Investment in startups - Facts and changing Scenario in future

Just
a month back when I was reading business headlines from economic times. 
It was having full coverage on how OYO is going to expand its market in various
areas.

This
is just a beginning in the contrast of new developments in India and South Asia
market.

OYO
is the brainchild of Ritesh Agarwal and one of his friend, and during 2014 he
started implementing his thought and ship is built in the sea.  This idea
was shared by one of the guy in Delhi who was then writing mini-blogs on new
startups, so this was the same idea which I read in one of the blogs during
2012. The creator can be the executor, but sometime creator only create the concept
and some other people work on its execution, so they are known in the
ecosystem.   Many examples are there, and you can find many more
startups who succeed to create a valuation of more than 16 Billion Dollar. 
Flipkart is one of the best examples. 

Purpose
of writing this blog is to predict the future of Startups in the coming
days.  I am very much sure that Founders, Co-Founders are going to lose
control, and they are going to leave their brainchild in the hands of
Investors.  

Let's
figure out the latest successful startups companies and how they will go in the
hands of the investor in the coming days. 

Here
are the talk of the town these days.

1.
OYO

2.
Paytm

3.
Flipkart

4.
Swiggy

5.
Ola

6.
Makemytrip

7.
Bookmyshow

8.
Grofers

9.
Bigbasket

10.Cardekho

11.Urbanladder

12.
Policybazar

13.
Justdial

14.Shopclues

15.Zomato

16.Snapdeal

And
many more. 

Must
have an analysis that common instinct is above all startups. Just make a
brainstorming? 

Okay, 
Lets us figure out the instinct and driven force which is giving acceleration
to these startups is " Technology" driven platform. IT  makes
them reach beyond the boundaries and scaling them to become a billionaire club
member. 

Let's
take a few  from the list where I will give some small pin and pain points
which help you to understand what they will do in the near future and who is
going to benefit. 

OYO
Rooms: 

The
concept is straightforward  but innovative as it was not tasted before in
India in the hotel industry. USD 460 million valuation as on August, 2016,
and Softbank has more tha 50% stake in this startup.  Yes, OYO  is brainchild of Ritesh Agarwal
who started working on this concept since 
2012.

Bringing
standalone hotel properties under one brand name “ OYO” and promoting their
existence to end consumer through B2C Application and various ATL/BTL marketing
Activities.

What
OYO is doing :

1.      Standardisation in terms of
   the physical appearance of Rooms, Look and feel and ambience of the hotel
   reception. Simple processes.  


2.      Digitise end to end
   interface.  Customer can find hotel rooms on OYO App and accordingly best
   deal can connect them to OYO rooms. 


3.       .  Marketing OYO concept
   through various channels of marketing. 


4.         Asset Light
   Model.  


5.   .     Invested in infrastructure
   and manuals.

I
am expecting that by the end of 2019  OYO will have more than 10 billion
valuations and one of the fasted growing hotel chains without owning a single
hotel. OYO is now UNICORN.  

OYO
will be the biggest hotel chain, more than 10 billion valuations by 2019 and by
then Founder will have a 5% or more stake in the company, and still, they will
have handsome money in hand.  But do you think that money will make Founder
happy after creating such a large valuable empire? No, after certain time money
for an individual matter only matter, and passion and fashion become the brain
ride. Social status and sentiments with the company make them more connected.
Ritesh Agarwal is still young, so I will suggest him to do not rush to expand
business amid greed by funding.  You are coming under the trap of
funding.  By 2020 when OYO will have more than 10 billion USD valuation. 
no doubt by then Founder will have 5% stake, but that will have worth more than
expectations. But, then VC funds will have direct control and maybe time will
tell whether you will be minority regards to stakeholding. 

I
am not sticking to 5% will be his stake in the company, maybe he can find some
financial institutes who can finance him, this way he can grow his stake up to
30% or more by infusing debts. But it depends on the strength of the brand that
time. No one can predict the future, but things go accordingly. 

PAYTM: 
 PAYTM  one
of the brainchild of Vijay Shekhar, an One97  communications brand. So far
raised USD 1.7 billion funds from various VC funds and currently valued at USD 7
billion. Here we can see the valuation matrix how it went from scratch to sky
just after demonetisation.  In only two year growth is more than three
times.  A big investor like Alibaba is playing a major role where they are
going to have a total controls in the next five year. Things are changing
dramatically, but why.  You need to think that Paytm is working in India
where more than 100 crores population reside. So we should not feel so
astonished because this is just 30% of the population is using online mode of
payments/ transactions so think when these numbers grow to 50% or more. 
Don't you believe Paytm will have more than USD 20 Billion valuations if users
grow at the end of year 2019. 

