We need to learn something unique about Indian Grocery Retail but before that, we should adopt a few things which will help us to understand it deeply. How it will happen? What kind of information is needed for this? And how do we understand it in the context of the Indian retail sector? All such questions will be part of this principle. Let's start with three steps:,
1. Learn
2. Unlearn
3. Relearn
“Alvin Toffler is credited with saying: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who can read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn."
A stage of Learn:
Why do we need to go through the scanner of this principle described by Alvin Toffler? As human beings, we are living in a cage where we believe that things are created by "I", controlled by "I" and that my mind is the powerhouse of all the thoughts that I am creating, describing, and creating. and finally executing. But, why is there a fight between thoughts, we receive those thoughts from our conscious mind which always give us some great importance in terms of the things around us, the happenings around us, and our physical relationships with people? draw towards intimacy.
The cage around us is so powerful that it does not allow us to move towards even the most accessible things i.e. our knowledge that blocks our subconscious mind and the waves flowing through it, and this is because we are the most learned, we are the most experienced and we will never allow others to correct our ideas or we need to adopt such ideas. This situation makes us like a frog (I) who lived almost his life in a borewell. For that poor Frog, the whole universe is the pond, the walls of it sleep, some small creatures around him, the water, and some disturbance of the man who used to suck water for drinking or irrigation in his fields.
One day a crow saw this frog sunbathing on a large dry leaf floating on the water. He said to the frog, why doesn't he want to come out of this well and see the beautiful world outside it. But, the frog starts to give a different level of knowledge that he is living in a big universe, where he has lots of resources and he has things to make his life better, so what will happen outside your world. The crow promises him that he will see the outside world once and if he does not like it then he can come again to his place. Finally, he gave his consent and came out of the well. When he came out of the Well it was a different experience for him.
This is our learned stage. The limitation of knowledge gives it a mental barrier. We live with it and think we're right, we're doing the right thing, and that our creation is the greatest thought in the world. But, again out of the world, there is much to learn.
A stage of Unlearn:
Start letting go of things that can hinder your growth. Let it melt your thoughts because the journey always starts with an idea. Sometimes we need to forget what we saw in a different world. It is good to have an idea for the better but a sequence needs to be set for its execution. India is almost 50 years behind the US in terms of development and technology and 30 years behind Dubai, Singapore. Even China is ahead of us on many platforms.
If you are looking to bring some new ideas which you have seen working well in US, Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai, it does not mean that these ideas will work and give similar results in India. Before adopting those ideas and starting working on them, evaluate whether, if the idea is "within" the time or it requires hours, otherwise you will be out of the market like many first movers are now in different sectors. I am experiencing.
Unlearned is a state of personal trait that adapts you to the present level of circumstances, it helps you to see the new world through new glasses.
Unlearning is not meant to remove old memories, experiences, expertise, rather it is mostly a kind of practical work which needs to be changed first. Our active/conscious mind always makes itself the hero, which is where the effect needs to be seen. Is it affecting his personal life or professional? If we are talking about working in an organization then both are important. These represent our traits, behavior, body language, and the way we respond to others.
Give up your bad habits first, and if you're a retail professional, there are a few things you need to forget after reading this. A lot of things are changing in the Indian retail sector where old market knowledge will not work and with this dynamic movement, you need to create a dynamic moment with some different learning styles.
A stage of Re-learning
Now, we will talk about "re-learn". Will the question arise? This is a wise question; Why should we waste our time learning new things. Why should we learn again? We are so knowledgeable, experienced, powerful, and influential, why do we go to erase our years of hardship? We already know more than others.
This is our mind block, like a frog, as long as he was in the borewell, he was the king and emperor of his kingdom, but what happened when he came out of the well. Why had he hidden behind a bush and started thinking about this new world? Here we need to take off those old clothes that are being tailored all around us. Learning is not purely with experience and knowledge, it can be your habits, behaviour, adaptability, line of business, and different method of behaviour. So, how are you going to learn those things? So, start learning about it again here and slowly grow and reach your goal. That is why I am sure that the frog will never return to its old home now.
