{"id":1924,"date":"2012-06-26T19:39:38","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T14:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thirdeyesight.in\/blog\/?p=1151"},"modified":"2012-06-26T19:39:38","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T14:09:38","slug":"talking-about-a-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myechoproject.com\/TES\/talking-about-a-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking about a revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This piece appeared in ‘The Strategist’ supplement of the Business Standard newspaper, on 2 July 2012.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Modern retail is equated with a more structured and systematised organisation, hence the term \u201corganised retail\u201d. This term is weighted with expectations of greater capability, better competitiveness and greater benefits for industry and society. However, if we take organised to mean better for the consumer then, often, our age-old corner shop and the local cloth-merchant-turned-fashion-retailer appear more organised and better at delivering more relevant products to us at lower prices with superior services than most of the new corporate chains.<\/p>\n

Over the last two decades or so, there has been a steady transformation of the retail landscape and the consumer\u2019s shopping attitudes. There are many more people with much more money in hand to spend at their discretion today than ever before. This has encouraged the growth of brands, Indian and international, as well as the emergence of modern retail chains and malls. The transformation is most visible in our largest cities, with some locations already having built a surplus of mall space. A generation is growing up in these cities that takes malls for granted, and that completely avoids the more traditional retail spaces.<\/p>\n

There has certainly been a gold-rush, among companies, investors, real estate developers, even professionals looking to put the \u201cnext big thing\u201d on their resumes. The true impact, however, is still very limited, very shallow for the country overall. In fact, in locations with high concentration of modern retail, the impact has even been negative in terms of poorly developed space, rising costs, and stressed infrastructure to the detriment of the local inhabitant.<\/p>\n

The impact of this growth is little understood, much less guided or planned for the long term. There are loud voices both for and against corporatised modern retail, but there is very little balanced discussion. There are several laws binding or restricting retail activity, but very little policy enabling it, whether we look at modern retail or traditional, corporate or individual owner-driven stores.<\/p>\n

Here are some major issues that we need to tackle, at the policy level and within retail businesses:<\/p>\n