a)     Summit mainly focused on understanding of the key factors important for the retail  industry to keep fundamentally improving its business model and driving innovation in its systems and processes to ensure profitable growth, which in turn would support the National Agenda for inclusive growth

b)    The Summit had close to 250 participants from the industry who felt that summit had served as a platform towards providing the latest information and knowhow on the Retail Sector.

c)     “We are not conservative anymore”- Bharti Wal-Mart enters fifth years of operation , is looking at expansion according to Mr Raj Jain, MD and CEO , Bharti Wal-Mart (Hindustan Times , 3-February-2011 Edition)

d)    “Rural Market Share to rise in HUL top line”-  (Times News Network, 3-February-2011 Edition)

e)     Summit provided a unique opportunity to learn from an exclusive mix of leading experts from the country’s best known brands, retailers and consumer marketers and as also to network and engage to redefine India’s new retail order.

f)       The Summit had a number of leading Indian and International leaders participating as speakers, making their presence felt and sharing their valuable insights and experiences with the audience on various facets of the Indian Retail Sector. 

National Retail Summit was organised under the theme “Modern Retail: Driving Inclusive and Profitable Growth” under the Chairmanship of Mr. Thomas Varghese, CII National Committee on Retail & Chief Executive Officer Aditya Birla Retail Ltd and a Special Session for FMCG on the theme” The Next Frontier: Serving the New Consumer” was organised under the Chairmanship of Mr. Chittaranjan, CII FMCG Committee & Chief Executive – Food Division, ITC Ltd in Mumbai, Maharashtra on 2 February, 2011.

The Summit brought together leading authorities from industry to understand the key factors important for the industry to keep fundamentally improving its business model and driving innovation in its systems and processes to ensure profitable growth, which in turn would support the National Agenda for inclusive growth. The summit served as a platform for ideas and allowed leaders and practitioners in the sector to learn from each other as well as from the best in the world.

If India has to prosper, only organized retail can fulfill consumer needs and provide employment to a vast majority of the nation,” said Mr. Kishore Biyani,   CEO, Future Group. “The actual challenge is to become profitable,” he added.

He outlined a few key points to profit. “Size and scale become important for the retailer to become profitable. To do business they have to create a blend of the kind of goods that they sell and the achievable margins and whether one can achieve a blend of the same. We are rediscovering and rebuilding a supply chain. Worldwide the supply chain cost is 1 to 2% of total sales whereas here we are still at 2.5 to 3%. In terms of advertising our spend is close to 3%, to be profitable we have to bring it down by half,” said Mr. Biyani.

The profile of the consumer today has changed drastically. Making sense of the new Indian consumer Mr. Nitin Paranjpe, CEO and MD Hindustan Unilever, said, “To succeed in India, you have to succeed in Bharat,” referring to the different urban and rural consumer profile.

Giving example from personal experience of the FMCG sector, he said, “We need to open our minds. It is a flawed convention that if you reduce cost, you reduce quality. You can do both.”

“The Indian market is growing at a phenomenal pace. The task for us in the FMCG industry is to hasten the rate of development of the market. The need is to recognize changing societal trends, wants and values,” he added.

A white paper “Building a New India: The Role of Organized Retail in Driving Inclusive Growth” was released at CII’s ‘National Retail and FMCG Summit 2011’. 

Mr. Abheek Singhi,  Partner & Director, The Boston Consulting Group, outlined the potential of retail in India. “The current size of organized retail is US$28 billion. It has the potential to grow to US$260bn by 2020. However, it is more likely to reach a range of US$170bn.”

“To reach this ‘true potential’ we’d need 200 to 300 million square feet of retail space. That will be a key challenge,” said Mr. Biyani.

Organized retail has been part mirage and part reality. To make it real the industry and the government have to work jointly on four key issues: finding and retaining talent, developing and leveraging the right know-how, driving scale and investment in back-end using collaborative platforms and decreasing bureaucracy and legal hurdles in every step of the chain.

Driving the need for inclusion, Mr. B S Nagesh, Vice Chairman, Shoppers Stop Ltd., said, “Retail will be the biggest employer, hence retail will provide maximum business opportunities and therefore it will be able to drive inclusive growth. But do people want to join the retail business out of volition? Most of them join due to economic compulsion and personal limitations.”

“The government is of the opinion that FDI will kill traditional retail. But what we need to ask the government is what they are doing and whether they have a policy to help traditional retail. Can you help them become more modern?” Mr. Nagesh asked. 

Mr. Patrick Ducasse, Global Consumer and Retail Leader, The Boston Consulting Group, outlined the key drivers to understand the new consumer: from conspicuous to conscious consumption, listening to women, intersecting people’s digital pathway and population shifts to emerging cities.

A special session on FMCG with the theme “The Next Frontier: serving the new consumer” was also a part of Retail Summit with the objective  to help FMCG players understand the consumer and arm them with ideas that can enable them to compete in the disruptive environment that is likely to unfold.

The Summit had plenary sessions covering:

a)     Importance of Inclusion and the Role of Organized Retail.

b)    FDI in Retail: A Key Enabler for Retail to reach its full Potential.

c)     Driving Traffic, Conversion and Basket through Merchandising and Pricing.

d)    Achieving Profitability through Best Sourcing.

e)     CEOs Power Session – Retail and FMCG.

The well attended summit attracted national and international speakers of repute. Some of the eminent speakers were from Aditya Birla Retail Ltd, The Boston Consulting Group, Future Group, Lawson & Co, Japan, ITC Foods, Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, and Reliance Retail among many others.

Future Group, Hindustan Unilever Limited, ITC, Oracle and P&G were the sponsors of the summit.