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IN BUSINESS
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Thursday 8.30-9.00pm,
Sunday 9.30-10.00pm (rpt) |
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Programme detailsΜύ |
26 JuneΜύ2008 |
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About this programme by Peter Day
The rise of India is a compelling story, and the last In Business of this current series reflects this by concentrating on retailing.
At the moment, Indian retailing is still a protected industry, tied up in the regulations inherited from the Raj and designed by the first Indian government to insulate the country from the world.
Like defence and utilities, the intricate network of Indian retailing is still deemed by politicians to need protection from the ruthless western preditors at the gates.
Foreign supermarket chains are barred from putting their names on the facias ... they can only operate as an alliance with a local company, unless they sell only own brand products.
But overseas wholesalers are allowed to open huge cash and carry stores supplying small shops and restaurants. The wholesalers and suppliers think theyβve been tricked by the government; cash and carry stores do not merely sell in bulk, so there is nothing to stop small shopkeepers effectively buying at below retail prices there for their own use.
But if shopping is eventually βmodernisedβ in Western fashion in India, then at stake are the livelihoods of an estimated 12 million small hawkers and shopkeepers, plus a mesh of wholesale merchants and markets supplying them through a host of delivery people, and millions of farmers growing food on normally tiny plots in the countryside.
To a big corporation, this reeks of chaos : small quantities moved by carts not trucks, noisy markets, tiny retailers (who will, incidentally deliver one cigarette, by hand, on credit, to a neighbourhood customer at 10βoclock at night).
The big boys now trying to introduced the concept of the supermarket to India call what they are doing βorganisedβ retailing, as though the density of stalls and small shops is in some way disorganised.
But the Indian current supply chain is pretty much of a wonder and it will be sad if the air-conditioned shops of a few giant corporations replace the amazing choice of food and other goods now available by the roadside or (even more remarkable) in the bazaars.
Why do companies think that their bland shops are the only way to do things ? Do the people who run them lose all sensitivity to the extraordinary diversity they want to replace with plastic fascias and electronic checkouts ?
Thatβs what has happened here in Britain; I fear it will eventually happen in India β¦ but slowly.
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Contributors:
Dharmendra Khumar
Director, India FDI Watch
Asitava Sen
Vice President, Technopak Retail Consultancy
Mohan Gurnani
President, Federation of Associations Maharastra
Martin Dlouhy
Managing Director, Metro, Cash and Carry India
Rajan Malhotra
CEO, Big Bazaar, Pantaloon Retail(India) Limited
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About In Business
We try to make ear-grabbing programmes about the whole world of work, public and private, from vast corporations to modest volunteers.
In Business is all about change. New ways of work and new technologies are challenging most of the assumptions by which organisations have been run for the last 100 years. We try to report on ideas coming over the horizon, just before they start being talked about. We hope it is an exhilarating ride.
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