With a continuous focus on servicing retailers in the emerging economies, Quickborn was invited to participate in the Retail Leadership Summit (RLS) conducted in the financial powerhouse of India – Mumbai at the NCPA Theater, Nariman Point, January 18 – 19, 2012. The conference was organized by the Retailers Association of India (RAI), the unified voice of Indian retailers. The event that had a theme of ‘New Age Retail In the Big Bang Era’ had several global and national retailers attending. Notable among the global retailers were Woolworths (South Africa), SPAR (Netherlands), Gruppo Coin (Italy) and Earth Child (South Africa). The event was organized and conducted by Retailers Association of India (RAI).
The event kick-started by Nagesh, the Founder Chairman of RAI greeting the key-retail personnel with a warm ‘Namaste’. It was followed by Simon Susman the non-executive chairman of Woolworths speaking about the committed approach the company took towards environmental harmony and how it reaped benefits. He also talked about how they achieved less than 0.7% shrinkage through ESOPs against a global average of 2% shrinkage level. Then, there was a promoter panel discussion between Simon and Kishore Biyani, the man behind Future Group and organized retail in India. Kishore Biyani predicted that significant growth will come from introducing new categories than from growth in consumption of pre-existing categories. Noodles and break-fast cereals weren’t categories 10 years ago – they’ve been created and have significant consumption today. He also elaborated on how Future Group in the dynamic environment has been learning fast and failing fast to discover the right offerings to the consumer.
Hyper-Market and Departmental Stores
The session on Hyper-Market, one of the most exciting formats of retail in India and worldwide started with Gordon Campbell, CEO of SPAR International contrasting the stores in different regions that they expanded recently and drew a comparison of how India, China and Russia, in spite of being categorized as BRIC, are fundamentally different retail markets based on the rentals and volumes. The retailers in the hall were stunned listening to the comeback story of the CEO of Grouppo Coin of how he reinvented the charm to prevent the group from a steep slide.
India and the growth story
Irene Vittal, partner at McKinsey Consulting talked about how India would perform at GDP growth rates of 6% and 8%. At 8%, which is the most commonly predicted/projected GDP growth rate we would be having a 235% growth in the number of households that will have more than $7000 per-year which is the most critical segment for retailers that service Indian markets. A more conservative GDP estimate of 6% would take the number to almost 200% by 2020.
The summit then witnessed a Neuro-Marketing demonstration by Lluis Martinez, a Retail Consultant and a professor at Esade Business School. He used a Coke Ad to demonstrate neuromarketing, a new field of marketing that studies consumers’ sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli. The debate over multi-channel selling was educative to say the least. The team highlighted the opportunities that existed because of the lack of retail space and how certain categories offer more value when bought online.
