Life of a Business Principal in Consulting

In the good old days of retailers having a single channel with a steady and relatively well forecasted demand, pricing was the forte of the merchandising managers. Ability to negotiate with CPG majors or wholesalers, retailing based on shelf space and target segment was very helpful. The basket analysis can be used very effectively - having Key Value items and anchor items to be able to optimize product mix and margins as well. This ensures we have a good rein on retail operations and also contributing to both the top line and the bottom line.

We discussed about how picking is going to become important in e-commerce a f ew posts back . The strategy of picking from store ware houses instead of centralized warehouses is a good move, but we should never over-look another warehouse operation that is as important as picking - slotting. In fact, slotting is what determines how we design the warehouse in the first place. This statement is obviously slightly exaggerated - but it is one of the main factors.

Definition The practice of using advanced statistical approaches to allocate proportional credit to marketing communications and media activity across all channels, which ultimately leads to the desired customer action. This is the definition from "The Forrester Wave: Cross-Channel Attribution Providers, Q4 2014 report" that can be accessed here .

One of the bigger challenges for e-tailers globally has been the last mile connectivity - delivering goods and managing returns. This is an area where the e-tailers have been innovating constantly has it is far better than it was in the early days of amazon back in the early 90's. Amazon has tried every trick in the trade on the last mile connectivity. Now with reports in India that Flipkart is going to try having collection centers for smaller towns, the debate on which method suits India is back out in the open. Flipkart's Collection Center concept Flipkart has always had a very good grip over what works for India - Cash on delivery being a brilliant example. They also started their own delivery service when they could not rely on the third part delivery vendors. With collection centers operated by Flipkart themselves, Flipkart seems to have come up with yet another innovation. What remains to be seen is if it will work since users are now used to getting their g...

One of the biggest things to happen in a long time in the Indian retail scene is Nilgiris acquisition by Future Group. Nilgiris is one of the few retailers in south India that has been very successful for a long time and also has been going through ownership changes for some time now. We do hope that Future group would provide good support for Nilgiris. Having had a chance to work with Nilgiris just once and understanding the dynamics of the Indian retail scene, there are several opportunities and challenges for all the parties involved - Future Group, Nilgiris and the Franchisees. Opportunities for Future group Working with a franchise network Nilgiris is one of the biggest Franchisee network and Future group can learn a lot from them. Better product mix management for various segments Nilgiri's strong point is that it has got the right product mix for every customer segment and the right kind of store for the location More complicated vendor management ...