My predictions
for Paytm :   Valuaton will be USD 16-20
billion by 2019-20.

Will
have more than 70% stake by the Investors.  

I
am quite confident that Vijay Shekhar will be quite lucky to have more than 20%
stake even after reaching to a stagnant position or saturation.

Above
two examples is enough to acknowledge my write up. 

Another
big example is going to set by the Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal,  I think the way company “ Flipkart” is losing financials on year on year basis and the way infusion of money is coming from
investors, both will have below 10% stake in the company in coming two or three
year. 

Any
way,  at a sudden flood of investment coming from various VC, Angel and
seed capitalists and their aim is to build a virtual valuation over some time
so that they can sale their stake at higher valuation level and reached to
unicorn club.  This is just a myth that Indian companies are going
aggressive in terms of business.  Not actually it is going, but part of
valuation fact is  where there is no
business viability seen even beyond five years, an ideal benchmark for getting
any business sustainable. 

I
think technology is going to drive the next level of business scenarios. 
India is full of opportunities where the retail sector is getting better shape
day after day.   As per the unorganised data Retail will have more
than USD 1 Trillion market by 2020  

Let's
talk about startups which are active in Retail sectors, and I will say retail
players who are driving organised trade in Kirana the Grocery market. 
Let's have a look who are the big players as on date.

Retail
players in B2C in India :  National Level players.  Lots of companies
are there in India who are operating Kirana retail at regional level so about
them I will write later. 

Physical
formats: 

1.
Reliance fresh

2.
D-mart

3.
Future Group  Big Bazar and Easyday

4.
More 

5.
On Door  ( MP based )

6.
Vishal Mart

I
bag pardon from retail companies whose name was escaped while writing the name
in above list.  Here D- Mart is seen growing in a great way, seems they
are targeting an IPO in coming years. As regards to Reliance Fresh, they are useful
at making turnover, but still, profit is a little bit far away.  
Here I am sure that Reliance will go for raise money from foreign investors for
strengthing their Retail business,  here
they will not use their own money. Either they will go for raise money from IPO
or from Venture capital or PE firms.

Now, 
will talk about  Future group of Kishore Biyani.   Here Future
group has more than 7000 crore annual revenue from all formats. As per March
2016 Financials ( Rs. 6844.96 Crore) Kirana contributes approximately 40% of
total income, rest comes from fashion and food stores.  After many years
in the market still struggling to get sustainability. Mr Kishore Biyani is well
known and great artiest of Retail, even who is facing issues so what is left
for else.

No
doubt, I have same feeling for Kishore Biyani, this group has ample debts in
books which can not be paid until someone infuse money in a strategic tie-ups.
I think, there are only two giants in space , one is Amazon and other is
Reliance. I am sure Future group will have great acquisition by either one.

It
seems that Indian entrepreneurs have some born mindset that they will be exit
from the business once they will reach to a certain valuation, even plan is
preset at the time of starting venture that what will be the exit plan. What
does it mean, business should be on going process so, when founders are in such
thought that they will take a exit at certain time or certain point it means that are not sure about the concept and business workability, scalability.  All are going just for changing the hats.

On
the other hand eB2C players like Amazon is going to deepen their roots in the
ecosystem. They are trying to establish a network of micro stores through will
they can feed hyperlocal need, this will make them competitive. Omnichannel is
the next future for eB2C.  

On
the other hand,  Big overseas players like Walmart, Metro are investing
heavily in creating infrastructure and passionately going to acquire an existing
business platform where they can feel appropriate box for their upcoming ground-level
strategies. Mind-blowing things are going to happen. Thailand based LOTS ( CP Wholesale ) is also planning to come India. 

Now
the retail market is so vast which need separate stream for writing about it in
a whole story or page, so I am feeling the same while writing down about
developments in India retail , so things are little bit going in trenches for
me to make an index of Indian Kirana Retail.

• In
  this view I am going to categories Indian Retail Market as under :


• ·        
  Hyper
  Market   ( Big Bazar, Dmart, Hypercity etc.)


