16-09-2014, 11:32 AM
Global Retail Industry
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Global Retail Industry
Retail has played a major role world over in increasing productivity across a wide range of
consumer goods and services .The impact can be best seen in countries like U.S.A., U.K.,
Mexico, Thailand and more recently China. Economies of countries like Singapore,
Malaysia, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Dubai are also heavily assisted by the retail sector.
Retail is the second-largest industry in the United States both in number of establishments
and number of employees. It is also one of the largest world wide. The retail industry
employs more than 22 million Americans and generates more than $3 trillion in retail sale
annually. Retailing is a U.S. $7 trillion sector.
Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer. Already the world’s largest employer with over
1million associates, Wal-Mart displaced oil giant Exxon Mobil as the world’s largest
company when it posted $219 billion in sales for fiscal 2001. Wal-Mart has become the
most successful retail brand in the world due its ability to leverage size, market clout, and
efficiency to create market dominance. Wal-Mart heads Fortune magazine list of top 500
companies in the world. Forbes Annual List of Billionaires has the largest number (45/497)
from the retail business.
Retail Education in the East
The retail sector, which is poised for robust future growth, needs more and more
professionally qualified personnel, with specialized knowledge in retailing. It is thus
necessary to have more and more business schools in the country, which offer specialized
courses in retailing.
The need for providing quality retail management education has been recognized by the
ICFAI Business School in Kolkata, which offers a comprehensive retail management
programme that enables the students to critically analyze the retailing process, the
environment within which it operates, and the institutions and functions that are performed.
The course aims to make students aware of the differences between retail marketing
strategy and financial strategy, and provides knowledge of merchandise management. The
programme inculcates analytical skills useful for retail decision-making, and provides a
foundation for those students who plan to make career in the field of retailing or related
disciplines. The course covers critical topics like understanding the retail customer, and
institutions; retail marketing strategies; retail organization & management; pricing
strategies; retail selling; logistics & information systems, etc.
Conclusion
In India the retail sector is the second largest employer after agriculture, although it is
highly fragmented and predominantly consists of small independent, owner – managed
shops .There are over 12 million retail outlets in India , and organised retail trade is worth
about Rs.12,90,000 crore (September,2003). The country is witnessing a period of boom in
retail trade, mainly on account of a gradual increase in the disposable incomes of the
middle and upper-middle class households. More and more corporate houses including
large real estate companies are coming into the retail business, directly or indirectly, in the
form of mall and shopping center builders and managers. New formats like super markets
and large discount and department stores have started influencing the traditional looks of
bookstores, furnishing stores and chemist shops. The retail revolution, apart from bringing
in sweeping, positive changes in the quality of life in the metros and bigger towns, is also
bringing in slow changes in lifestyle in the smaller towns of India. Increase in literacy,
exposure to media, greater availability and penetration of a variety of consumer goods into
the interiors of the country, have all resulted in narrowing down the spending differences
between the consumers of larger metros and those of smaller towns.
However, the supply of quality real estate space would be instrumental in propelling the
future growth momentum of the retail sector in India. The addition of better and affordable
retail space would enable retailers to deliver more better-quality products and services to
the consumers, resulting in increase in operational efficiencies and decline in costs for the
supply chain. India is one of the complex real estate markets in the world due to the large
degree of variation and inconsistence in the market practice and regulatory norms. A
combined effort by both central and state governments in terms of appropriate zoning laws,
transparency in ownership, and availability of loans for retail land, is very much necessary
for reducing existing bottlenecks.
Accordance of ‘industry status’ to retail in India is an issue that needs to be addressed
soon. Recognition would ease financing prospects, as well as standardize and unify taxes
for the industry. An alignment of the retail sector with the tourism sector could also promote
India as a global shopping hub.
For the retail sector to achieve further growth, the spread of organised retailing has to
become a national phenomenon. According to KSA Technopak, a leading consulting firm,
the organised sector will grow to almost Rs.30, 000 crores by 2005, representing 6% of the
total retail market. The top 6 cities will account for 66% of total organised retailing. Although
many international retailers and brands still regard India as too difficult, they would
welcome the opportunity to create an appropriate joint venture, if they felt India was
changing. The growth of the organised retail industry in the country will mean thousands of
new jobs, increasing income levels and living standards, better products, and services, a
better shopping experience, and more social activities.