to the very basics of strategy development, we need to look at the environment, the industry and the various firms in it, apart from the opportunity available in the market. When we examine the retail industry from the point of view of developing strategy, it is clear that for Indian firms cost leadership will be difficult, however, if they can differentiate and /or choose to focus, there are many opportunities. Differentiation strategy and Focus strategy are suitable in a situation where Indian retailers have to compete with very large firms who have already established global purchase and supply chains.

In India retailers can differentiate themselves in terms of the product range, service level or specific services, location and many such factors. With so many sub-cultures with very specific product needs and buying patterns, focus on niche segments is a very viable strategy in India.

Kenneth E. Stone, Professor of Economics, Iowa State University; Georgeanne Artz, Extension Program Specialist, Iowa State University, and Albert Myles, Extension Professor, Mississippi State University, in their 10 year study of the impact of Wal-Mart on smaller cities developed two primary conclusions.

“The entry of a new super center in a community can have dramatic implications for existing merchants. Two general rules-of-thumb summarize the economic impacts of a new super center on local merchants: Rule-of-thumb 1: Local merchants that sell merchandise different from the super center or other big box stores tend to fare well and may gain sales as the additional traffic generated by the big stores spills over into their stores. Rule-of-thumb 2 is not so pleasant: Local merchants that sell the same merchandise as the big stores will probably face a reduction in sales because of the difficulty in competing with major chains.” What this study indicates is that to succeed the merchandise strategy of Indian retailers needs to be different from the large chains.

 A couple of simple local examples may be useful. In Bangalore I find a unique format called ‘grandige angadi’ do you think large international retailers can compete with this format? There are stores like ‘subbamma stores’ in Gandhi bazar which cater to a niche target market and the turnover of this shop is only growing over the last 60 years.

Strategies for survival and growth will need to start by understanding the environment and competition very well. Retailing is changing and so is the customer, there is a great need to keep track of what is happening in the environment. For example traditional malls in the US are getting De-Malled and have to have other tenants like dentists, medical centres and clubs.  In India Smt Nirmala Sitaraman the commerce minister has issued many statements clarifying that the Government stand is not in favour of FDI in multi- brand retail for now. She has also indicated the need to regulate ownership of online retailers. Indian retailers will get some more time before we have WalMart and Carrefour all over the country. There is atleast 3-5 years to choose a strategy and work on it.

Indian retailers can get help from academics in understanding merchandise strategies, pricing, location and other components of the retail strategy of large international retailers. Based on customer requirements and competition Indian retailers will need to examine merchandising, marketing, customer service, operational efficiency, and human resources strategies. Indian retailer who accept the new reality and reinvent themselves will survive and the inefficient ones have to go. The way is through better customer service, personalized service, unique product assortment by identifying niches in the market, and most importantly improve efficiency in purchasing and managing inventory professionally.

 Finally, I do not wish to list specific survival and growth strategies for retailers as many paper presenters must have already done that. There are many opportunities in assortment planning, image development, ( one example is the Swadeshi products store in Jayanagar which does not stock MNC brands), value added services like cleaning and cutting vegetables or home delivery after 10pm, store operations including small things like cleanliness, and innovative pricing strategies. Human resources finance and management are other opportunity areas for improvement in traditional Indian retail stores. There are many tools available to traditional retailers for example jiffstores.com and kiranasales.com are Bangalore based initiatives worth looking to use the online platform without investing in it.

Many Indian retailers want to swim with the tide. They have built very visible front end retail and are hoping to be taken over by foreign companies. Building visibility and market capitalisation to make it easy to be taken over by FDI is also a strategy some larger Indian retail entrepreneurs are choosing.

Survival and growth is very much possible, however only those who have a strategy will survive.

Thank You for the opportunity.

A long and patient queue.......

Standing patiently in a queue awaiting your turn to be served is not a virtue that Indians possess as a people. From bribing priests in temples, to creating six lanes when there is space for two on the road so that we can join right in the front of the queue, we have many tricks and strategies. Raghavendra Stores near Malleshwaram Railway Station in Bangalore offered a different perspective one Sunday morning. There were many people waiting to be served their breakfast from this small self service kiosk that is very popular. All of them formed a queue and there was reasonable order with no effort from the shop.

