The debate then moved on to ways to increase shopper conversion through store intelligence, back end planning and store solutions.

After a hectic day of power packed presentations, discussions and entertainment, day two of India Retail Forum 2011 (IRF) being held at Renaissance Hotel, Mumbai, began with a much needed session on how to build a corporate society full of service, wisdom and celebration. One of the senior most Art Of Living practitioners and teacher Sri Prasanna Prabhu guided the audience on rediscovering the soul of Indian retail.

The debate then moved on to ways to increase shopper conversion through store intelligence, back end planning and store solutions. According to one of the panelists Ramesh Jairaman, MD, Tyco India, “Internal shrink, vendor fraud and security checks are major challenges for retailers. Additionally, the Indian retail footprint is rapidly expanding and adding technology in the tier 2 & 3 cities.” Nick Kyriacos, MD, Bentel, Naveen Luthra, VP, Strategic Alliance, Getit, Rakhi Nagpal, CMD, Dynamic Vertical Solutions, DVS and Rajkiran Kanagala, National Head, Business Development, TCI also shared their views on the subject.

Eminent entrepreneurs came together at IRF to throw light on the reasons behind hiring professionals in family owned businesses. M. Krishna Reddy, who has been running Apna Bazaar since 1980 said, “Today we have 9842 branches with 92,000 employees in India. By the year 2005, we had already clocked a turnover of Rs. 32,000 crores. The reason behind the success is the fact that we have brought in professionals with a human touch into our business. This human element not only helps business run better but also become a bigger success.”

Taking a slightly different view was Bhagirath Jalan, KSL India who believes that family-managed business are far more comfortable and liberal as there are no hassles from share holders or no strict targets to meet. “The only problem in family run business is that there is no scope of rewarding or penalizing a family member. After all, every family member wants to exercise his/her power,” he added. Abhishek Malhotra, VP & Partner, Booz & Co. observed that only one third of the family businesses sustain till the third generation. The panelists agreed on the fact that though the disadvantage of a family business is the lack of absolute knowledge, the advantage is the experience.”

The power packed session on E-commerce brought together industry players from varied fields who discussed and educated the audience about e-commerce and how to go about starting an online store. Anubhav Kushwaha, Director – Biz Strategy & Alliances, eReasoning, Global Applications, was very optimistic when he said, “There is a trend of peer endorsements to facilitate e-tailing. The three things needed for online success are consumer confidence, consumer values and capabilities of retailers.

Consumers are switching channels and the entire experience is becoming channel agnostic”. Putting a perspective to the industry was Sundeep Malhotra, CEO, Homeshop18, who said, “E-commerce constitutes 4 per cent of the total retail industry in India, and we see a growth of 8 to 9 per cent in the coming years. Homeshop18 is an alternative distribution plus retail platform. It’s about building an organization that has BPO service, marketing, vendors, etc to service the needs of customers,” he added.

The session on understanding the opportunities in tier 2 and tier 3 cities majorly revolved around the scope of diversified opportunities in these cities, the high level of innovation by the residents of these cities and how marketers can utilize the hidden talent of all these innovators. Prof. Anil Gupta, IIM-A led the discussion by talking about Imphal which is credited with the highest number of innovations in the country. According to him when organizations consider the innovative ideas of the youth and game changers of these tier 2 cities, there is a sense of pride and motivation amongst them. If this can be backed by great incentives, then wonders could be created.

Throwing light on the consumer behavior of these locations, Prof. Gupta revealed that the buyers in these towns are not impulsive. Rather, they take their time to see, understand, discuss and then decide. The panelists were unanimous in their opinion for the need to develop and understand the requirements of smaller towns and cities and to cater to those. Making an interesting observation was Salil Chaturvedi, MD, Provogue who said that aspiration levels are high in tier II and III cities. The improved transportation will only help companies getting into the market. However customers in tier II and III cities need more help on the shop floor and more education of products. Self service shops will not work. People need to understand the social structure of these places before getting in. The psychology of the people is different in different parts of India and so a company must understand their behaviour.

