Amit’s e-world

Now that Term 1 is over, I thought of taking stock to find out whether one quarter of the MBA has made some difference to the way I think about events & developments happening around me. An article on Business Today (India) - Retails coming face-off caught my eye. This was an article about how the future could look like with Sunil Mittal combining with Walmart and Mukesh Ambani launching Reliance retail.

Had I read this article a few months back, I must admit I would probably have breezed through the article and would only have remembered the key facts about this as it seemed like a good-to-talk-about article. However, with my mind full (or rather not full to the brim) of economics, marketing, decision sciences, organisational behaviour, operations management, project management and accounting, I actually read it quite carefully and with a lot of interest.

My first assessment is that retail in India is a massive untapped opportunity (surprisingly untapped… because almost every FII believes in the ‘consumption’ story around India and yet, there are no real organised players in this sector). Almost every player in this sector could earn super-normal profits (an economic concept) until the market saturates, which could lead to consolidation (bigger players walloping up the Big Bazaars, Foodworlds, etc.). The first mover advantage in this sector will be at a substantial advantage as it would not only earn super-normal profits but would also develop & strengthen relationships with their downstream clients as well as upstream suppliers. I would not be surprised if both Bharti and Reliance went into a frenzy and tried to be the first ones. It is also mentioned in the article that Mukesh Ambani might be the lead runner because of his superlative project management skills. There is also mention that Mukesh Ambani is No. 1 is almost every sector he operates in (a tribute to project management). The key to be successful in this sector in India is to understand the price sensitivity of the typical Indian consumer and therefore play the high-volume low-price game. Further, the concept of segmenting the stores into three types: super-markets, hyper-markets and neighbourhood stores indicate the presence of two P’s of marketing (price and place) in the strategy. Further, if Bharti chose Walmart as its partner rejecting Carrefour and Tesco, was the decision just a valuation based one (an accounting concept) , or was it based on the values of the two companies (an organisational behaviour concept) or was it based (as stated) on supply-chain expertise with Walmart. What’s in it for Walmart to merge with Bharti if the regulator (Indian Govt) does not guarantee that Walmart will be able to increase its stake in retail in India even in the long-term?

It was quite interesting to relate the article to the MBA learning so far, and quite self-assuring that know that I could read it differently.

The last three weeks have been pretty hectic. We had a quite a lot of reports to submit, marketing & operations presentations and now exam preps. It partly explains my lack of activity on the blog. Exams are on Monday and Tuesday - a short and swift end to a gruelling Term1. There were a lot of apprehensions a few weeks before, about our preparedness (rather the lack of it) for the exams. But all that’s calmed down after the much helpful review sessions. This weekend is going to be very busy. Ironically, of all the days, I chose the closest weekend to the exams to update my blog. But, I really found the need to take a break.

As an aside, our Yearbook CVs are now out in hard-copy format. Some of my colleagues have started to receive expression of interest from certain recruiters, which is very positive.

A sea of change awaits us after the exams.We are going to change learning teams and streams in the next term. Of course, the subjects and instructors would change as well. MBAs are supposed to embrace change with big heart. But, MBAs are humans too.