The above three traits belong to human behavior, it has nothing to do with the company’s strategy, concept, plan, execution, etc. but it will help make those robust once go through thrice through a process.
Let's talk about the relevance of these three words in the Retail segment
Learn:
- Market
- Products
- Distribution Channel
- Marketing & Awareness
- Customer Preference
So far we have learned how to spread the market in retail and have the kind of depth that is needed. In our early days till 2005, we were in a state of the mindset that the consumer is a secondary being taken care of by the retailers. Therefore, the main focus was on the middle channel or the connector between brands and consumers i.e. retailers. Everything was planned to take into account their presence in the ecosystem, hence widely known as the general business (GT) market stream. There, we learned how primary sales and secondary sales work.
The go-to-market approach was a specialist job and was a bit lengthy and had to be planned from scratch to the sky in such a way that it gives a wide array of benefits in the long run. The focus remains to recruit distributors in the focus market, followed by the appointment of Area Sales Managers, Sales Officers, and Sales Representatives as the direct working force or coordinators. There was a huge investment of money and time to shape the distribution network. Years of hardship make a product brand in a struggling way.
C&F was a chain of Super Stockiest, Distributors, and Dealer physical channels which go completely on track by the brand owner i.e. manufacturer through the channel at an eye-catching and hard-working pace.
Here we learned how ATL/BTL works in terms of marketing and creating awareness. Print media and electronic media were the strongest at that time. Many celebrities from Bollywood, Tollywood, and Hollywood, Cricket, etc. create an environment in the ecosystem and television was the main medium of advertisement.
There was no wide range of products in the entire retail ecosystem, so things were managed by a single shopkeeper at his store and it was like over-the-counter (OTC) from where the retailer had control over the goods.
Physical stores, single format and with less priority of service but had product priority. Retail 1.0, Retail 2.0 and Retail. 3.0
Most of the retail professionals have such rich experience and based on their confidence they like to go with their experience but if we do not keep pace with the ongoing development in the ecosystem and we do not follow the new practices What will be the take away for them? So sometimes old tyrants find themselves with a kind of mental block.
Experience counts, here I have no problem picking it up with new developments, but there is a variety of new terminology used by the new retail professional, so here's what we need. If we are to adjust to the new blood and work in unison, we must start dropping some practical things from the past habits.
Unlearn:
Start learning a few things, like changing your perspective. It is one of the most common traits that enhance or hinder our personality and profession. What do we need to change? We need to change our way of thinking which should be positive, progressive, passionate and in the right way. Adaptability is the key to building harmony with your team members.
Your experience is there to give you the right tools, teach you how to be on the right track, make you perfect, and help you speed up your execution, but it requires a new kind of knowledge that is a part of the ecosystem. will provide you.
A very important step is to remove various brain blockages and allow your brain to adapt to new things.
Example: The startup ecosystem was not a new business phenomenon, nor a new kind of entrepreneurship, so why is it so different from the old type of business setup. There are angels, seeds, VCs and PEs to support why foreign investors invest. where were they before?
They were in old times but they have a different look, different style but here startups bring new ideas, investors are investing in these ideas but different types of execution plan, system and processes made it fast paced Is. Which we need to learn but for that we have to leave the old fashioned way of doing business. Time is running out fast, so with this kind of business here, everyone wants to get out fast. They talk about getting 10x return from burning millions of money, maybe a wise way but it is in the ecosystem.