• ·        
  SuperStore 
       ( Easyday, Reliance Fresh, More)


• ·        
  Hyper-Local 
      (Regional level players, earlier grofers were doing this)


• ·        
  Last
  Mile Connectivity Connector  ( Retailers for few b2b retailers like
  Shopkirana & Storeking)


• ·        
  B2B
  Retail formats ( Storeking, Shopkirana, Urbanladder, & Jambotail)


• ·        
  Ecommerce
  web-based and App  based  ( Amazon, Snapdeal, Grofers )


• ·        
  Direct
  Marketing   ( very few like Amway, Evon etc.)


• ·        
  Simply
  Grocers  ( Pure Staples like local kirana)


• ·        
  Retailers,
  Mom & Pop , Bricks & Motar , Conventional Stores.  ( 12 Million
  Stores )


• ·        
  Discount
  Masters  ( Mostly in garments and mix products )


• ·        
  Category
  Killers  ( Not in India)


• ·        
  Kiosk. 
   ( Mostly in Electronics, Beverages) 

My
more focus is on point no. 9   Indian Kirana Stores  ( Mom and
Pop stores).  I will have more things to write on Indian Kirana.

Retail
is detail, so there is endless ink to give a perfect write up.

Writer: Balwant Singh Rana

Delegation of Authorities - A Perfect Corporate Culture

Some times we stuck in our office with some functional crunches. despite proper resources, we couldn't get the desired result in task-based assignments. This happened when we don't delegate authorities. I have seen in many companies where the owner of the company is engaged in all functional areas, though we hired respective domain experts and paying them handsome salaries and perks, trust stay with the owner, I must say trust stay at the corner.

Generally, a company engaged in retail business has proper functioning departments. Depending upon the size of the organization department either is headed by VP level or GM level. a typical organizational hierarchy. in the current scenario, A GM level experienced professional draw 15 to 20 lakh annual package and VP level may go up to 50 lakh.



An average monthly salary comes to a handsome sum. Now, a question comes in mind about why we have a functional hierarchy in our organization if all decision level power stays with the owner. This is not a rare problem I am pointing at but is on a large side. most of the Indian business houses follow it well. When someone asked me to join their company as a management consultant, I directly jump to this area and tried to know that how much interference the company owner has in companies' routine inter-departmental functionalities. I suggest them in my way.



A simple management lesson we had studied in our school or college time that the Delegation of authorities is given to HODs so that they can run their department independently and responsively and can be held responsible for not performing well.

Here are a few tips for my few followers :



1. Hire an experienced professional through your expert HR mechanism.



2. Assign KRA and KPI. based on the KPI delegate full authorities. Of course, there should be checks and control at your end so he or she doesn't misuse authorities.



3. Design department wise MIS format but the format should be simple and should address the KPI factors and measurements. Let them work as per the nature of their Job and do not force a short period review. The review should be done every month or quarterly. especially for departments like Production, Procurement, F&A should be done monthly and for marketing and sales, it should be quarterly. results of any spending by marketing dept will come in a little bit longer period so sales monthly review will not give the desired result in the Retail segment.



4. I appreciate each performer in review meetings. Few of HODs may not perform well, it does not mean that they will not perform in the next review so do not discourage them. Try to find out reasons n give them your moral support.



5. Professionals from an accounting background like CA remain calm and cool. here you need to be humble to them. They need a smooth environment so then only they can think to manage your accounts and finance efficiently.



6. Make a friendly relationship with your team and help them when they need it. Emotions create a big role in personal bounding.



7. If you appoint someone in your company, it becomes your moral responsibility to retain and develop them to your level. reshuffling is the best way to make every employee all-rounder.



8. Develop the skill, it is very economical compare to hiring a skill.



9. Human resources should have prime roll develop Human first.above is just a simple line for new startup company owners. Since many of them follow my simple sayings so hope you will measure these little things and try to adapt in routine life.



Startup culture is different means there people are counted machines so sometimes they are emotionless but for the long run and sustainable growth of organization need a culture carrying " People's First" approach.

-----------------





In this topic as a writer I tried to capture few main points which is required to consider for proper delegation of authority, however if we go academic way lots of books are written by renowned writers.







Thanks/

Bs Rana 

How to Enter in Kirana Market with New Product Line

Here I will give few ideas for small companies or entrepreneurs who have limited source but they are passionate to initiate business. Certain rules are common for all marketers so they have to follow those rules in the primary phase.

