INDIA RETAIL FORUM 2009 -1

IRF is like an annual pilgrimage for all professionals associated with Indian retail and I must say Images team has been putting in fantastic efforts to ensure that all those who matter are present. Despite of gloomy business environment IRF 2009 was buzzing with action and a sense of new energy was heard in the air.
The event was kicked off by the chairman B S Nagesh along with Vikram Bakshi of McDonalds with a brief perspective of previous IRF events and emphasizing the importance of IRF 2009 since the industry has just recovered from difficult phase.
The plenary session was on learning from retail business in India. The session was chaired by Raghu Pillai of Reliance with the leaders like Vineet Kapila of Spencer’s, Paul Martin of Planet Retail, Sada Shiv of Big Bazaar, Hemant Bakshi of HUL and V Ramachandran of LG India. All of them agreed on the need of collaboration at different levels to share the knowledge, consumption data and need to focus on consumers. Private label is also seems to be becoming a critical factor in the profitability of various food categories since MRP factor doesn’t allow much flexibility to the retailers in meeting consumer expectations.
This was followed by a rendezvous with Kishore Ji. I feel Kishore Ji enjoys being interviewed by B S Nagesh on such platforms. Kishore Ji once again emphasizing on the importance of increasing consumption for the growth of the industry. He strongly feels that Indians are saving 40% of their income which is too high and if only they save 10% less than the retail industry will get a tremendous boost. As per his estimates Indian retail is growing by at least US$30 billion every year and if all of it can be acquired by organized retail that it will give desired boost to the organized retail. Kishore Ji also suggested that industry needs to look at innovative solutions to enhance the consumption such as declare a day when every consumer shall wear new cloths and this itself can give a huge boost to fashion & apparel sale. As a part of Future Group strategy to get into consumption space he also indicated their entry into selling telecom airtime as well as travel business.