In a session on international brands in India James Munson, M&S Reliance said, “We entered India 10 years ago and 2 years back we entered in to a JV with Reliance. M&S sources 10 per cent of its products from India. There is a greater demand for colour in India than in UK. As retail is still in the emerging stages in India we graduate programes in India that last for 18 months while in UK we only have a 12 months training programme.

Even though we localise our business, we will not have an all Indian collection because we are an international brand. 52 per cent of our products were locally sourced last year. We plan to increase our global sourcing.” Sudhir Pai, Senior Vice President & Head at Hamleys India revealed that the brand doesn’t believe in spending heavily on marketing. Most of the money is spent in creating an experience. They also pay higher wages to the front end staff than the industry standard.

Earlier on in an emotional ceremony business leaders like Thomas Varghese, CEO, Aditya Birla Retail, Bijou Kurien, President, Reliance Retail, Lifestyle, and Vikram Bakshi, MD, McDonald’s (North and East India), paid rich tributes to Raghu Pillai considered the father of modern retail in India, who passed away in Chennai on April 10 this year due to a fatal cardiac arrest. Raghu’s wife Janaki Pillai, who specially flew in from Chennai to accept the award on her husband’s behalf, said: “Raghu always said his life must be a story that he could tell to his grand children. To the last, he was true to his words.”

Bakshi of McDonald’s said: “I learnt a lot from Raghu. When there was a bitter debate going on in India about organized versus unorganized retail, he injected a fresh perspective by saying that there was no clash between the two and it was all about introducing modern retail in India. He believed that modernizing retail was important because it was the last mile for anything that gets manufactured. He was an excellent professional and a true human being. People like him never die but always live in the stories that they leave behind.”

India Retail Forum (IRF) also witnessed the launch of a brand new magazine from the Images Group, targeted at the franchising industry of India.

The monthly magazine, titled “Images Franchise,” was launched by Kishore Biyani, the Founder & CEO of the Future Group. The “Images Franchise” publication has been brought out in partnership with the managing consulting firm, Inventure India, and is supported by the Franchising Association of India (FAI), the World Franchise Council (WFC), the International Franchise Association, the Asia Pacific Franchise Confederation and a host of other national franchise associations across the world.

Said Images Franchise’s Executive Editor Chandra Prabha: “Through this magazine, The IMAGES Group and Inventure seek to fill the knowledge gap in India about the franchise business and introduce to the readers global best practices . It aims to catalyze the growth of the Indian franchise industry to bring it at par with the global standards.”

Earlier on IRF threw open its doors to Gen Next with its novel initiative – Rising Star Challenge. This first-of-its-kind competition gave students of leading business schools of India their first taste of stardom as they went ahead and anlaysed some of the popular retail brands of India. The all-girls team from Indian School Of Business, Hyderabad walked away with the honours.

Forty-one teams from 12 Management school in India sent in their case studies to possible future employers – the leaders of the retail industry. The jury consisted of stalwarts like Professor Richard Cuthbertson, Research Director, Oxford Institute of Retail Management, Said Business School, University of Oxford (Europe), B S Nagesh, Chairman, RAI and founder of ‘TRRAIN’ – Trust for Retailers and Retail Associates of India, Vikram Bakshi, MD, McDonald’s (North & East India) and Jayant Kochar, Group Director & CEO, Images Group.

The winning team from ISB presented a series of strategies aimed at resurrecting Piramyd Retail which up till April 2007, continued its journey of expansion, but was still not profitable. Several turn around strategies were cited which included initiatives like eliminating middlemen, extending support to the farmers and introducing self-regulatory policies. Enhancing the look and feel of the store, improving the décor, shelf placement and lighting, roping in professional visual merchandisers and strategically placing labels in between brands were some of the other winning ideas.

The first runner up trophy went to NMIMS Mumbai and the second runner up title was bagged by XIMB. Presenting the awards BS Nagesh made an interesting observation that the teams could have focused some more on the customer who forms the backbone of the industry. The second point he made was the importance of employee retention. The finalist teams walked away with grand prizes worth 1 lac which included a wardrobe from Tommy Hilfiger, Orra.

With a little help from music and some great performances the retail community let their hair down at the Coke Studio. Leslie Lewis, Harshdeep Kaur, Sanjeev T and Parthiv regaled the audiences with a smashing music show.