Before you go to a new market first you have to make a detailed feasibility survey.  Such a survey should be carried out by in-house team where you need to draft a questionnaire keeping few points relevant. Before drafting a survey questionnaire you should have the first detailed product knowledge and all measure related to food safety and other statutory compliance, packaging and SKU size and master packaging type.  Once you finalise your product and it's complete product note then go to make a survey in the focus market. This survey will give you a detailed picture of market size, consumer base and retailers behaviour.

Once you have a detailed survey then you can easily make budget and sales planning.

For small enterprises, you should pick your focus market first. After that mode of supply chain system need to be aligned like you are going to appoint a distributor in that focus market or you as a company will do the direct distribution. If the focus market is your native place then it would be good to have direct market distribution rather go for seeking distributors. As soon as a Distribution channel is finalised go for recruitment of sales and marketing staff.  Remember General manager of sales should be from the market or he should have experience of the product line you are having.  Never recruit people from other streams.  Sales officer or representatives you can recruit from different sales verticals but they should be properly trained before they go market.

Product knowledge, about company, promoters and policies should properly be given to them. Fill full enthusiasm and energy in them. Give them trust that your products are good in terms of quality, price and service will be of the best class. All such positive things should be given on daily basis as a routine diet.

Once primarily measures of the market are done then the time comes at your workshop or factory side where you start working on product manufacturing, labelling or relabeling as per the nature of your product.

Map your focus market in zones/Clusters and under zones make weekly beats for sales planning. Sales beat, market beat or delivery beats depend on the market size you are going to explore. Generally, a city like Delhi needs 20 sales beat if you are going to cater to the whole city whereas a city like Jaipur will need 10 sales beats.

Beats mean a dedicated area under a sales officer which help him to map retailer day wise. Do not target 20 shops per day and per week 120 shops under one SO or SE. 

When your salesman starts exploring beats so there they need more time to interact with retailers. It helps them to introduce your product to them. So 20 shop per day for a SE is more than enough.  In the first three months, there would be productive calls around 8 to 10  and slowly it will increase to 60 to 80%. Don't expect 100%.

If you have a marketing budget in big capacity then only choose your customer base otherwise you need to go by the following method.

There is a category of stores in Kirana segments like a store or outlet having per day 30000 to 50000 comes under A category and below 30000 it comes under B, C and D. Big retailer under A category or A+ category will not entertain you easily because they are well off in terms of customers footfall, business and they are having full attention from brands so they don't want to keep new brands or products so are more rigid. Here you have to select stores having reasonable sales,  must be attentive and care about you. So here you will find Outlets under B, C and D category. Go with them and introduce your products to them.

This is the cheapest way of marketing your products in your target market because these small Mom and Pops shops have a direct connection with their customers and they can push your new products to them taking own reliability and trust.  Within 1 year you can capture 2nd line retainer market.

No doubt this process is little bit time consuming but if you don't have a deep pocket for burning money in marketing then this is the best way.

I did this in many cities and without spending a single penny on marketing I could succeed to firm roots to their brands.  Few of them are from Delhi, Hyderabad, Dubai, Singapore, UP, Rajasthan and many more. I will explain the name of those brands here but they now doing business of millions of dollars. Anyway, this is the easiest path to find the destination for your products and after one year you will find those big retailers from A and A+ categories will approach your salesmen and they will enquire about your products.

You know why because some of their customers demanded your products which they don't have. Remember retailer will not say no to their customer if one has demanded particular products. Here you have silently created demand among their vicinity so now you can step up to their counter and place your products.

One important thing to remember always gives a boost to your salespeople, your logistic team and your account team because they are the ecosystem of your distribution.

Always pay higher than your competitors, create loyalty by giving them special attention.

Especially to salespersons, give them quantifiable incentive plan, instead of giving annual appraisal make it half-yearly or quarterly. They are your brand ambassador.

In the very first day, all of your sales staff should have a proper uniform so they will feel energetic. Equipped them with the proper bag, stationery and try to make the system fully digital. Nowadays you can take a sales order on mobile so you should opt for such IT tools.

How to boost your sales team. It is a vast subject. I will write in detail on this.

Now in very first dealing with retailers you should make your payment, delivery, return policy very clear so that retailer can envisage the same in their routine and follow them. Never give credit beyond 15 days, yes in some products you have to choose this as per market practice but try to make payment term in your favour. You can give incentives to the sales team or collection team on timely collection of payment. There are many good retailers who make cash payment like COD so there you should give them extra cash discount and good treatment.

Always remember you should make a proper payment follow up and make it daily routine. Never let it open with your sales team. While setting up the market for your business you should bear enough patience and try to get a break-even after 18 months of start.