The reasons are not difficult to fathom. The quality of the food is really excellent. We had hot Idli Vada Chutney. The cashier and counter staff were being 'FAIR' serving on a first come first serve basis. The product was offering terrific value. The service providers were visibly doing their job very efficiently and at top speed. Waiting time felt reasonable. The neighbourhood having people who cared a little bit for others must have also contributed. It was nice to see a relaxed, long line of people waiting for their breakfast a day after I had dumped my shopping bag near the till at a nearby supermarket after shopping for 45 minutes. 

Drama of Coffee!

My article about how drama is used to sell coffee. if drama be the soul of retail, play on!
It is on page 37

http://www.saffronmedia.in/eMagazines/fnb/2014/FNBNov01152014/index.html

like always, your comments not just welcome, they are necessary for my survival as a author

Types of MBA - causing confusion. My article that appeared in the afternoon despatch and courier

Employability Deconstructed

The new buzz word in Indian education is 'employability'. With slowing admissions because of both overcapacity and poor value to students, those in education are being told repeatedly that most graduates are not employable and that until the education sector is able to produce employable graduates, students will find it difficult to transition into careers. I have not checked it, however I am sure there are numerous definitions for the term 'employability'.

There seems to be no clarity at a functional level as to what 'employability' is or to put it more accurately, what it actually consists of. Industry experts opine that there is a lack of skills, many mention 'attitude' as the problem. Academic circles discuss 'knowledge, attitude, and skills' and when one tries to get to know what knowledge, attitude or skills, then either there is a long list or none at all.

To break down employability or classify the various components, it is useful to look at 'employability' as a bundle of qualities. Knowledge; about oneself,business and industry, and domain,
Skills that include life skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, active listening and monitoring ability. Attitude; to career, to life in general and other human beings. career expectations and values need also to be right for someone to be really employable.

Sudhakar model of employability at the present moment looks like the list below.

I am now hoping my friend Vijay P will use this framework to write an article worth publishing in a journal. A lot of work on life skills has been done by the United Nations which can be one good reference. While there are no references here, most of the qualities listed have been proven by research as essential for 'employability'. Based on feedback I am happy to detail each of the dimensions.
Can we provide all of this to students who do not want to learn, have great expectations based on nothing and make transformational changes in the limited time a graduate or post graduate program offers? That is a question, primary, secondary and high schools need to ponder.
Look forward to feedback, as this is a topic where clarity is urgently needed for India! We should not end up doing the half bake differently, we need to do a good job on the whole.

The accidental keynote - Faculty Development Program at Surana College in Sept 2014

Good Morning. As teachers we have become experts at demanding obedience. Is obedience and conformance really important? Please think about this.

What is the first channel on your cable TV? Which one is set as channel No:1? Yes, Doordarshan. I am like the doordarshan channel coming and then you have a long list of speakers who are established as among the best in Bangalore.So, it will be a dull doordarshan followed by by some really wonderful channels.

I was wondering about how to engage a class of professors. Yes, remember when the Principal tells you that the faculty is absent and I do not want students loitering in the corridors, so, please engage the class. My situation is a bit like that. I need your cooperation more than anyone else.

I plan to spend the next half an hour talking about two things. First, to steal the thunder from speakers who will follow me, let me share my views about each of the topics that will be discussed today and tomorrow. 2^nd I want to share with you what I have learnt about teaching the post google generation.

A little bird told me Dr Srikanta has chosen his second most favourite topic to start the FDP today. For the benefit of faculty from Kengeri campus, let me tell you that from what I have heard, his favourite topic is ‘discipline’. Classroom management starts much before the class. Not only can a lesson plan that details pedagogy, resources to be used, a board plan, and  a complete learning design make managing the class easier, it optimises time for both the teacher and student.

You will then hear about Mentoring. The gurukula system thrived on mentoring. Socretes was possibly the first recorded mentor to Plato who was his protégé. Understanding each student and the world around us, apart from having an attitude of concern and understanding are essential qualities of a mentor.

This afternoon Dr Sandeep Shastri will be talking about moving from teaching to learning. This means colleges have to move from institutions providing instruction to institutions that produce learning. In instruction paradigm ‘instructor’ is central and in the learning paradigm ‘learner’ is central. Learning is all about discovering, experiencing, and reflecting. Will the role of the faculty reduce? We need to listen to Dr Shastri for all this and more.

