IIT Kanpur MBA Blog

Mr Naveen Prakash, AGM, Corporate Talent Acquisition at one of India’s largest retail chain – Spencer’s Retail, visited the IME department for a talk on Recent Trends and Opportunities in the Management of Retail Businesses in India. Mr Prakash started the talk with an introduction to the retail market in India. With a total size of USD 530 billion, 47% of the market is urban, out of which 31% is modernized, while only 3% is modernized in rural India. The potential is to grow to USD 800 billion by 2017, with an even split between urban and rural areas and three fold growth of modern retail in rural areas. This is the kind of potential the modern retail business holds in India. Also apparel, furniture, jewelry and medicine have been the fastest growing sectors in retail. Within the retail business, Mr Prakash told the students that it is the repeat customers who actually drive the revenues, and the aim of Spencer’s is to focus on this segment. The driving idea behind the firm’...

Tips from Top organised a seminar by Mr. Mihir Mohanta, GM, Mother Dairy, Fruits and Vegetables Division. The Topic of the seminar was “Management of Agro Businesses in India – A Key Perspective”. Mr. Mohanta started the seminar giving a brief about challenges faced in supply chain management during planning, costing, implementing, physical movement of goods from one place to another, etc. This was cemented through an example of horticulture train, an endeavour by the Government of India. The train that was considered to be a boon for transportation of food and vegetables was marred by lack of planning, ignorance in demand estimation, and inconvenience in loading on part of farmers. Further talking about the F&V industry, Mr. Mohanta briefed us that although footfall of customers is soaring in this sector, but the risk to return ratio is very low. Reasons being fruits and vegetables are perishable items, have price volatility, and have uncertain demand. Also the supply chai...