Once you attend BEP then you need to start ATL/BTL activities to create pull from the consumer end.  It is then needed. First 18 month period you need to push your products to retailers and onward you have to make your marketing efforts to pull demand from households. If you do this way then by end of 2nd year you will have 10% either GP or NP as per the profitability of your products. 


Now you are ready to expand your market.  Here you need a different strategy.  in my next blog, I will write on this.  In case you need any immediate comments or advice you can reach to me at 

First, make your self success, survive and sustainable

Sustainability is the key to our survival on this planet and will also determine success on all levels.

"Remember Retail is  Detail"

This is just a brief about business development in Retail.

You may drop an email to me at 

Bs Rana

Simranriceinc@gmail.com

Development in Indian Kirana Retail and challenge for Traditional Kiranas

Turning Point in Grocery retail after 2013 when the first time Future Group thought of opening new franchise Grocery stores in Rural or Semi-Urban Areas. Though retail is witnessing significant development in the coming days amid the entrance of big retail players.  Such events are not only happening in Kirana but also having at market places whether it is physically available or virtual.  

Still, some people are thinking to open retail chain as 7eleven has in US and Japan, Some are thinking of Zoon in UAE, and many more want to operate it the way it is being operated in the US and another developed world. But, before that, we need to go deep and understand what India is? Think about it,  you need need to visit whole India, its cities, villages or urban or rural areas,  you just explore Retail market in " Delhi", Mumbai or Kolkata" you will see the diversity.  Once, you see and analyze data from these places, you will understand how different is Indian retail and what kind of difference is there.



In Delhi, you will find Rs. 1500 per month/family in most of the Trans-Yamuna area, even in there, you will find that Laxmi Nagar and Preet Vihar area has more buying power than the nearby Nand Nagari, Baljeet Nagar, Shahdra area. Same is in Central Delhi where an average basket size is Rs. 10000/- per month for a family with a great diversity in merchandise whereas in the slum areas there is more pressure on staples.   Same is with Mumbai,  where Andhri, Kandiwali and East part of most of Area till Church Gate has a different buying habit than comparing to West side of areas. Even I have seen in new Bandra where a family has Rs. 15000 per month ration.  There is a different kind of diversity, which is really not even easy to understand and workout.  One side of Road has a high-end area and another party a slum.



How one can compare the American retail market. A consumer living in high-end cities has a routine buying habit where they mostly depend on hypermarkets nearby them.7eleven in New York has uniformity in assortment but when it moves to California, assortment change only 20% or 30%.  Same is in Japan, most of the people have the same food habits, so there is no significant diversity in product assortments but here in India situation is different.  Every state has different Language, customs, colour, creed, caste and Food habits. For Example, A south Indian when he moved to North India for Business or on his deputation or employment he always prefer to have south Indian Food in his daily routine. He will hardly eat north Indian Food because of his food habits. Same is with North Indian people when they moved to South Indian areas they are fed up with Idli Dosa, Utpam and anyhow want to have Chapatis and Dal in their plate.  I am witnessed of this, when I was in Kakinada in 1998, there was Rajasthani Hotel nearby Railway station (Samalkota) which was almost 15 KM far from my resident but on daily routine for me reaching there like going temple,  because of my food habit.



Based on various information  and their collective analysis, I made the following analytics: 

Recent Kirana data:
Organize Kirana Market: 10.60% appx 11% including 1% of the online marketplace.
Traditional Kirana Market: 89-90%
Market Size in USD billion:  USD  400-500 Billion from Main Stable and FMCG from Kirana.
Per Month	194,444
Per day	7,778

This average is high because out of USD 400 billion business approx 60% business comes from Tier one, two and Tier three cities where the average turnover of a shop is excellent. 

	Nos of Stores		Per day Sales/ Store
30% shops are in Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities	3,600,000		18,148
70% in Rural and Villages	8,400,000		3,333
Total Appx. Stores	12,000,000		7778

( Fig given above is worked out by Balwant Singh Rana based on various market data available in open source)

20% of  Stores in each City contributes  60% of Business has more than 20000 per day Sales,  Appx 6 Lakh per month.  These stores have a reasonable size where they can merchandise the right basket of products, and they can provide space to brands for more visibility.



More than 8 million shops having below 5000 per day sales which shows that still a significant portion of the consumer base is untouched by companies and this is due to low buying capacity and weak supply chain management systems. Above data is just a rough idea,  since there is no authentic data survey or agencies, so it is sometimes not reliable but based on tentative market survey conducted by various companies and sales agencies we can predict above one in this way. 

