Bharti Retail, the retail venture of Bharti Enterprises, is getting ready to make debut of its front-end retail operations, from Ludhiana– the home town of its promoter Sunil Mittal, in March, 2008. The first store interestingly will be a small format store. Though, Wal-Mart, with whom Bharti has alliance has for its retail vertical, has no stake in front-end operations, has no great expertise in small format stores.
Most retail chains including Ambanis, Birlas, Goenkas have talked a lot about big box strategy, bulk of their rollouts so far have been in small format stores. Even, Biyanis who championed the cause of big formats with ‘Big Bazaars’ have also begun foraying into small formats like Fair Price shops.
The ‘cash and carry’ business of Bharti-Wal-Mart alliance, in which both the partners have equal stake, is likely to begin operations from the third quarter of 2008, says a PTI report. Wal-Mart has major stake in cash and carry business in the US, where this format known as ‘Sams Club’ forms an important part of its overall business.
“We will open our first store in March next year up North which will be a small format store. Other formats will also be opened to take care of consumers’ demand in other areas,” said Rajan Bharti Mittal, Managing Director, Bharti Enterprises. He was speaking on the sidelines of a FICCI conference.
Mittal refused to divulge the brand name for the retail venture, though the same has been finalised, saying “You name a kid when the kid is born.”
Mittals have begun hiring professionals including a foreigner to manage different formats of the trade and expect to employ around 16,000 people by 2012.
On the front-end, Bharati Enterprises plans to open stores across three formats — small format convenience stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets.
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1 response so far ↓
Professor Rohit Prashar // Dec 15, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Dear Friends,
It’s indeed a big landmark and achievement on the context that India has finally started to roll down on the tracks of “Organized Sector”, through the wheels of “Retail”.
As there is an excerpt that “Organized retail” shall NOT be a threat for Kiranawalas/ mom & pop stores. But i think that the threat “Wave” is already on by the emergence of BIG Bazaar and Subhiksha stores.
A House wife can easily understand the philosophy and the motive of these big formats as it says - Isse sassta aur achha khaha? and bhachat mera adhikar, shubiksha mera abhimaan.
Well if you see, Subhiksha, stores are located near the residential societies or small localities in Delhi. So when a house wife is planning to buy her monthly budgeted items she will always prefer to go to these outlets of Big Bazaar & Subhiksha as she knows that she will get better offers & promotional prices.
The idea of these formats and stores is to change the mind set of people - with one important convenience thought that a customer can save time & also have the opportunity to shop for couple of items in one store, as today’s life is so hectic that you don’t even get time to rest, relax & recover energy to move with same tempo & temperament the next day at work.
I feel that its a slow poison which is going to steadily kill the mom & pop concept, as in India while the earnings consume our entire day, savings get built up after our retirement. So a house wife tries to save and keep adding to her savings month after months in order to pay for lifestyle, luxury & comforts, which probably are not enjoyed by them but are passed on the next generations to come.
I wish to know and ask the forum that “Do we actually Need companies like Wal-Mart” in India, or it’s just that the company wants to add another feather in its cap on the road to Internationalization. These types of companies are more successful on the basis of Trading In bulk.. but if the bulk buying is promoted then I also feel that - one day we shall see more Americanized products rather than Indian products.
More over if you also see the trading with SAARC countries.. India does NOT enjoy good trading practices in bulk with its neighboring countries. So where is all the purchase of “Cash & Carry” Going to go and get consumed?
I think that all those companies of the similar size & type of Wal-Mart are not interested to help & improve Indian distribution & logistics system, but are more interested in launching, promoting & displaying their international product range.
I suggest that these types of big box-retailers should be outside the city limits so that they shall not disturb the earnings of a common man working in mandi’s & earning their daily livelihood.
If we also see the regional food habits and buying patters of a middle class family in south India, I feel that even today they prefer to have rice with Curd. Now I wish to know how many varieties of curd/yogurt a middle class family will like to have. The idea is to actually understand that is there a need to have so many varieties? and what shall be the % of people actually willing to buy these varieties.
I fully agree that modernization and growth to prosperity is very much needed in India, but let’s not forget the pace & the time it takes to change the food habits, buying patterns, lifestyle etc. in conjunction to the rich heritage & culture prevailing in India.
Also another issue which comes to be of big concern is that what will be the fate of our Indian companies in FMCG trade which have been serving our communities since ages?
Professor Rohit Prashar
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