The final discussion today will be an open house, where discussions, team work and feedback are important components.

Tomorrow we start the day at the very top. Prof Mala Sridhara will talk about a psychological approach to student –faculty interaction. Whether it is managing a classroom, mentoring, helping someone learn or providing feedback, understanding the mental model of the student is extremely important.

Next, we have a holy man looking at success in a holistic way. As teachers, we are generally measured only by university results or number of classes handled in a semester. This may not be right for today. Similarly, only test scores to compare students is surely limiting.

I am hoping to be back on stage to introduce Dr.Karajgi who is going to talk about stimulating creativity. What has creativity got to do with examination results where we have predefined syllabus? We are teaching Business and Commerce not art or drama. Dr Karajigi can tell us.

The topics are vry diverse. Is there any link at all or is this some variety program? To me all these talks are well connected to my next topic which is about college for the post Google generation.

We are used to thinking that obedience and following instruction is great, but, is it relevant now? Let us look at the history of organized colleges.

Schools and colleges were built for the industrial era where productivity was important. Factories wanted people prepared to obey, comply and behave and a system was set up to mass produce such people. The industrial age is over, however, we are still creating students who can do exactly what their boss wants them to do.

Google has made accessibility of information and knowledge really easy. One does not need to go to college to hear a good lecture, it is easily available at khanacademy.com. Whether Modi is the 15^th or 16^th Prime minister can be found out in 3 seconds on the net and there is no need for a teacher to provide this information.

In the post Google era we do not need memorization or compliance, we need dreamers with plans to realise their dreams.

Students will come to college not to be fed information or collect likely questions. They will come to college to learn to make and keep commitments, to overcome fear, to take initiative, to work in a team, to learn to enjoy diversity, and to work to a plan.

As teachers, our role needs to change to creating a desire for lifelong learning, to be innovative,  and, to express themselves students need to be taught how to collect, analyse, and understand the loads of data on the internet. We can teach students how to make a good decision, we can teach them about how to deal with a fast changing world. The list is endless. Colleges will be required and faculty will play a important role in the lives of students.

The various talks we are having these two days are all linked to understanding the changes that are taking place. So, while appears disconnected, they are all aimed at preparing us for some new realities.

Teaching is emotional labour, it is digging deep to engage at a personal level. The involvement needed to be good teachers is only increasing.

I am truly blessed to be able to address teachers on guru poornima. Thank you all for listening to Doordarshan, and, thank you Dr Srikanta and Smt.Archana Surana for giving me this opportunity.

Wish you all a wonderful two days of learning and fellowship with colleagues.

Keynote address - Seminar on FDI in Retail - BVVS Commerce College, Bagalkot

Respected  Sri G,N, Karur, Prof L.S.Patil , Prof S.B.Gavimath,  faculty colleagues, students, ladies and gentlemen, Good Morning and Thank you very much for this opportunity. FDI in retailing has been a topic of discussion for ten years now. With every change in policy or Government the topic gets revived and becomes important. Today FDI in retail is a current issue and an important topic and I am blessed to have inaugurated a seminar on this topic.

The topic is important for many reasons. Existing stores, consumers, suppliers, nearly everyone is impacted by FDI in retail. The impact is on both the economy and society as a whole. The size of the retail market is forecasted to grow from rupees 23 lakh crores in 2011-12 to 47 lakh crores in 2016-17 according to an ASSOCHEM survey. This makes Retail a very important part of the economy.

There is a huge untapped opportunity in the retail sector, thus having immense scope for new entrants, driving large investments into the country. A good talent pool, huge markets and availability of raw materials at comparatively cheaper costs are expected to make India lead one of the world's best retail economies by 2042.

We are a nation of shopkeepers with 11 shops for every 1000 people, 97% of the number of stores in the unorganized sector. Retailing has been growing at a hectic pace thanks to continuing urbanization, growing middle class, and macro-economic growth. Organized retailing is also having a steady growth and is possibly accounting for a major part of the sales growth of retailing in the last couple of years.

The possible impact of international retailers coming through the FDI route is like many things in life: a mixed bag.

