Soon after moving, studying, working across the country, we relocated back to Bombay as I remembered it and continue calling it.

Having settled down in our Palace (that could fit into our bath or kitchen back in Calcutta, Baroda) my wife went on finding spree, which being a Bombayite fluent in Marathi posed no problems, not that it gave her problems in Calcutta also.

Finding a dhobi, vegetable vendor (honest, good but important would give her the kind of vegetables she wanted) and finally the milkman. Our requirement was minimal on this front, nuclear family and all that jazz.

Found one at 4 bungalows - Sharma Dairy Farm - tied up & the delivery started. He grew his business, obviously not because of us, though thru references & neighbours did help.

A couple of years down the line, our nuclear family exploded, parents shifted to stay with us, we shifted houses yada, yada….the milk man followed…..

Some 5-7 years ago, one fine day, after the advent of mobiles, got a call from my wife to pickup some extra milk since some unexpected guests had landed. Asked the driver to take the road past the Dairy & park.

For the love of God I could not locate the dairy, but dreading the “kuch kaam ke nahi” tag if I called my wife up; braved the stupid looks people were giving me in my suit avataar marched up to an restaurant & enquired with a young pleasant looking gentleman on the counter.

Prompt came the answer ” You are standing in Sharma Dairy!” Then the man we knew came out, insisting that I have something kyon ki aap kabhi aaye hi nahi; bhabhiji knows & wished us etc. etc. Upon further enquiries, turned that his eldest son had completed his studies & so “thoda sa expansion kar liya”. Promising to visit them sometime again went away.

Over the years, found myself passing by, with a smile on my face whenever I passed the location. The delivery boys changed, older ones started sitting on the counters, became managers at the dairy. My wife also said his younger son was studying.

Today morning, on receiving a notice,

Milk Management Notice

I concluded that his younger son has completed his studies even MBA since I could see PPP implementation (Price, Productivity, Penalty) implementation happening at my old Sharma Dairy Farm….that was surely turning into a conglomerate, maybe a small one but still!

And this generation is bound to give headaches to the New Organized Retailers! They have everything going for them:

• Location
• Operation Capabilities
• Loyal & Trained Staff
• Structured Finance
• Ownership
• Focus to grow

Do let me know in case I have missed out something

Opening my Linkedin homepage & saw Mohit Nigam asking the question - Why every Retail Group wish to take the opportunity of recession to reduce their manpower instead of uniting team to fight with vigor to grow his organisation?

My take on this -

Playing the Devil’s advocate here - What would you prefer? shutting down the business finally due to financial losses or at least continuing with less people who are happy for the time being.

But there is a chicken & egg situation here. Sometimes the Top Down & sometimes the Bottom Up is what creates the problem.

E.G. Whilst launching the Business Model during good times, it is the top who at times forces an extremely optimistic view, leading to projected high growth thereby leading to over recruitment (maybe more than 20% also) reasons being cited - as varied as training takes time; competition shall take them away; we are very  aggressive. AND sometimes it the front level managers who think/are on a fast growth (not realizing that whatever goes up comes down - maybe faster at times) want to impress, consolidate, rise in their position project the future as Rosy….till the thorns hit.

Here it is also a fact that during recession, why do employees get more conscientious of their duties, time & are willing to go the extra mile WHEREAS earlier the same employees would be extremely insistent on a host of things.

So it cannot be a blanket statement - There are Bad Apples on both sides & this has to be kept in mind.

Have visited it a couple of times. Some observations about the mall.

There is always a good crowd, which means decent to good footfalls.

Security is good outside the mall, but there is always a line there. And just bag opening & frisking with the detector.

Was stopped from taking pictures inside by the management?? But clean facilities. Sale, Discount going on everywhere, with more than half stores wearing a deserted look. So where did the people go??? Food Court of course. Nicely laid out, with lovely seating, good food, different stalls than Inorbit.

All in all, a good place at a good location, easily accessible for people in the east, and in a couple  of months should do well for itself.

