Retail Dude

CRM magazine, the industry’s leading publication, announced the winners of its 2008 CRM Market Awards in conjunction with the magazine’s destinationCRM 2008 conference. It is 7th CRM Market award which aims at awarding vendors, consultants and end-user companies focusing in CRM.

This year company gave award in 10 categories, each having a Market Winner, four Market Leader & One to Watch. Market Winner is the one having highest score in that category.  

Note: Click on the image to enlarge.

- Rajeev Damani

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Carrying forward the Customer  Centricity and collating it with the technology, what we came up with will be a 360 degree experience for the customer while he shops and for deploying it Infosys launched a retail offering known as ST360 i.e. Shopping Trip 360. It focuses on a wireless infrastructure of sensors and mobile data links that give retailers and packaged goods suppliers highly detailed information about customer behaviours. Moreover it doesn’t uses the expensive RFID technology inspite it uses slab sensors that can give real-time data on, among other things, how many units of a particular product are on the shelves, how many products are facing the customer on the shelves and how many customers passed by the product.

Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan said: “Shopping Trip 360 is really a consolidation of some of the research we have been doing in the retail industry. It takes all the point solutions which we have deployed and combines that to create what we believe to be the next wave of innovation. This then brings that online experience back into the store, into the physical world and creates an environment which is as rich in terms of applications, in the information it can provide.”

By using this technology retailers can dig deep into customers behaviour and their shopping pattern which inturn help them to improve their operations and modify their business strategy so as to provide enhanced experience to the customers.

ST360 is a information service for the retailers, the solution is based on the network of tiny wireless sensors in the store, enabling an active and aware environment to support a number of applications. For the brick and mortar model or even for the online model the visibility as well as the awareness of the customer is very vital for prediction and forecasting. So this solution provide a real time shoppers and shelf activities.

The three major components of ST360 are

• Instore Heat map
• Smart Shelf Pad
• Shopper Concierge service.

To know more about the solution and about its services, Click here

- Prateek Katiyar

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Indian IT Diversification:

We all know that Indian IT industry is facing a big time challenge with subprime crisis in US and appreciating Indian Rupee. Credit crisis in US Subprime-Mortgage Industry resulted into loss of business from global banks and financial institutions, which is one of the main source of income for them (BFSI).

In order to compensate for this slowdown, Indian IT industry is forced to identify new ways of increasing their overall sales. So, instead of waiting for customer orders, they started developing innovative products which will improve customer’s business processes and will help them serve their customers in a better manner. Some of these innovation and inventions are:

·         Wipro is building set-up box for digital televisions and marketing it to American Cable Companies.

·         Infosys has developed a cosmetics mirror. When a radio-tagged lipstick is brought close, it turns into an information screen and recommends coordinating colors and products to customers.

·         Infosys is working on “smart shelves” which automatically track which piles of shirts customers have picked up the most often. This will help Retailers to identify which are the products which attract customer attention but they don’t buy it for some reasons.

·         TCS has developed a radio tagged pass for airline customers which will help them to check in by just swiping it and avoiding other formalities.

·         TCS has developed a software which will help airlines know frequent fliers preferences and will help them in customization.

·         Infosys has developed ShoppingTrip360, a new offering intended to help retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies achieve visibility into in-store activity. It is a wireless-equipped shopping cart that charts the most efficient path through a store based on a consumer’s shopping list.

·         Wipro is designing water flow systems for Airbus’s new A380.

These initiatives in part of Indian IT Giants are showcasing that how they are moving from problem solving to business advisory mode.

-      Rajeev Damani

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Last weekend as all of us know, we had a good break from work (15th, 16th & 17th of August), so, I planned to visit Chennai to meet some of my friends. During my visit I came across a Retail Store named Rathna Store in Chennai. This store actually does away with all the principles and approaches of modern and organized retailing (like Visual Merchandising, Store Layouts, Space Planning & Allocation etc.) but still is able to pull large chunk of customers to their store on regular basis. I was wandering how it is possible.

Yesterday while writing my post on Customer Centricity’s & 7P’s Model, Rathna Store again struck my mind. After analyzing the model of Rathna Store, I came to a conclusion that it is not necessary to focus on all the 7 P’s, rather a Retailer need to identify the P’s which can be a Key Success Factors (KSF) for them and concentrate and capitalize on them. If we see the model of Rathna Stores, we can identify following,

Product: Yes, Rathna Store recognizes it as one of its KSF and they have large variety of products in each category.

Price: Yes, it is also a KSF for them, they compete with other based on prices. It is one of the major reasons for their huge footfall.

