Thinking Big and Bold - case of #Jio

This news caught my eye today in newspaper. And one thing resonated - '#Bold'. Whether the entire telecom industry is reeling under severe pressures post launch of Jio, its the boldness of Jio's DNA that has disrupted the industry.

And now, the 4G feature phone market globally is led by #JioPhone. And, Jio network is the #fastest-growing-network in the world. Yes, obviously there are questions on sustainablilty but i think this bold approach leads to multiple initiatives tying into a big force and consumer notices and supports you. I myself was sceptical about seriousness of Jio when they were rolling out free 4G data, but now there are lots of people around me using jio, not just discount mongers.

And it is like that for Ambanis for long, be it the CDMA phone ("kar lo duniya mutthi mein")they launched earlier or when Reliance entered retail or world's larget refinery in jamnagar and so on. The amazing ability to think #BIG and #BOLD, irrespective of industry or competition.

And not just ambanis, this is the DNA that runs thru driven people like that of #bezos of Amazon, #Musk of Tesla, #Branson of Virgin. Thinking Big and Bold is a common trait.

#leadership #bold #jio #jiophone #thinking-big

Book Review #3 in 2018 - The Tao of Coaching by Max Landsberg

Tao of Coaching is an easy read on a subject which is complex and deals with coaching of employees to improve thier performance. It deals with practices and frameworks to consistently improve things with consistent coaching, feedback and appraisals.

Now these statements and words ring a bell about poor practices, partiality, office politics and so on. However, thats where the book scores, as it deals with such subject with a simple story of a guy called Alex. The book discusses his journey from a new entrant in a company dealing with an ice-cream project to becoming one of the key executives in the company. Deftly written by ex-Mckinsey and a Stanford MBA, Max.

It diminishes lots of myths and notions about coaching thru easy chapters and one of my biggest learning is that feedback/coaching others does improve others lives but also improves yours. And that is the reason why of coaching - Give and Take. Why because developing your team members in turn gets you spend more time on yourself and developing your skill set while you delegate work!

Here are few gems from the book -

1. #Coaching by asking is more effective than coaching by telling. Ask questions to coachee to help him come up with his own solutions rather than handing him doctor's prescription by telling what to do.

2. When u ask for #feedback, give proper time, notice and make it easier for somebody to do you a favour. Coaches who dont take feedback loose out on self-correcting mechanism to further improve themselves.

3. Some myths - we coach to primarily help others. We focus on coachee while coaching. Coaching means feedback. It takes lot of time.  And its about work. Thats all incorrect!

4. Feedback is one of the coaching techniques where one should use AID format - Actions under focus to be discussed, Impact of these actions and Desired Outcome (how to do it better).

5. As some of u must have known, difference between a bad feedback and good one is that good feedback focuses on improvement areas vs blame, skills vs person and leaves person helped vs judged.

6. A coaching session can be structured well as #GROW - Goal, Reality, Options and Wrap up.  Ask  coachee what goals he has, to achieve better outcomes. Then ask about reality, what he has tried till now and his challenges. Discuss with him his options on countering and the best one to move on with. And wrap up with next steps and next review time.

7. Before coaching or managing a subordinate, one should apply #skill/#will matrix to decide on what kind of coaching technique to be applied. Its a 2 by 2 matrix across skill and will. High skill and low will means u need to excite the guy, low skill and high will means u need to guide him, low skill and low means u need to direct him while high skill and high will is what u need to arrive at so that u can delegate and get things done. This one is useful as ur team members will fit in different quadrants for u to apply different ways.

8. Assess motivation levels of ur coachees. At times the kind of motivation/demotivation loop they are in, can help u decide the course of action. 

9. For any goal to be achieved. Here is the recipie - 1. Write down the goal. Publicise it. Discuss it. Share with more people. 2. Apply #Waypower (power to figure out ways towards ur goal) 3. Apply #willpower (action to chosen path).

10. And the last one is - Goal are many types and one should focus on process goals rather than performance goals or Outcome goals. #Process goals (hit a harder serve), #Performance goals (hit more aces) and #Outcome goals (Win wimbledon). 

Great coaches focus on #process goals and practice it multiple times. Performance goals and outcome goals are way too less frequent to practise (winning a wimbledon).