Arvind Singhal: Subhiksha and the Indian retail story

An interesting opinion by Arvind. However there are many aspects that bear some thoughts. When the going was good - India shining; Retail Rocking….everyone jumped on the bandwagon - consultants offering India on a platter, companies that had no clue about consumers (having spent a decade or more in the B2B space)started announcing 10/100/1000 stores in 3 years or maybe less; the search for retailers began (in a country where organized retail did not exist beyond the past 5-7 years), so bring in expats (expect them to learn India & deliver in a year) so on and forth.

This actually spawned a industry by itself:

Consulting on entry strategy/liaison/funding, property etc.
Search for people
Training
Realtors, Builders
Furnishing, Merchandising you name it.

We had experts all of a sudden with a bidding war being waged. A lot many employees took advantage of this shifting jobs every couple of months.

In all this euphoria everyone forgot/pretended to/avoided the fact & number game. So the 1st year losses accumulated & with a bit of creativity (maybe accounting/inventory management etc) it carried on to the next year & maybe another year; till the bubble burst from below.

Except for the funding companies; nobody was really in the finance business, so when bottom up everyone started asking for their money, the pyramid started collapsing. And there poor subhiksha was caught!

Whilst trying to understand their plight, the fact also remains that there was the board of directors who obviously met if not monthly, once a quarter; their auditors, bankers, vendors who all knew about this collapse - structured or otherwise. Here probably, everyone thought ‘why spoil a good thing’ someone is bound to take care of it….unfortunately that someone was no one.

And there endeth the first lesson for organized retailers!

I am not an analyst, industry leader or similar, however would like to ask…

How is this different from Satyam?
Even @ average of 5 people per store we are talking about 5000 minimum without a job, salary till may if they are lucky.

Take my word for it: There is going to be a Satyam in every industry to ensure CORRECTION for the rest of the players in that particular industry, which may not be bad at all in the long run.

However expecting people/companies to learn from this is a DREAM:)

The Art of Jewellery magazine did a study in December 2008 trying to find out from industry as well as people who had brought organized retail to the industry.

I was one of them & was quoted extensively in the article.

Some days ago, I met up with Hemant Shah an outsider, but veteran of the Jewelery business who had started his own business of Jewelery Retail - casual, chic, semi precious, precious.

He wanted some input on how this would be received via his unique ‘Jewellery on Wheels’ idea as well as the website.

My instinct reaction was - Brilliant idea, who is going to execute it? On hearing his answer that they would do it internally, my heart sank.

Since he had asked as a friend, I did not really push it much, but cautioned him about the pitfalls in terms of Consistency, Change, Coverage of area, backup.

Then, whilst I saw the enthusiasm that he was brimming with, wished him all the best!

Hemant Shah with his proud Vehicle

They launched it with 3-4 custom made vehicles by Dilip Chhabaria. Worked on the novelty value for a while & then due to other factors also, had to shut it down.

Economic Times answering this question What’s a Recession? has made a fair analysis with some writing about India

“Is India going through a recession?”

There is no doubt that India has been affected by the recession that has beset the US economy, especially in sectors which are export-oriented or are dependent on outsourcing. However, the RBI governor last week assured that India would not see recession even if uncertainty continued globally. He stated that growth would be moderate and pegged GDP growth for 2008-2009 at 7.5-8%(ET 2Nov) Read the rest of this entry »

2005/06 - Baroda, Ahmedabad, Surat, - New Destinations, money to burn, places to acquire, malls to be built.

2008 - Malls ready, high rentals, brands occupying, supposedly great footfalls BUT no conversion. And some have changed hands, closed so on & forth.

WHY? WHY? WHY? Read the rest of this entry »

A month ago, Bela a dear friend, who runs Spink Marketing a retail consultancy invited me for coffee at the TiE office early morning to meet some entrepreneurs, learn from them & her presentation and try to provide some inputs also.

Since the time was early morning, this was really tough, but decided to go!

The topics covered Global Retail challenges versus Local current challenges. Improving Services offerings in Retail context… creating more moments of “WOW”… Read the rest of this entry »

Indian Retail that had been rocking a year back is facing rocks today; some of it due to circumstances beyond control, but some definitely within control. Based on experience, discussions, talks over the past year……thought that some of these can be listed down…. Read the rest of this entry »