Organized retail has taught hard lessons to our industry majors

Let us admit that the current players in the organized retail in India completely misunderstood the Indian consumer. Consequently most of them have been vanquished already by the market forces & a few are left in the fray with bruised egos and tattered balance sheets.  

Organised retailing in India has been going through several ups & downs beginning with raw enthusiasm followed by paranoia of failures. No wonder India is an amazing country & you must not lower your guards at any moment as there are many mirages luring you into believing them.  I wonder how come the Indian majors & their blue eyed managers failed to see the writing on the wall.  And the truth is that although India needs malls & the infra related to the organized retail but Indians are not ready to change in their buying habits in a hurry.

Organised retail would certainly succeed in India but the business model has to be reinvented. I am pained to clarify my clients & students about the need to understand the Indian consumer before planning to deal with such diverse group of wonderful people. You could use services of sociologists & psychologists to understand this multifaceted group. But there are few characteristics of Indians that are clearly enunciated like our preference for vegetarian food, belief in God, supernatural & fate, various traditions, family orientation, high opinion about our-selves & a competitive nature. Let us focus on the habits of the consumer.

Most businesses thought once they provide large number of products in one place in air conditioning setting then the consumers would come running right? Wrong! Indian consumers have high degree of trust deficit as they do not trust the sellers on price, quality & other parameters. Therefore there is need for repeated regular dialogue with the consumer that is missing with organized retail model. On the other hand western consumers shop in silence. Indian consumer shop more often and in smaller quantities as different from the developed world. Moreover Indian consumer has greater frequency of shopping & the average revenue is very small.

Organised retail can surely find its feet but they have to reinvent their business model & factor in longer gestation period for breaking even.

Butter Marketing of Biscuits in the land of Desi Ghee…

India is unique for its food and the culinary variety & tradition. Our Mughlai curries, south Indian, Bengali sweets & Punjabi tandoori preparations are popular globally. It amazes me that despite unique food habits the marketers have failed to develop a truly Indian food brand comparable to Mcdonalds & fries.


Reasons are many foremost one is our predominant habit of being the risk averse-traditional society. Otherwise a Samosa has all the power to challenge a burger provided a Reliance or Tata backs it. Surprisingly we are known for spices since ages but no one has taken the challenge to market a parantha. Parantha & kathi rolls in my opinion can surely give fight to a Pizza. I wonder when so many major companies have invested in retailing in India but none is ready to promote a major food brand for domestic market.

I had the opportunity to consult very briefly with a Ludhiana based biscuit manufacturer. Their product mix has glucose, butter, cookies & cream products. In fact most Indian biscuit manufacturers have butter biscuits for the market. How unimaginative?

India loves its desi ghee & desi ghee is a premium product. Why can’t we have a desi ghee biscuit brand? What stops India?

The Art.... & Science of Living

All of us must have had the opportunity to sit through the motivational training organized routinely by the every corporate. You must have listened to speakers egging you to have a never say die attitude & keep fighting with a smile as they describe meticulously about certain successful people & their struggles in life. They tell you that you have not seen enough troubles as by those great people, so you are lucky.


All such motivational speakers can be classified into two broad categories. Firstly those who tell you that all you could do is work hard & it is the God almighty that decides your fate, therefore you must smile even in adversity as you have no other choice. Second types of speakers tell you to work hard, manage your time & so on. After you come out of the motivational shows you realized that nothing has changed. The issues that de-motivated you still exist. How could you a turn a blind eye to the real world problems?

The solution to such problems could lay in developing a new approach to problem solving in the corporate life. Certain people could feel bored as their work is repetitive. So instead of packing those into a room with a guru or motivational speaker would be wrong. Instead let them take a scheduled break away from the desk depending upon their interest. Some executives may have personal issues therefore the company could provide counseling from a psychologist or psychiatrist depending on the situation.

It would be pertinent to solve the problems of the people rather than expose them to empty chat sessions without any real value. A glass of cold water, a drink, a brisk walk can give greater happiness than the value offered by a Shiv Khera or Art of Living talk. All we have to do is identify the issue that bothers us & find a unique solution to it. That’s all. One size never fits all & same is true for the pep talks of speakers.

Value of Keeping the promise in Marketing

Its a norm in India that whenever someone make an exaggerated claim or simply put lie he would explain it away by saying that he was marketing himself. Therefore marketing is synonymous with making tall claims and communicating hyperbole.

Well its an established practice & one can not wish it away. If this is marketing than how would be keep the trust  of a customer which is important for success of a business enterprise? Any organisation that fails to keep the trust of its customers would cease to exist sooner than later.

