Innovation in Retail

One may wonder what is the common link between Sears,WalMart,7 Eleven,JCPenney and Woolworth except for  retailing.What makes them globally acceptable and hugely successful ventures?

The answer lies in their determination to innovate constantly,revolutionize the retailing industry and bring about drastic changes in consumer behavior, reinventing and reinstating the rules of the gamble called Retailing. Significant and rapid demographic, economic, social and technological shifts are creating a fertile environment for new ideas to better serve customers, steal market share and re-invent entire industries.

We have learnt in our books that products and businesses have a life cycle(consisting of introduction,growth,maturity and decline phases) and the gamble is to keep the product equally enchanting to the customer even after years of use and to prevent prototypes of the same snatching away market share in the later stages of life. For retailers in the maturity phase of their life cycle, innovation is the most important tool for growth rather than organic expansion in the years ahead.

Today’s fast changing consumer behavior,largely due to various new products forcing them to do so, bring about huge opportunities to innovate. In fact one is dependant on the other.

•   Opportunities of innovation can be realized in changing consumer preferences created by demographic, social and economic changes in lifestyle.Catching the wave of opportunity at the right time can give huge impetus to a retail.
•   Customer focussed approach leads to value add to a customer shopping experience. Hence adding extra services and information to the already existing product creates competitive differentiation.
•   With too many products in the retail,customers today are spoilt for choice and assistance to help them choose the right product to suit their needs can be nothing better that adding value symbiotically. Allowing shoppers to sample the merchandise before buying, utilizing on-demand information kiosks, partnering with celebrities to provide a seal of approval and creating online communities provide consumers the help they need.
•   Consumers want it fast; they want it now; and, they want it first. The need for speed in the shopping process will continue to drive changes in store concepts, design, location, merchandising, transaction processing and payment. This provides a unique opportunity to innovate.
•   Social networking is the say today.Making products easily available to the customer,providing them information abundantly in various social platforms fosters common interest amongst buyers.discussion forums and blogs can help as a merchandising platforms.
•   Mass customization and personalization not only bring consumers close to retailers but also help build brand loyalty.

In the past few decades, most retail innovations focused primarily on efficiency in response to mass market opportunities. While ongoing innovations in technology and operating strategies will continue to improve efficiency retail innovations have become more customer-centric and will continue to do so.The day is not far when individual attention will be given to customers for the sole reason that customers are the life blood of Retails.After all customer is the king. 


-Indira Nanda
  LIBA-PGDM

An Insight Into The Past And A Runway Into Future!

The past has seen Insight grow in a steady state and we have reached here this year, accounting for the previous years' performance. You might ask me why...

Well, it is always a custom for us to outperform the previous performances. Ours or others. That is how we are trained. The corporate life that awaits us outside, is far more fierce. It is an experience. It is how we tune ourselves for the world outside.
A huge amount of work goes in every year to make this work. Every one pitches in and feels equally responsible for it. So, the results.

It all started in 2006. Our "very" super seniors worked on the theme Insight into the Changing BusinessScape - Retail, Banking and Human Resources. The sectors that were emerging and had immense scope, was looked into, analysed and probed further into.
And then we specifically dealt with HR the next year, HR in a Transformational Era. It focused on the ambit of Human Resources and why or how it is gonna be a focus for all the organizations in future [then!].

Insight 2008 was about Management in Challenging Times. Owing to the recession as all of us know. But how to deal with it, how to cope with the challenges it provided as a whole to the economy, was certainly the talk of the time.
And we come to 2009, when the recession has left a deep impact on everyone's life. It was when people know that only new business models could help revive the dead cells. Hence"Riding the new wave: Emergence of new Business Models" was what we pondered on, that year. Incidentally, there were six tracks that saw maximum outburst because of the recession. And we dealt with all of them.

This year, the bigger and better Insight, into another topic, relevant, for like three decades from now, is what we are looking into. "NH 2050 to the TOP:Runway Powered by Innovation"
We know India is an emerging market, with all the abundance of human resources, natural resources, technology, we are geared up to become the SuperPower in near future. I say, 2050. Or more closer than that, if we accelerate performance. And Innovation does play a huge role in making leaders. Always. If you cant innovate, you stagnate.

We are driving, fast and furious to 2050, for the Innovation powered nation. And lets all get together and review the possibilities and probabilities.

World, here we come!

Jai Hind!