Flipkart one of the sizeable eB2C platform competing with Amazon in India has some ongoing strategies,  I am sure that it will be acquired either by Amazon or Walmart. For Walmart, I am talking based on their few instincts where they want to come closure to consumers. In India, due to FDI norms, they will have limitation directing communication with end consumers so definitely they need the proxy to work in this field.  Maybe this prediction goes wrong, but it will be happening in another world. 

Metro cash & Carry, Future Group and many more are exploring Kirana for seeking last-mile offline market place.  Since 1998  companies are trying to break the traditional Kirana ecosystem by various means but failed to do so, and now they are making them part of their supply chain system and trying to empower. Still, all are just seeing a platform for their products. Six months back Future group started their B2B segment via traditional distribution systems, however, so far they are not able to attend what they were expecting. Still, surely it will help retailers to benefit from the competition. Organize players and companies from abroad do not provide clear credit to retailers so there they have limitation but instead they are going to sack had with traditional distributors. 



Traditional distributors are doing Business in their own way and providing clear credit to retailers, and they are giving Cash or controlled credit payments to retail companies.  So this way, they are not doing different things, they are part of the traditional distribution system and promoting their products in the open market.  All big giants in retail are trying to distribute their private label products in the free market and to the consumer in large through this system. 

Opening a hypermarket in India is something has significant cost where they don't think that they will gain from such direct operations and selling private label products from their own stores has limited consumer base, they have to spread those products in the open market and then only they can see ROI from their India operation. 

Last-mile connectivity in India is essential for all such players which they can not create from their own, and it is now evident that if they need to get sustainability in India, they have to associate traditional Kirana stores with them.  

A simple calculation is there, India has 12 million Kirana Shops, selling main stables and FMCG to Indian consumers. If we go by average basket size for 12 million Kirana Shops, then it would be around Rs. 1100 per Famly per month which was Rs. 850 in 2008.  

As per various market survey growth of organized retail is expected to grow 20%  by 2030, which means 120 billion USD annual business is going to convert from traditional Kirana to modern organize retails. This way industry of 600 Billion USD is going to lose their share by 20% by 2030, resulting in a big set back to traditional Kirana shops. Traditional Kirana is going to disturb in some way or other way, but I am confident that there would be some great experients are going to happen which will help grow traditional retailers.  Why I am talking about this, because of hyperlocal need in coming days.  Day by day, consumers is facilitated through various ways, i.e. Omnichannel presence will help them to buy from any means.  

Big Organise players like Walmart, More, Future Group, Reliance and even online players like Flipkart, Amazon and Alibaba (Paytm) see opportunity at Moms and Pops shop as their last-mile connectivity.  This vertical will help them to stay directly connected with consumers for prompt delivery; also, they will save high logistics costs.  

Further,  I can predict based on my discussion with various IT experts, I am sure that soon startups may come in Supply Chain aggregation,  it will be like e-Mandi where the seller will be the merchandiser and eB2B platform will act as a marketplace.  One can imagine the Business GMV,  it would be USD 2 billion or 3 billion dollars annually, and for India like market there we need more than one thousand startups to work like this and in such volumes. Still, there would be an opportunity for newcomers.



Recently new vocabularies are used in Retail Kirana :

like: Offline Market Place,

Online Market Place,

Omni Channel,

Empowering

Rvsm

Space

Cloud technology

Basket Size

Market size

Last-mile connectivity

Hyper-Local



So developments are there but still there are many challenges for Traditional Kiranas. Nevertheless, they are not ready for change and want to run their stores in the old manner. Problems from organizing retail are in front of them, but they just pretend to close their eyes and unknowingly misleading the facts.



Now the time has come to change the mindset and adopt the changes and webs are coming here in the industry.



Please write to me on parjakalyanm@gmail.com for information. You may share with me your thoughts, and with a join brainstorming, we can come to a conclusion.  Remember, this is retail where we need to work hard and in Detail, after all, " Retail is Detail."



Writer: Balwant Singh Rana

Leadership Style - An Important Aspect

Leaders -  Leadership is both a research area and a practical skill encompassing the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "lead", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations.  (Wikipedia). 