What to Unlearn: You need to unlearn your few mindsets:
1. Are retailers brand conscious?
2. Retailer's mindset is typical and does not accept change
3. Retail has limitations on IT tools and will not use them for business growth.
4. Distribution depends on the entire distributor.
5. Online will be a challenge in rural and semi-urban.
6. Consumer packs of food items will not be sold in rural areas.
7. IT Won't Do Anything That Promotes Distribution.
8. Consumers need brands and they are not adaptable.
Unlearn Retail 1.0 to Retail 3.0
The above ideas are related to the market, whereas as a professional we need to transform ourselves and adopt the changes to keep pace with the development. This process is called unlearning some obsolete things that were living with us like deadwood and creating a complete mental block for us.
Re-Learn
Now we are living in a new era where we have a lot of time to learn new things, we are IT savvy, we know best practices learned from a section of management institutes. And our market dynamics are changing so fast to make us in line.
Here we need to learn a lot of management strategies apart from the behavioral traits, we know the market, where momentum is the key to success. So what's slowing us down? Is this our knowledge? our behavior? our experience? Or we are not being chosen to do the right thing. What is the most important thing we need to learn or re-learn?
Is the Startup Ecosystem about to Change Everything in Retail? From idea to implementation, there are many such things that have taken a new shape. We need to know about the root cause, so far we learn about the symptoms but our old practices were enough to steer us through a kind of prescribed treatment. It was workable earlier, but in the present system, everything is happening rapidly where there is a need for new learning by professionals. Let's talk about some of the developments that have been going on in the retail ecosystem since 2012.
We have some new dynamics about the market through a new way of doing business. We are startups because our idea is unique, we have seen growth all over the world and that experience is there to give us new lessons, but before we think and compare those learnings in India, we should think twice or thrice that India is a different market.
Here you will be doing kind of injustice to your money, time, and efforts if you compare the markets of USA and UAE. Align your sequence and make sure things are happening as and when you write.
eB2B: A new way of doing i.e. disruption starts happening in different areas. Like B2B supply chain is being aggregated by e-B2B players. Udaan, ShopKirana, Jumbotel and Kirana King are there to disrupt the outdated distribution system by total supply chain. These are positive distributions that are leading the way in technology and empowering retailers in their buying decisions. Bijak on the other hand, they are providing e-mandi services to some startup brokers and agri aggregator like Dehat and many more.
eB2C: Jiomart, Grofers, Amazon, Flipkart, Bigbasket, on the other hand are there to provide one-stop solution to the consumers through eB2C. Now we are talking about Omnichannel, Hyperlocal and Last Mile connectivity. This is retail 4.0 version
Cash and Carry are there, though they are struggling enough to change the ecosystem in the areas they have stores.
Backward integration starts in making supply chain in Food i.e. from Agri Farm to Fork and all is being done through robust use of IT.
MSME on the other side is going heavily to promote farmers through various FPOs and Clusters, purpose is to streamline associations, productions, and supply chain of foods and empower the channels involves at various stages. Organize retail is expanding very fast, the success story of D-mart is there to lure thousands of individuals to open their superstores / standalone stores and they already started doing this.
Retail Fintech is on the other hand is going to drive bia g-budget to get market where funded NBFCs are there to provide various kinds of financial facilities to Retailers, Distributors, Suppliers & Manufacturers of products.
Even logistic providers are also getting funds because they are going tech-driven. Everyone who has the power to drive a segment through technology is part of the disruption.
Pharma on the other side is getting shape every day, companies like Apollo have already done it well before time, many more are in line. One fast-growing pharma chain is Dawaa Dost, all are getting funds.
Now think what will happen to the Frog which was in the Bore-Well for a long and what happened to him when he came out from the Well and saw the entire world. For him, this is new learning and re-learning. He should un-learn the things that he learned while living in that bore well and should adopt the changes for the betterment and should tuned-up his music with the developments.
A Retail professional who joined retail in 1995 and after 20 years when he visits a market, there is everything changed which he wants to describe and understand. Hence, Frog is a new market leader who is leading the startups and teaching them a new way of business.
Retail 5.0 is ahead – Consumer Delight through Omni-channel services
Writer: Balwant Singh Rana, originally blogged on 29.9.2020 by me.
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