Place: They don’t pay much attention to place. Products are arranged haphazardly in store with no space planning and allocations. But location of store is decent.

Promotion: I am not having much idea on their promotions but there were no in-store promotions other than Gold Prices.

People: This is again not a KSF for them. People there lacked customer service. But were efficient in their work as in billing, inventory etc.

Process: Yes, I think it was again a KSF for them; the billing process was very smooth. In each floor whenever u select a merchandise, u can give it to the staff their and he will give u a receipt. At the end of your shopping you just need to go to the cash counter, pay all the receipts and collect your merchandise and move.  Moreover their supply chain is also very efficient. There were no stock outs.

Physical Evidence: It was not again a KSF for them. There was no Visual Merchandising and other efforts to improve in-store experience for customers.

Technology: I was not able to find use of any technology other than Close Circuit Cameras.

So, in spite of considering only 3P’s (Product, Price & Process) out of seven, and with minimal use of technology, Rathna Store is able to generate immense sales revenue.

Conclusion: “To be Customer Centric, a retailer need to identify his KSF based on customer needs and target market. He should then concentrate on those KSF in order to grab Customer Attention and achieve higher Sales. Concentrating on too many variables may dilute the essence of the Model. However all the 7 P’s are equally important but their relevance may differ from format to format.”

- Rajeev Damani

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Customer Centricity:

As Prateek posted..  “The Power in Hands of Customer”, the term ‘Customer Centricity’ again hit my mind after a long time (it use to hit more frequently during MBA classes ) And so I started thinking how can we be customer centric?? Especially in industry like us it actually holds a value. As we are moving from product-based competition to service-based, entire focus of our processes is toward customers. Customer is King, God, Lord etc. etc. or else customer is everything.

As I kept thinking for long , suddenly first class of service marketing flashed in my mind, where Dr. Kartik Dave (our Service Marketing Faculty) amazed us  by disclosing that there are actually 7P’s in case of Marketing of Services i.e. Product, Price, Place, Promotion (the traditional 4) and People, Process & Physical Evidence (the new 3) (guys trust me you should never miss your MBA classes ). It then took no time for me to realize that Customer Centricity is nothing but aligning these 7P’s with customers need (implied & latent). And technology is the facilitator and enabler in the process . So, very quickly I came up with following diagram:

I guess once we look at this diagram, everything is clear. Still I will like to give some insight,

Product: Customer centric merchandise planning.

Price: Pricing based on customers pocket size and affordability.

Place: Place which is convenient for customer to locate and relate. (Product affinity, aisle affinity, place affinity)

Promotions: Promote what customer need to know. Promote to right customers.

People: Instill the objective of customer service among your people. Hire right people for right position.

Process: Make all the process efficient and flaw less. Be it Billing, Returns, Circulation, Supply Chain etc. etc.

Physical Evidence: Give your customer what you promise to them. Clean Stores, Easy Navigation (no butt-brush), Good Lighting, etc etc.

Technology: Technology is the enabler as well as facilitator of the process. That is why we have applications for merchandise planning, space optimization, pricing, HR management, etc. Using technology makes the process more efficient and objective. Moreover, for global retailers, where they have bulk of work in all these areas, it makes sense to use these applications to pace up as well as make things smooth.

-  Rajeev Damani

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Riding on the wave of transformation, Where every retailer is changing his color to green just to attract more customers and to show that “they really care”. The brick & mortar models have goals all set! and plans all ready! to implement, even the budget has been allocated for the greenness. The giant retailers like Walmart, Tesco and Target have even rolled out the plan and are trying to become more greener than each other. In this race the pure play click models are not lagging behind, the largest e-tailer - Amazon has joined the green wagon and are storing the green products for their customers. It has launched “Amazon Green Section”, which lists products customers have selected as most environment-friendly, from cleaning supplies to computers to personal solar chargers. Check out the list here

- Prateek Katiyar

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From the huge success of the films like “Batman-The Dark Knight” and also like Spider-man series, Superman series, Hellboy, Hancock etc. anyone can easily predict that we all love super heroes, and we all want to be like them, everybody wants power in their own hands. And here are retailers - the organized players who are striving day and night to provide power in the hands of their customer. Unlike kirana stores where a customer usually give the list of items he wants to buy and store owner gives item of brand which he keeps (or on which he is getting greater margins), organized retailer provide a ambiance where a customer can have greater variety and deeper assortment and most importantly the power to choose by himself whatever he wants. A customer can trail, can test can even preview things. But power is a thing which everybody wants more and more, so the retailers are onto it, now the customer have power to shop from home (e-shop), shop on the move(m-shop), can compare real time prices(Internet enabled kiosks), can check latest fashion and can even preview them & see how you look in to that one(smart mirrors). So the customer of today is far more powerful than that of the yesterday’s customer and have all the shopping weapons handy. Is this it? No.. now a shopper can even checkout from the shop on his own and can avoid the long que and can save time. A shopper can use a smart trolley which  can scan the items that the shopper put inside it and will tell the total amount on the display. A shopper can pay on the kiosk during checkout using his own loyalty member no. and credit cards. The common quote in the service industry is “Customer is a God”, so now Customer is a God and he also have a power in his hands.