Leaders make history. We do not need to go to see any special person who carries a special kind of trait which influences us. All are available near us.  We meet them every day, and no doubt everyone is a leader in their own capacity. You are a leader at your home, at your village, at your block or ward level, and can go up to the world level.  It can be social or political or from the corporate world. When we talk about history we have a number of leaders who influence us in a big way, they make us proud. Like we have Maharana Pratap, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Mahatama Gandhi, for us they are the pride of our nation. Why we remember them? They are the leaders who made special kinds of decisions in their life and those decisions made a big impact politically as well as socially.  Here I would not go deep about their kind of deed they did during their lifecycle but I will try to figure out the style of leaders. 

In the same way, there are various leaders in the corporate world who made some distinct decisions which made them special and impressive. Leaders from Apple Inc, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter are known to the world and they are visible everywhere but still, millions of leaders are there who brought innovation in their work, made the best use of technology, and providing solutions to a big portion of the populations in the world.  Those who identified problems at the mass level and brought solutions to make big positive disruptions in the life of millions. Here talking about especially about few leaders will be an injustice to the others. 

Do we ever think about what kind of leadership style they were adopting or inherent?  No, you never thought about this. You just see the example from your very near place. Like, take it from office, your boss who is the leader there, and to whom you are reporting your day-to-day workings.  Let me clear one thing, here I am not going to tell you how they should behave or what kind of behavior they have.  This post is about Leadership Style.  after reading this post you will better judge your boss/ leader and accordingly categorize him as per my style. 

Based on certain personal habits, traits, and attitudes I am going to define them in the following way. 

Based on my experience  and close working with various leaders in corporate, political, and social front, I can categorize them in the following way: 

1. Autocratic Style
2. Authoritative Style
3. Pacesetting Style
4. Democratic Style
5. Coaching Style
6. Affiliative Style
7. Laissez-Faire Style

above types of leadership has some distinct characteristics which categorize them in the best fit. 

Let's describe the type of leadership in my way: 

Autocratic:  This kind of leadership is distinguished based on its special characteristics because here a leader has a high level of authority, influence, and backup of featured followers who always protect them from any kind of agitations. Leaders of this type always put his efforts to implement his own thoughts without consulting with his core team, panel, or advisory board. Since such leaders always keep themself in a special aura which propels them ahead to take fast decisions. Leader of this type has a different mindset, no doubt they carry various qualities and knowledge of various fields which make them overconfident.  Such overconfidence energies them to think in their own way.  

Autocratic leadership mindset well worked in the business world because it is people-centric and a leader through his dictatorship style forcefully implement policies and policies which organisation has to follow to great extend but overexploitation of resources and misutilisations of power bring unrest and agitation which cause a downfall of leadership only in the long run so as per my aspects this is one of the good traits.  

also, this kind of leadership style is workable in proprietary business concerns where a proprietor has to take a decision for his business so to this extend his autocratic behavior is natural and leaves no marks on a third party or society or to his stakeholders. Here his behavior matters which makes him successful or failure. 

But, when a leader is a promoter, founder, and director of a corporate / company/organization then this style of leadership will only drag them down and can delay the success miserably. How it is not favorable to a corporate? A leader in a Corporate carry a bigger role like Founder, Cofounder, Promoters, Directors & CEO so whom with his autocratic behavior will influence and how long-lasting impact will remain the system?  No, you can not be an autocratic leader in your organization unless you carry strong experience, knowledge of each and every domain, department & functionality. Each department and function is headed by an individual leader which makes a hierarchy from top to down. Each level of the department is further divided into sub-department and accordingly based on its functionality there he needs to onboard skill. Despite all such well organizational flow and the system still, the leader of the company i.e. CEO/ Founder/ Director thinks that I am the super and high authority person but he has to remind all the time his staff that he is the leader. He always gives directions and expecting employees /staff to follow his instruction without seeing left or right on a straight mode. It is good when one starts a company alone so definitely for each and every department and functionality he /she has to think, brainstorm, build, analyze, and activate various things. But, when organize start growing in terms of new brains, numbers, and expanding to other markets then need capabilities either in the form of Co-founders or Key Management employees because without that one can not run the organization. Now, you are head of family /organization so there you need to balance various things. An Autocratic leader tries to build self-centric systems so that all go from him and into him. This means without his single will nothing can move.  

Here I am not much interested in his style of working but if few things are not counted or taken care then an organization will collapse without any indication. Other aspects are that no one has multi-skills or organs who can control each and every functionality of an organization. Take a break and think, why you form various departments in your organization and appoint its supervisor /managers at a higher cost? You being an owner of the organization have enough knowledge of each and every functionality so why you are going to increase your admin cost by appointing experienced and intelligent minds?  and if they are experienced and expert in their domain then why you are sitting on their seat. 

