Contributed by Sirish Mellacheruvu

One of the very important concerns of Indian retail has been the lack of processes and systems, even in a few organized retailers. Thankfully there are a bunch of Indian retailers, who do have an organized way of operating the business and also do exercise controls over the systems at regular intervals.

In this scenario, if the Indian retail has to emerge competitive in the arena of competition coming in from the likes of TESCO, Metro cash & carry, Shoprite etc, its is imperative to develop a strong foundation of practices, which rely on systems and processes, minimizing human intervention and error.

One interesting point in this regard is that even though a few retailing companies in India have a strong system and process orientation, better than the other companies of Indian origin, it cannot be said that this can make them competitive with regard to the multinational companies.

This is where the Outsourced work from the International retailers comes into play. Since a lot of functions like Space management, assortment optimization, Product sourcing etc are being outsourced to countries like India and China, it is good that the retailers map their standards, using this, to the process standards of International retailers. For example, promotion analysis is one important area for the international retailers, which helps them gauge the performance of the promotion implemented in the store. In India, most of the retailers do not even look back and see whether the promotion has given the mileage expected. This kind of comparative study, at this juncture makes Indian retail ready to run, with the International players.

The question now arises, why do we have to do it? Because, we are in the race to provide the customers, the best!!! The best in range, the best in promotions and provide the best experience. This will help us bring in customers or retain the existing customers

The outsourced retail functions need be mapped (also respecting the confidentiality in required cases) and localized to suit the Indian market.

Since the industry is getting hotter with the advent of new players (Birla being the latest to join the fray – Source Kumarmangalam Birla’s Interview in a news channel talking about his interest to get into retail), they need to do a lot of work in strengthening their systems before they go LIVE!!!!