All In It's For You!

We all as consumers have gone through different phases of Retail in the last 4 decades. It would be only imperative for us to understand what really has been the trigger to this, what really were the game changers in those eras and how will these truly evolve over the next decade. For the sake of convenience, let's look at these from the lens of what has been instrumental in bringing the change that the markets adopted… The 3 major drivers for the changes that happened in the 3 eras defined as 'waves' for a particular period is as below: Wave 1: 1986–1995 — Infrastructure Wave 2: 1996–2005 — Changing Consumer Preferences Wave 3: 2006–2015 — Digital and Technology Wave 1 was the era where Infrastructure played a major role in how the trade and retail truly operated in the marketplace. Wave 1: 1986–1995 — Infrastructure This wave in its initial phase was completely revolving with the producer ruling the market and deciding what the consumer should ideally consume. Consumer de...

It was the morning of Sun, Apr 10th, 2011 when this news came up to me as the 1st call. Life seemed to have suddenly stopped for the moment. There was umpteen no. of SMS and phone calls exchanged with various people from Sunday morning till the next few days. It was about the passing away of the Retail Doyen —  #RaghuPillai who was instrumental in sowing the seeds and also envisioned the #Retail that we see today. Taking a flight immediately from Mumbai to Chennai to be in his last journey was an instant decision. While I hopped on to the flight with some of the other Mentors and Colleagues, all through we were just poignant of how could something like this happen at just in his 54th year. Various episodes and memories just passed by my mind. I had known him for more than 5 years. Those days were just blessed and truly instrumental in shaping me to become what I am today in so many ways. It was really an extremely tough moment to go from the Ground to the 4th floor of Shangrila Apart...

India’s economy revival = Calibrated Re-opening with support measures (c’re) + Benign approach for migrant workers (be’mw) A country of over 1.3 billion people where livelihood is dependent on so many kinds of jobs that one could engage in. What really are the dependencies for such jobs? Its undoubtedly people of all kinds i.e., a mix of Unskilled, Semi-skilled, and Skilled. The progress of our country has always been highly dependent on the role that these workers play in such kinds of jobs. They are an informally employed force which comes from several states like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Rajasthan, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, North East and are in excess of 100 Million+ aka migrant workers and their size translates to over 20% of the workforce of our country. What makes them special are their specific skills that are quintessential to several key industries. Their earnings support the even bigger Rural India since most of the time they come back and also participate in the agr...