Positive impact of FDI in retail

The major advantage of the large retailers is that they have access to efficient supply chains, which can reduce prices for customers. Many jobs within the retail industry and with those providing support to organized retailing will be created. Sales associates, people greeters, store managers, back-end positions across the supply chain in purchase, vendor development, accounting, mall maintenance, food technology, support services like Interior designers/decorators, packaging design and supplies are some of the new employment opportunities that have started to emerge. Large international retailers will bring greater professionalism and global best practices in all these areas. Large scale employment will be created by allowing FDI in retailing. It is estimated that 1 crore jobs including direct in retail and indirect like in the supply chain, packaging sectors can be created during this decade.

The farmer is likely to gain by reductions in wastage, and better realizations for produce. Good farmers might get access to foreign markets too, through these global retailers. Contract farming reduces risks and improves realizations and mitigates credit needs for farmers.

Small and medium enterprises that supply ‘private label’ products to big retailers will find opportunity without the large advertising budgets required for brand building.

Supply chain efficiencies will benefit society at large. Better Post harvest technologies will result in lesser wastage and fresher fruits and vegetables. A good cold chain will be very useful to reduce seasonal imbalances and reduce geographic distances for fresh produce.

According to Wal-Mart, “Wal-Mart’s impact on local business is based on the philosophy of operating globally and giving back locally. Studies show that new businesses spring up near Wal-marts and existing stores flourish as they take advantage of the increased customer flow to and from our stores. ”

 Kenneth E. Stone, Professor of Economics, Iowa State University; Georgeanne Artz, Extension Program Specialist, Iowa State University, and Albert Myles, Extension Professor, Mississippi State University, in their 10 year study of the impact of Wal-Mart on smaller cities; which probably is the basis for Wal-Marts statement, developed two primary conclusions that are worthy of note. 

“The entry of a new super center in a community can have dramatic implications for existing merchants. Two general rules-of-thumb summarize the economic impacts of a new super center on local merchants: Rule-of-thumb 1: Local merchants that sell merchandise different from the super center or other big box stores tend to fare well and may gain sales as the additional traffic generated by the big stores spills over into their stores. Rule-of-thumb 2 is not so pleasant: Local merchants that sell the same merchandise as the big stores will probably face a reduction in sales because of the difficulty in competing with major chains.”
Competition will only benefit the customer. While many, including large Indian retailers have confused low prices with greater value, International retailers will hopefully provide better value. We can definitely see better customer service, greater depth of merchandise, more convenient store timings, better packaging, and reduced rejects at these multinational retailers.
It is likely that much of what has happened in other countries in the evolution of retailing will repeat itself in India. Different formats will co-exist. It will be a long time before the handcart vendors of fruits and vegetables will disappear, specialty stores, halwais, and services like dry cleaning will continue to grow. Kirana shops that accept the new reality and reinvent themselves will survive and the inefficient ones have to go.

For the Government purely from a tax collection point of view organised retail which includes international chains are a great advantage as small shops do not maintain proper records and many do not pay all the taxes. In terms of compliance and cost of tax collection, large stores will be preferred by governments.

The Customer gains 

Another dimension is that most of the value created by the International retailers is actually pocketed by its customers in the form of lower prices. According to one recent academic study, when Wal-Mart enters a market, prices decrease by 8 percent in rural areas and 5 percent in urban areas.

 With FDI or large international retailers, consumers can expect greater transparency about products, better replacement/warranty policies, and best of all a much more pleasant environment to shop in. Car parking space, one stop shopping, everyday low pricing, appealing product display, wide range of products, what else can the consumer ask for?

 But then, too much of a good thing must have a price!

Negative Impact of Big international retailers

The greatest fear about FDI is that small Kirana stores will be out of business soon, putting millions of ‘dukandar’ families in crisis. Remember that many of these families have run shops for generations and might not be trained or prepared for anything different from ‘dukandari’. The fear is well founded. Researches in many communities in USA, and in Poland have established that big box retailers do kill many small retailers. Organized retailing also means much lesser people are required per unit of sales (efficiency!), which will cost society at large, in terms of unemployment.

 The study carried out by Kenneth E. Stone also confirms the negative impact for those shops carrying the same merchandise. What does a typical Kirana store carry? Rice, Wheat, Dhal, cooking oil, some local condiments-all well suited for large discount department stores.

