Aditya
Mind is a terrible thing to waste…….Think Different
Non Fuel Retailing…..Convenience Shopping
0153 days
by aditya
in Blogs & Articles
“Retailing” is the set of activities that markets products or services to final consumers for their own personal or household use.
Indian retail industry is in a transition phase. It is moving from an unorganized sector to becoming an organized sector. However, most of the retailing in our country is still unorganized. The retail spread out in US and India has a very wide gap. Although retailing in India is having an exponential growth, the road ahead is full of challenges.
The attitudinal shift of the Indian consumer in terms of “Choice Preference”, “Value for Money” and the emergence of organized retail formats have transformed the face of Retailing in India. With a growth over 20 percent per annum over the last 5 years, organized retailing is projected to reach US$ 23 Billion by 2010.
The Indian Retail growth can be attributed to the several factors including:
- Demography Dynamics: Approximately 60 per cent of Indian population below 30 years of age.
- Double Incomes: Increasing instances of Double Incomes in most families coupled with the rise in spending power.
- Plastic Revolution: Increasing use of credit cards for categories relating to Apparel, Consumer Durable Goods, Food and Grocery etc.
- Urbanization: increased urbanization has led to higher customer density areas thus enabling retailers to use lesser number of stores to target the same number of customers. Aggregation of demand that occurs due to urbanization helps a retailer in reaping the economies of scale.
- Covering distances has become easier: with increased automobile penetration and an overall improvement in the transportation infrastructure, covering distances has become easier than before. Now a customer can travel miles to reach a particular shop, if he or she sees value in shopping from a particular location.
NON FUEL RETAIL
Till a few years ago, petroleum retailing in India was a staid and dreary business. Cars, buses and two wheelers drove in, got the vehicles fueled, paid cash, and drove out. The environment started changing when Shell did a makeover of some petrol pumps as part of the economic reform process. Improved signage, use of credit cards, and carwashes soon became an integral part of the petroleum retail outlets.
While the contribution of non-fuel to the earnings is 39 per cent and 35 per cent in USA and France, in India, non –fuel retail contribution is less than 2 per cent of the total fuel sales.
Earlier petrol stations were merely used for selling fuel; now they are quickly getting converted into multi-facility joints. The whole idea is to provide convenience to the customers. You can easily see those spanky outlets at the highways of Gurgaon, Pune or Hyderabad. The culture is surely getting in.
“Fuel forecourts with 24×7 convenience retail concepts (merchandise & service retailing) within cities and on the highways offer huge scope for expansion of retail. The concept has the potential to create excitement and initiate activities in small towns and cities as well” according to India Retail Report 2009. 
Convenience need gaps have been felt in various fields and research shows that the urban consumer today seeks convenience in shopping for their basic requirements so that their precious time is reserved for more productive activities. Petrol retail outlets provide an excellent framework for setting up convenience retail chains. Here, the consumer enjoys dual occasion of, opportunity of combining shopping with the fueling.
Hence, along with the strategic locations, the number of footfall in the petrol retail outlets gives petroleum retail companies the competitive advantage. Worldwide, petrol station convenience stores have developed into a serious business in itself with companies like BP, Shell, Exxon running their convenience store chains profitably. All of them have deployed best retail practices in their stores and offer a wide range of services including laundry, postal services, courier services, fast food etc.
Soon, because of the increasing populations and a surge in the demand, this idea of convenience retailing will gain centre stage. The agenda of non fuel retailing and convenience shopping is now being taken very seriously by Indian Oil firms they are now adding value not only for the customers but also to themselves. They are now differentiating the services, becoming more customer centric and leveraging on the competencies. Soon, we may also see big retail outlets opening at your nearby petrol fueling stations
The APPLE less eaten….Steve Jobs leave the reigns…
0156 days
by aditya
in Blogs & Articles
The APPLE with the corner bite is the symbol that any computer freak aspires to have on their dashboard. One of the pioneers in the area of personal computers, an impecabke brand, astounding success story for the past 34 years, astute customer base, the company have been a benchmark for one and all. Established in the year of 1977, in California, today the giant has almost 50,000 best minds working and a turnover of around 66 billion dollars………..huhhh……!!
Whether it is the philosophy of aesthetic designs, or meeting the highest technology standards, combined with the ever best of the advertisement campaigns, the company has impeccably loyal customer base. Fortune magazine listed APPLE as the most admired company in the world in 2008, 2009 and 2011. If you are an APPLE user, I would not say much..I guess.
The man behind the saga is one of the most admired technology visionaries world has ever seen……Mr. Steve jobs. Now that he has left the chair of the CEO of the company, none of the strategists have a trace of a doubt about the future success of the company. This is because of the rock solid foundations laid by the Steve, whether it is the tech innovations, company policies, vision for the future……you just name it.
In 2005, Steve Jobs told Stanford graduates, “Death is the destination we all share, no one has ever escaped it,” and with his resignation as CEO of Apple, the technology visionary is admitting his own mortality. After being forced out of the company, he came back and led the company to new heights. In the midst of all, he stirred through the tides, and took the boat ahead of the titans like IBM and Microsoft.
Ever gave a thought that where the “mouse” does got introduced. It was the Macintosh, which gave it to the masses. Products like iphone, ipad or ipod have become aspiring products. They all have changed the user interface and the way you and me use personal computing (Maybe soon I too will have the APPLE in my pocket……..).
Google’s Eric Schmidt, who served on Apple’s board, said of Jobs:
“He uniquely combined an artist’s touch and an engineer’s vision to build an extraordinary company, one of the greatest American leaders in history.”
