Blooms Better Than Booms

			Subscribe by Email \| Twitter \| Contact \| Sitemap

Home	Services	Events	Articles	Blog	Partners

What we’re discussing

Advertising Apparel brand brand building Branding China clothing COLUMN-Progressive Grocer Consumer consumer goods consumerism consumer markets consumer products consumer research consumer segments Corporate Social Responsibility customer care customer service Entrepreneurship fashion FMCG food Food & Grocery food and grocery garments global grocery growing brands India Indian retail sector Leadership Marketing market segments modern retail modern retailing organised retail organized retail Retail retail boom Strategy Supply Chain Textiles UK USA Wal-Mart

January 23rd, 2008 by Devangshu Dutta

The recent stock market mayhem brings to mind another ‘boom’ – the much-hyped retail boom.

Booms and busts are complimentary, and always follow each other (if history is a teacher which we would care to listen to).

We are already seeing the signs of what people might call a slow-down in the Indian retail market. (Those people would have built their business plans, made investments and planned expenditure based on 50-500% annual growth, and would see a 15-25% growth as a slowdown.)

But for the most part, retail is an organic business, and a 15-25% annual growth is far healthier for most companies. It allows for infrastructure and processes to grow in a planned way. It gives the companies time to mature their processes and their organizations, and build businesses that are more sustainable. It allows the development of brands that are more lasting.

Growing retail businesses over time also allows them to develop the ecosystem around them organically – in my opinion absolutely vital for a healthy economic and social environment. (See The Consumption Game
and Myth and Reality of the Retail Revolution.)

But such an opinion may be a minority voice amongst crowds who are cheering the loud booms of explosive growth.