Jyotsna Edakalathur [Durga Nandan]
LIBA F 10 Batch

Indian IT Industry and Innovation

Indian software industry is a thumping example of the modern day Information Technology revolution and is considered an example par excellence of a technology-intensive industry establishing itself in a developing country. The industry has come a long way from being a project based services model in its early days to an Intellectual Property (IP) intensive model prevalent today.

IT industry thrives on innovation in order to stay ahead in a highly competitive environment. The innovation can either be ‘new to the world’ innovation or ‘new to the market’ innovation. India has traditionally been good at ‘new to the market’ innovations wherein global technologies were customized for the local markets, while there is much to do in terms of ‘new to the world’ innovations. This is just a reflection of the kind of research being conducted in India. The technologies developed are typically not breakthroughs but are rather first implementations by transforming and reapplying known techniques to the software product under design.

Not many firms venture into product market because of the distance from the final market and lack of sufficient resources or expertise at the outset. While the service companies have resources, they are risk averse because of the nice returns service industry offers. Building a successful product brand takes an enormous amount of investment in sales, marketing and patience. While it may take a while for product brands to appear and succeed in India, a large number of globally successful products are being created in India.

To effectively capture the growth opportunities, Indian companies should focus on different kinds of innovation like business model innovation, organizational innovation, operational innovation, product innovation and service innovation.

Contrary to popular perception that the IT industry does not innovate, the offshore outsourcing model pioneered by the Indian IT firms was perhaps the most disruptive innovation in the global IT services industry. The Indian IT firms have continued to innovate and over the last decade extended the offshore outsourcing model into new services like BPO, Engineering Services, and Outsourced R&D etc. There is already an increasing trend of entrepreneurs focusing on deep technology innovations instead of mere services or commodity technologies. As the innovation intensity of the industry increases and IP becomes a key force, the propensity of the entrepreneurs to take more risks over a longer time horizon will increase leading to more 'new-to-the-world' innovations from India.

The global environment is highly uncertain today owing to many political and economic factors. Countries like the US - which has been and continues the most important market for Indian IT firms - are adopting protectionist measures to save their domestic companies. The recent VISA fee hike and ban by Ohio State on outsourcing by government departments are just a few examples. In this kind of a situation, as Mr. Narayana Murthy advocates, “Indian IT companies must continually innovate in order to be indispensable for overseas clients”.

-Pavan Kanakagiri

 LIBA F-10 Batch

THE speakers!

Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam, Former President of India

Mr. Vaideesh, MD, Johnson & Johnson

Mr. Hasit Joshipura, MD, Glaxo SmithKline*

Dr. Pratap Reddy, Founder and Executive Chairman, Apollo Hospitals*

Mr. Jerry Rao Founder MphasiS, Chairman, VBHC

Mr. Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations*

Mr. Kiran Karnik, Former President, NASSCOM*

Mr. Sandip Tarkas, President, Customer Strategy, Future Group

Mr. Satya Prabhakar, CEO, Sulekha.com

Mr. M.S. Sundararajan, Ex Chairman and Managing Director of Indian Bank

* Awaiting confirmation

And the list is getting longer as it is typed..

Bigger, Better!

"Insight is bigger than ever before"
This is not a mere cliche used by everyone, year after year. This time, it is indeed BIG! The fifth edition of LIBA's flagship management symposium has many specialties.

First of all, the theme of the even this year is enormous in scope.
"NH 2050, To The Top- Runway powered by innovation"
We are not just looking at a year or two into the future, we are looking at a much bigger picture. India in 2050 will truly be a global leader powered by robust growth in every sector inspired by innovation. Experts will predict and prescribe the role of sectors like BFSI, manufacturing, IT, retail and FMCG. I cant wait to listen to insightful thoughts on this grand objective.
Secondly, we are moving to bigger venue! This time, we have the Chennai Trade Center to host the show! The thought of speaking in this colossal hall can send 'shivers up the speakers' spines'...
Every nook of LIBA is excited by the mere thought of this event getting nearer and nearer.

And finally, The speakers.. This year's event will host the eminent personalities like Mr. Sam Pitroda [Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations ], Mr. Kiran Karthik [ Former President, NASSCOM ] and Mr. Pratap Reddy [ Apollo Hospitals ].
And this year's keynote speaker is.... Any guesses? The one and only Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam, Our beloved "People's President" [former], the missile man, will grace the event  with his inspiring words.

Everyone around is eagerly waiting for the Dday! My biggest takeaway of Insight 2010, would be the chance of seeing him and listening to him.
I would not miss this huge event for the whole world... I am sure you will not too!

-Pavan Kumar Kanakagiri
  LIBA F-10 Batch