| A department store is a large retail outlet offering a variety of merchandise and services in organised separate departments; there are currently 100 organised chain department stores in India. |
| Across all consumers, clothes/garments are on top of the hierarchy of frequently shopped products "" this is the one category where purchases happen on impulse. |
| Consumers prefer department stores for casual and formal clothes, while exclusive outlets are preferred for occasional dressing. |
| Indian consumers are currently spoilt for choice "" they are brand conscious, but not brand loyal. |
| Currently, consumers don't need a reason to shop; close to 60 per cent of purchases are non-occasion led. |
| A large number of stores are in the consumer awareness set and visit set. However, only about two stores form the preference set. |
| Consumers largely use their own transport and travel nearly seven km to visit a department store. |
| Home products are purchased when the need arises, and consumers prefer to buy them from exclusive outlets. |
| NUGGETS Selections from management journals |
| The main goal of any international strategy should be to manage the large differences that arise at the borders of markets. Yet executives often fail to exploit market and production discrepancies, focusing instead on the tensions between standardisation and localisation. |
| In this article, Pankaj Ghemawat presents a new framework that encompasses all three effective responses to the challenges of globalisation. He calls it the AAA Triangle. The As stand for the three distinct types of international strategy. Through Adaptation, companies seek to boost revenues and market share by maximising their local relevance. |
| Through Aggregation, they attempt to deliver economies of scale by creating regional, or sometimes global, operations. And through Arbitrage, they exploit disparities between national or regional markets, often by locating different parts of the supply chain in different places "" for instance, call centres in India, factories in China, and retail shops in Western Europe. |
| Ghemawat draws on several examples that illustrate how organisations use and balance these strategies and describes the trade-offs they make as they do so. Because most enterprises should draw from all three As to some extent, the framework can be used to develop a summary scorecard indicating how well the company is globalising. |
| However, given the tensions among the strategies, it's not enough simply to tick off the corresponding boxes. Strategic choice requires some degree of prioritisation "" and the framework can help with that as well. |
| While it is possible to make progress on all three strategies, companies usually must focus on one or two when trying to build competitive advantage. |
| Managing differences: the central challenge of global strategy Pankaj Ghemawat Harvard Business Review, March 2007 Subscribe to this article at www.hbr.com |
| In an interview on innovation, Bill Campbell, the chairman of software maker Intuit and a high-level counsellor to Silicon Valley icons including Apple and Google, discusses how companies such as Google strive to invent new products and services, while others, like Apple, focus on perfecting technology to create a seamless end-to-end consumer experience. |
| Innovative organisations, Campbell believes, start with engineers who have the clout to lead the product-development process. He outlines ways for managers to organise a culture of innovation and motivate teams to advance it. Campbell also discusses managerial approaches to marketing, setting priorities for innovation, and balancing the need for investment in innovation with the financial markets' demand for strong quarterly financial results. |
| Coaching innovation: an interview with Intuit's Bill Campbell The McKinsey Quarterly, February 22, 2007 Subscribe to this article at www.mckinseyquarterly.com |
| BOOKWORM Top 10 business bestsellers |
| The Creation of Wealth: The Tatas from the 19th to the 21st Century Author: R M Lala Publisher: Penguin Books India Price: Rs 230.10 ISBN: 143062247 |
| Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big Author: Bo Burlingham Publisher: Penguin Books India Price: Rs 308.10 ISBN: 014306228X |
| The Starfish and the Spider Authors: Ori Brafman and Rod A Beckstrom Publisher: Penguin Books India Price: Rs 296.25 ISBN: 312325703 |
| Short Term Trading in the New Stock Market Author: Toni Turner Publisher: St Martins Price: Rs 512.30 ISBN: 143101358 |
| The Emerging Markets Century Author: Antoine van Agtmael Publisher: Simon & Schuster Price: Rs 731.64 ISBN: 1847370306 |
| Then We Set His Hair on Fire Author: Phil Dusenberry Publisher: Penguin Books India Price: Rs 230.10 ISBN: 0143101412 |
| Planet India: How the Fastest Growing Democracy Is Transforming America and the World Author: Mira Kamdar Publisher: Simon & Schuster Price: Rs 308 ISBN: 1416551093 |
| Overachievement: The New Model for Exceptional Performance Author: John Eliot Publisher: Penguin Books India Price: Rs 425.10 ISBN: 670058572 |
| The Backroom Brigade: How a Few Intrepid Entrepreneurs Brought the World to India Author: Seetha Publisher: Penguin Books India Price: Rs 292.50 ISBN: 670999040 |
| The Running of the Bulls: Inside the Cutthroat Race from Wharton to Wall Street Author: Nichole Ridgeway Publisher: Penguin Price: Rs 195.00 ISBN: 143101404 List by www.bsbazaar.com/booksworm |
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