Traditional brick-and-mortar stores should revisit their business models keeping the customer at the core, in order to stay relevant. This year, my pre-Diwali shopping turned out to be a pleasant experience— considering that I did not have to wait in a long queue at the billing counter. I was in and out of a popular national department store in an upmarket Mumbai suburb in less than 45 minutes.
Z Score,T Score, Percential Rank and Box Plot Graph
A Wake Up Call - By Prof Swapna Pradhan, Welingkar
1. 14 I N D I A N M A N A G E M E N T D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5
COVER
STORY
T
his year, my pre-Diwali
shopping turned out to be
a pleasant experience—
considering that I did not
have to wait in a long queue
at the billing counter. I was in
and out of a popular national
department store in an upmarket Mumbai suburb
in less than 45 minutes.While I was happy with the
experience, it also set me thinking on the changes
that were taking place, especially in retail in India.
While the change is largely being driven by
technology, the emergence of the 24/7 culture
and a large youth population willing to spend have
fuelled the demand for many products and services.
The country has also witnessed a new breed of
entrepreneurs, and startups which are garnering
Awake-upcall
Traditional brick-and-mortar stores should revisit their business models keeping the customer at the
core, in order to stay relevant.
SWAPNA PRADHAN, WELINGKAR INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT
AND RESEARCH
record venture capital investments and increased
valuations. In an age of constant connectivity and
social media influence, retail to say the least is being
revolutionised and for once the consumer is actually
emerging as the king.
E-commerce is not new to the country and it
was in the late 1990s that one first encountered
online trading in India. Companies such as Rediff,
Indiatimes, Indiaplaza, and Fabmart were among
the first ones to sell products online.Their efforts
met with limited success due to the lack of internet
penetration and poor infrastructure (payment
gateways/logistics, etc). In fact, IRCTC,
www.irctc.co.in, launched in 2002, had
booked merely 27 tickets on the first day of
commencement of its e-ticketing service.Today,
it is among the largest in the country with more