Marketing understands, bring close & bind a customer to a business organisation through a promise that has been tested over a period. Whenever the seller wishes to make a change to this relationship it has to explain to the customer the underlying rational of such a necessity otherwise powerful brands like Coke too can not dare to affect change to the relationship.

Successful organisations know the value of a promise and the promising returns brought by an true relationship with the customers. Lets make promises that we can keep for success in marketing.

How to select a right b-school for management education?

When a student decides to pursue a career in the corporate world first challenge confronting her/him is to select a suitable institute/bschool. Obviously the IIMs remain the preferred choice if one could qualify the test. Though all IIM grads may not have a great career but they are the one to make it to the corner room in the corporate arena. Following IIMs are the business schools established in the reputed universities like Punjab University Chandigarh and Delhi University etc. Thereafter there are large number of private institutes & universities claiming to make you a ‘real manager’ and the student is confused about which institute is suitable for her/his career. And every year thousands of unemployable students are produced by numerous institutes.

I meet & guide several students to select a suitable place for study. First let me share with you the criteria that students follow to select an institute? Students tend to favour old established institutes as those have been tried by several people in the past. Secondly it is the location of the institute. If a b-school is located in or near a major town or industrial belt it comforts the student aspiring for placement. B-school size & infrastructure comes third in the list of factors having a bearing on student choice. Media coverage in terms of advertisement also plays a crucial part in influencing a person.

MBA/PGDM is management degree that aims to prepare a person for a career in corporate world. Therefore what you know about trade/industry and the processes would increase your chances of finding suitable employment.  Therefore first thing an aspiring MBA/PGDM should consider while opting for a particular bschool would be the expertise of the faculty. Faculties are the machines that introduce & prepare you for a truly good career. If the faculty themselves have corporate and/or research experience it would be able to transfer that skills & knowledge to the prospective managers. So when you select a school first of all meet the teachers and find out if they have significant industry experience and understanding.

It is the quality of the teachers & curriculum that prepare you for long term success rather than infra and the age of the institute.

Actors on the sales teams in India

Whenever you want to pump up your sales team, take them to the nearest multiplex to enjoy a hindi potboiler. Hindi cinema has predictable storyline comprising a hero, heroine and the ubiquitous villain. You would wonder how it would help in improving the target achievement. Well let me explain the relationship. The sales guy (hero) has to constantly fight with the villain (competition) to wrest the heroine, which is the sales target. And the story is complete with few songs & dances. Therefore lots of rehersal would be required before the actors face the audience. So training sales team can not be a one time activity it must be an ongoing process.

India is a land of SMEs and these businesses face unique challenges, particularly in organizing the sales & marketing function. Many a SMEs that have regional & national sales organizations are still straddled with teams that were relevant 20 years ago.  Sales teams are full of people who have no business education and have never been trained on the job. Such teams function in a bureaucratic manner and lack creativity essential for real success in the market.

Few years ago I was hired by an established SME to rejuvenate & reengineer their sales team. The said company has been led by an amiable technocrat engaged in manufacturing of capital equipment for high speed packaging machines catering to the need of business organizations. The machines they made were quite complex and were generally sourced from abroad. Therefore there was a ready market of export substitution at an Indian cost to the entrepreneurs.  But their sales team having national presence had become an obstacle in achieving higher sales numbers as they were the only people that were in close contact with the customers. Another company manufacturing bath fittings had virtual no control over their major market as the person incharge of the territory told the company to route all communications through him exclusively.

Several SMEs are in awe of the power & hold of their sales people on the market. The company is held hostage to the ways of the existing team that controls the top line. There is need to create & train the sales teams to face the challenges of the contemporary market scenario in India. SMEs need to audit their sales team periodically and organize them based on their objectives such as nature of the competition, product handled, type of market and demand structure in the market. The top management must keep two paces ahead of their sales force to get the desired results.

Always New Products-Good for the Environment

Cutomers always want to have new prodcuts as against the old but they do not want to go through the buy, discard and replace cycle all by themselves. It is the job of marketing professionals and the manufactureres to fulfill the desires of the market. So waht are you doing to achive it?

The durable industry has to constantly churn out new upgraded versions of thier offers to remain competitive in the market. This is leading to huge mountains of hazardous waste and also depresses the replacement demand. With economic slowdown markets have undergone profound changes and it is going to be entirely new place with new set of rules for success.

Although new capacities are being added the form of emerging economies of BRIC countries but still the way
people buy & consume products nd services would never be same as it were in pre-meltdown era. There are many ways to do it.

Toyota can market its flagship Corolla brand as a Always New Car. Or a TATA  motors can market its Indica on the simillar platform. Nokia. Motorolla, Apple, Sony must consider such marketing so as to delight the consumers and remain socially responsible too. How to do it is not very complex just contact me.