That price will be less is also likely to be a misnomer, especially if one goes by the experience in Food-world and other such chain stores. Usually the big box retailers will have a ‘loss leader’-a popular product at a low price, well-advertised to attract shoppers. Everything else will either be on par with small stores or more. People see the prices for the few popular items and assume that all prices are low. In course of time these large retailers will invest in more people, interiors and supply chain so much that they begin to become inefficient, passing on the burden of higher prices to consumers.

Recent studies on contract farming in India have brought out many issues in terms of pricing, large scale movement to genetically modified fruits and vegetables and higher density of plantation.

Another aspect of FDI is the increased use of ‘private label’. Earlier I had mentioned the benefits to small manufacturers, but there is also the aspect of a very large buyer exploiting small manufacturers. Whenever ‘private label’ is discussed it is only as greater margin for the retailer, never as lower prices for the customer.

After the entry of large scale Indian organised retailers, employment has been created and this may grow if FDI is allowed, however these are really low paying jobs being created whereas one entrepreneurial class is getting into trouble. Are creating servants by killing small business owners is another way of looking at the employment issue.

In the USA over a short period of 50 years traditional mom and pop stores established over 400 years have been systematically replaced with chain stores. In India traditional retail has been around for a couple of thousand years and organised retailing is growing at 25-30 % per annum taking share from traditional retailers.  This is an extreme view according to many; however such a view does exist.

It is a good topic for debate

Having seen the positive and negative aspects, it appears clear that this topic is worthy of debate as both those for FDI and those against have good arguments. It all depends on the vision and objective one chooses for the nation.

India is probably the only place we have categorised retail into Single brand retail and Multi brand retailing and quite separately media and e-com companies are trying to categorise online retailing as distinct while the government view is that online is not different from brick and mortar as far as FDI policy is concerned.

Initially cash and carry wholesale was allowed and many brands like Metro cash and later Wal-Mart did come in. Later single brand retail was allowed and some brands did enter through this route. In the last days of the UPA government, the parliament resolved to allow FDI in multi brand retail, however none of the large multi-brand retailers have applied for permission to invest. Even before the 2014 elections the BJP as a party and each its leaders, Smt.Mamta Banerjee,  Sri.Nitish Kumar,  Smt. Jayalalita, had all spoken about reversal of the FDI decision after the election. In recent times Smt Nirmala Sitaraman the commerce minister has issued many statements clarifying that the Government stand is not in favour of FDI in multi- brand retail for now.

Challenges for the Retail industry

One of the biggest challenges for the industry will be that of skilled manpower and it is a great opportunity for educational institutions. Skill based programs to create manpower for the retail industry will be needed in a large scale.

Supply chain will continue to be a challenge because of infrastructure shortages, poor quality of roads and the large number of intermediaries especially in the agricultural sector.

Another challenge faced by organised retailers has been that of the number of clearances required to start a store. Many government departments are involved and it becomes very difficult.

Retail is not considered an industry and so getting funds from banks and financial institutions is difficult.

All these challenges are for organised retail and will continue whether or not FDI happens in a big way.

What is likely to happen in the future?

There are many books on how independent retailers can survive the onslaught of big retail chains. The way is through better customer service, personalized service, unique product assortment by identifying niches in the market (and there must be many considering just the sub-cultures that form a city/town), and most importantly improve efficiency in purchasing and managing inventory professionally.

Research opportunities

The opportunities for research in this area are plenty and important. Potential impact of FDI in multi-brand retailing, impact of FDI in single brand retail, e-commerce, operational issues in supply chain and retail marketing including branding strategies, location selection in India, Product standardization and regional product variations, Changing consumer behaviour is in itself a  large untapped area for research. We see consumers buying behaviour is changing, consumer expectations are changing, customer decision making is changing with pester power of children taking control in many categories, the number of areas is really huge and I am happy this topic was chosen for today and wish it will encourage research in the area. I wish the seminar every success and I am sure all of you will have a wonderful two days. Thank You!

Dr.G.P.Sudhakar, www.gpsudhakar.blogspot.com

Choosing the MBA experience - My views

http://www.thestatesman.net/news/71592-the-deciding-factor.html