It is one of the best times for the visionary to hand over the reigns to someone else. Now, with utmost proud, he can say “Mission Accomplished”. Now, it will be great to watch, how Tim Cook will take the legacy forward.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA
1158 days
by aditya
in Blogs & Articles
It was the year of 1987, that the Brundtland Committee published its report and coined the term “Sustainable Development”. As per the committee, it defines sustainable development as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
It aims to meet the needs of human beings with a concern for the environment, so that the needs of the future generations can also be met. With the brisk use of natural resources, we are on the verge of depleting them. The ever rising population and the growth of industrialization has also taken a toll on the limited natural resources we have.
In the 33rd G8 summit that took place in Germany, the issue of environment and meeting the Millenium development Goals took a centre stage. Even, the giants of the world, are now realizing the fact it’s not only about economical milestones to achieve, but they also have to have a vision for the future.
Conceptually, sustainable development has three basic components: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical sustainability. This is like a tripod; and each pillar is extremely important and crucial to maintain the balance.
India also has fast realized the concept of sustainable development and several initiatives, both in the public and private sectors have been formulated in the recent years. It is expected that soon India will include the depletion of natural resources wealth as one of the components of measuring the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
India currently stands 2nd in the global carbon credits market, and soon it is going to triple the number of credits to 246 million, by the end of year 2012, further strengthening its position. The contribution of the use of renewable energy in the commercial sector has risen to almost 65 percent from a mere 10 percent. The prolific use of green technologies in construction will soon put India ahead of countries like USA.
We have been growing at a steady pace for the past few years, and as per the projections of the planning commission, we expect a 10% growth in the next five year plan as well. But, the shift of the emphasis from mere economical growth to a wholesome growth can surely be seen. Whether its been the allocation of huge amounts of money in bettering the health services, or trying to improve upon the literacy rates by programmes like Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan, the tempo has been set.
In the land of the “Argumentative Indians”, soon we will have, what is called as a more “balanced economy”.
The future of Social Marketing
0159 days
by aditya
in Blogs & Articles
Marketing has got the much needed acclamation and is at the crossroads. It was 1960, when Theodore Levitt, wrote marketing myopia, it became a serious function of the strategic management. Writers like Philip Kotler took the discipline to a different level and induced the importance of the domain in the overall success of any organization.
Earlier, the organizations have never had such powerful information and communication technologies with which to interact with clients, audiences, and partners. They were not able to explore, find, capture, store, analyze, present, use, and exchange information data and information about them; and tailor products and services accordingly. But, now with the advent of the internet and social marketing, all this have become possible. With search engines like Google, the options galore for the customers to look for the best bet in the market.
The distance between the users and the organizations has minimized, and now the former have the power to customize the products according to their needs. Marketing, now have become a social process, composed of human behaviour patterns, with shared values and cultures.
Social connect has always been an issue in marketing. In the 21st century, when issues like environmental sustainability, poverty, education, HIV/AIDS are taking a centre stage, the magnitude of options for social marketing is on an increase.
The application of social marketing is widening, viz its applications help encourage wider socially and environmentally beneficial behavioral changes, promote protective behaviors, prevent risky behavior, increase use of community services, or facilitate the formulation and adoption of new policies and standards.
The term social marketing was coined by Philip Kotler and Gerald Zoltman in the year 1971. Social marketing is the application of principles and techniques drawn from the commercial sector to influence a target audience to voluntarily accept, reject, modify, or abandon a behavior for the benefit of individuals, groups, organizations, or society as a whole. The intent of social marketing is to create positive social change.
The dimensions for social marketers are much wider than commercial marketers. The latter might focus on making the pockets of their shareholders more heavy, but the social marketers work for the upbringing of the society at large.
Trends show that the social sector will be having huge investments, not only in India, but in the developed nations as well. Therefore, the road less travelled, will have more footfalls and impactful.
Have you shifted…………….Google + beckons
0159 days
by aditya
in Blogs & Articles
In the war of social networking, facebook and google+ are fighting tooth and nail. It has been the likes of experts and much to the interest of strategists to talk about google+ dethroning Facebook. Projections have been made and compared, as to how the new entry in the somewhat slippery market of networking will perform.
Its been few months only that google plunged into social network after their failure at ORKUT. Just after its launch, it created the much needed hype and caught the attention of one and all. This is how, it has been able to grab 25 million users in just 4 weeks and has almost 20 million visitors. This is a huge success in terms of Facebook having almsot 750 million users but in almost 7 years.
I still remember that orkut has been a rage, fist when it came. Almost everybody wanted to have an account , so that they can connect to unknown people, especially the opposite sex. That created the interest of social networking among the masses. Then facebook came and cashed upon the hunger for sharing photos with ideas, and also offred a plethora of other applications to their users. Quickly, it became a rage among a particular section of the sociey, and then it was like a fire in the jungle.
A recent Bloomberg/YouGov surveyshowed that 13 per cent of Americans have signed up for Google+, with 45 per cent of users reading content once a day or more (only Facebook is higher, at 62 per cent), and 46 per cent creating content at least once a week, which is similar Twitter (42 per cent).
The magic of social networking is itself hitting the wall, with users getting bored of the usual blue and white stuff at facebook. Thegames at facebook have become redundant. a recent survey have shown a slip of almost 20% in the usage of games applications.
Maybe, the new google+ will provide a refreshing new experience to its users. It took me a while to get to know about the new platform, but I soon I got addicted. It has better control over who sees your information, excellent integration with Gmail, and no clunky “friend requests”.
So, after the shift of economies, its the time to shift your profiles.