Here as a leader, you need to work on a strategic roadmap and should act as a mentor to each functional head.  Remember autocratic nature no doubt will built a successful empire in a short period and I have seen successful ventures leading by dictators but if the delegation of authorities does not happen in your organization then you are at risk. Risk is not of money, it is related to your health and prestige, and the future of the organization. 

The phrase most illustrative of an autocratic leadership style is "Do as I say." Generally, an autocratic leader believes that he or she is the smartest person at the table and knows more than others (Americanexpress.com)

Democratic / Diplomatic Leaders:

As nomenclature defines the meaning diplomatic, the leaders totally depend on their subordinates. You must have seen this kind of leadership style in State-run enterprises and some old business houses where a successful and sustainable business is done and the organization is self-sustained through current level profitability and having huge reserves. Political parties to some extend follow this kind of leadership for run long.  The leader of this trait has a total dependency on their KMPs or downlines which sometimes causing a delay in taking decisions resulting in sometimes a big backfire and miserably. This kind of style makes decision delay in most cases so not fit for private organizations.

Laissez-Faire Style

When a leader is known for teamwork, he always takes decisions and implements after due consulting with his team. This kind of cohesive working style makes spread confidence into the department heads where they feel part of the system.  We can see this kind of leadership style in new startups where each member works cohesively and each decision becomes part of brainstorming before it goes on the battleground i.e. implementation. Leaders who work directly with their Key management team gain their trust which further helps leaders to get work done within TAT.  Employees respect leaders who take them to the conference table and mutually major decisions happened on a round table with a cup of coffee or tea.

A true leader should not be autocratic purely or Democratic,  she should adopt hybrid traits of both of the characteristics and should win the confidence of their team. 

A  true and intelligent leader should know the following mentioned behavioral traits.

1. Leaders should not be impatient in terms of making decisions. 

2. Leaders should not give space to people for back bitting their colleagues. 

3. Identify people who want to polish his tongue for buttering and lift the air-filled weight. 

4. Make a team of close heart people, make a strong board team of 7-8 members. 

5. Understand ground realities when you are choosing to enter the new business segment. Never rely upon on google or its knowledge. Some leaders quickly respond to messages, email, and phone, if you doing this stop immediately. Never respond to people directly especially on social media. Create a second layer that will filter your messages. This will create your personal PR and a high class of repo among the ecosystem and people will respect you. Do not discuss your business model except stakeholders. 

6. If you start your company for business then only focus on doing this and strengthen it, but never think that you will bring change. The change will come automatically over a period of time if your vision is there. 

7. Think 10 times before jumping to a conclusion. The rapid change in the decision will make you down in front of your management team and they will create a different perception for you. 

10. Behave like a father when you are heading an organization but don't try to become a friend. A friend has more liberty than a father, where a father tries to bring discipline in the organization. 

11. Never talk negative with your team members, if you continue doing such things one day they will become completely negative and become deadwood for you. 

12. Never stop when they are trying to speak when there is a meeting or some strategic discussion is going on. If you do so, they will lose their confidence and they will never tell you the truth. 

13. I have seen that few leaders have a different kind of thought process, in that they expect a high level of execution, perfection, and likewise passion in the team member which causes unrest among them. If you are Albert Einstein but you can not expect that there will be other Albert Einstein. Do not finger their mistakes in front of other team members. If you chase them for every move they will lose their confidence. They become dependent on you, despite enrolling high professionals, you will feel that you are the only man who is running the organization. You become the most unhappy person in the world despite you hold a big position in the company. 

14. Do not overthink. Overthinking makes our subconscious mind confused. and if the subconscious mind becomes confused it will send the wrong instruction to the conscious mind which further becomes against the first thought. Do not think alone if you are working on a strategy. Talk to your relevant KMP(s) and take them to a venue where with a cup of tea or a glass of bear things will become more friendly. The best equipment for a perfect strategy is brainstorming. 

15. As a leader you must build a strong review mechanism but remember it should not hamper working hours spending hours in the meeting room. Plan review as per department wise and as per the priority. 

• A great leader is healthy and wised who carries with him Integrity, Ability to delegate, Communication, Self-awareness, Gratitude, Learning agility, Influence, Empathy.

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Writer:  Balwant Singh Rana,  

a self-made man and a leader in grocery retail.