Supershopper - “Everything is under control over and out”

- Prateek Katiyar

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Hello Readers!

Well it was time before some one had to find the crack in the voice!  Like the Richter magnitude measuring earthquakes, this crackdown is measured by snores, booings and of course a pre empted (fake) applause. Of course people am talking about PRESENTATIONS. At schools, colleges and board rooms, this is something of a whiner. You have to pass through these confusing wolfensteins maze of communication before you can see some light (not necessarily at the end of the tunnel). And mostly when you see light at end of our presentations in colleges and offices you are more likely be facing the barrel. The torture that you have caused by your own sweet chords of voice, lashes back at you like a whip.

Making and delivering presentation is an art in itself. Most of all registered or unregistered organisations of this world run its bread and butter exercise to those limited sparks in new ideation and reporting presentations or the result orientation of the mighty excel. But many potential thoughts and credits are lost mid way since they are never reaching the decisive listeners. Those bug bunny ears are tormented through your boring bulleted presentations, and they resulted in the introduction of the new word ”Screw” . Its obvious that you are attached at the end.

Why lament and fear on what you can easily give away to your listeners by a breathtaking, awing presentations. There are ways and techniques to do it, as easy as Plug and Play. Its a way of thought, that you reach to your listeners and in-turn your ideas.

Dont want to sound like a preacher but a messenger to you all. Mr Mohit Chhabra an alumnus of Bimtech has done exactly that being the Chief Grunt Officer of his newly found website http://www.vocalite.co.in where there is a try to change what today is called a “Power ” ” Presentation” lacking the “Point” in between.

I encourage all of you to join this website, since its more based out of a face to face communication to get the best out of the Points in the presentations, to make life a bit easier and interesting to your listeners so that you get the deserved applause.

- Sudip

Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery. Live in today life a gift you have. And thats why its called the Present. (Kung Fu Panda)

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Global Retail opportunity:

As we keep hearing that there is a great opportunity for Global Retailing in news, blogs, reports etc etc.. It uses to confuse me that how is it possible??? With subprime losses in US, Inflation in Asian market, and consternation in other major markets like Japan, Europe etc. where does this opportunity lie exactly?? But then I came across a report by A.T. Kearney, “Emerging Opportunity for Global Retailers”, which helped me to understand it thoroughly. The report says that since US retailers are suffering from lower same store sales in their home market, they need to move out in order to ensure growth. Now the question is where to grow. If we see Asia market, though weak dollar has triggered inflation here as most of the emerging economies here have large reserves in dollars. But still there overall growth has not been endangered. This is evident from the fact that GDP in emerging economies like India, China, Russia is still expected to top 8% in 2008. And in most of these economies less than 10% of the Retail is organized. This is another opportunity for Global retailers.     

Window of Opportunity theory: The theory says that before the window of opportunity opens, investments in a new market may receive a setback due to uninterested crowd, political regulations and incapable supply chain. But in some time the government realizes the power of organized retailing and reduces regulations, consumers’ starts appreciating the formats and services, and ancillary industries like 3PL starts flourishing. After this Window op Opportunity closes as regulations become lenient and most of the global retailers have already entered the market and have capture best real estate as well as favorable place in consumers mind. So, the Retailers who capture market before opening of the window become superior in such markets. And the opportunity cost is higher for the retailers who enter at the later stage.  Moreover by the time of opening of window, domestic retailers also realizes the opportunity and so late entrants have to face a stiff competition from them too. This Window of Opportunity is comprised of four stages, opening, peaking, declining & closing. Most of the emerging economies like India, China, Saudi Arabia etc lie in Opening and Peaking stage reflecting the Great Global Retail Opportunity.

Ref:  A.T. Kearney, “Emerging Opportunity for Global Retailers” [2008]

-Rajeev Damani.

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As i talked about some of the tech inventions that retailers are using to enhance the experience of a shopper, and also Rajeev asked about some of the tools for social retailing, so here is a look in to a future store all equipped to deliver beyond expectations. Welcome to Future Store……………

source - NRF (click on image to enlarge)

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