A must read for anybody dealing with people - employees, colleagues, kids..

Do share ur comments if u like my chosen gems...or if this review makes you think about reading the book.

This is my 3rd book of 2018. Resolution is to finish 12 this yr.

Nitin 

Online meets Offline in world's hottest market - India

We are witnessing what is offline and online convergence in India. #Online players are forging partnerships with #offline and vice versa.

News of #Amazon soon picking up stake in #Future-retail gets the #Bezos led company a foothold in indian grocery and mass fashion (#BigBazaar, #Hypercity & #FBB). It has already tied up earlier with mid premium fashion retailer #Shoppersstop. It already runs numerous programs like "i have space" to convert huge number of offline grocers to work as delivery points of pick n drop facility to consumers.

On the other hand #Walmart a global offline leader bought #Flipkart to capture indian online space. It already has its cash and carry offline format which can lead to partnerships with lot of offline small businesses. It will further forge more partnerships in India.

While a player like Future group in itself, sensing Walmart' entry via flipkart; has intensified its '#Everyday-low-price' campaign. Its a proposition which Walmart originated with globally and Future group is wanting to create its ownership on the position in India.

This market is going to see fantastic omnichannel efforts going forward. A #kindle selling in a bigbazaar to fast grocery from Flipkart err #Walkart!! Stay tuned.

Category Creation - Path to phenomenal success

#Category #creation has recently caught my attention. And i am surprised how the companies which can be counted in world's top 20 have created new categories more often than not -

Be it #technology which is an easy brewing ground for innovation, #Apple from Macs to ipods to ipads to iphones, have done that many times. #Google, #Facebook, #Uber, #Airbnb are such techno examples where they created new categories. Taken away human imagination to a new level and changed the behaviour of consumer with better solutions/benefits than they could have thought.

Be it #retail, #Amazon has again replaced distances with thier one click shopping and fastest deliveries. And new categories like #Alexa, #Echo, #Kindle etc, things we never thought should exist!

How? Common aspects are - 1.Working on a new paradigm of #consumer-#benefit and problem solving. 2. Making it #fast enough connect with #ecosystem that competition cant ape quickly.

Read on this #HBR article talking about coffee example of #Starbucks and #Keurig where despite coffee consumption going down, sales on coffee consumption grew exponentially...by creating new category for coffee consumption! Read it here - https://hbr.org/2011/09/why-category-creation-is-the-u

#marketing #innovation #disruption

2018 Book Review #2 - The Subtle art of not giving a F*ck

Just finished this incredible book on self awareness and personal development. I will not call it a self help guide, its rather a counter-intuitive approach to living a good life. And here is it why - its not a book telling you all the time to be positive even if you are in deep shit. Its more practical and tells you to accept that you are f*cked up and need to change things and how. This book is thus not a sweet read but full of slang words that work magic as if you are talking to yourself.

I stumbled upon this book via reading a blog post by this celebrated blogger, Mark Manson, which really provoked my thinking. And yes, the title enticed me too.

Now, here is on the book- if you have read through Napoleon Hill, Joseph Murphy, Norman Vincent Peale and so on, you will find this book a refreshing breeze of fresh air. Here are quick bits from the book which are nothing but real gems -

1. Not giving a f*ck doesnt mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different- It means to accept the issues of life, not run from them and then see what you can do about them. Do what u can do, and when u can't do much about rest (not in ur control), accept and stop giving f*ck about it.

2. To not give a f*ck about adversity, u must first give a f*ck about sth more important. (When in this limited time, u dont find sth meaningful to chase or solve, ur mind will wander and just give f*ck about the weather, or neighbours or why u were born like this..

3. Whether u realize it or not, u r always choosing sth to give a f*ck about. (Whether u have not chosen to get born in a developing country, to not to be poor or born short, but u r always choosing to react to it in a kiddish manner, to cry or to wail on why this happened to me; u r choosing ur response and hence choosing to give a f*ck abt pointless stuff).

4. I loved this part - Happiness is about solving problems. You solve 1 problem, u feel happy, and then u solve a bigger problem to make u more happy...its an upward spiral of happiness coupled with complex problems. Happiness is thus an activity rather a feeling. Its a constant work in progress. If thats so simple thrn why most of us arent happy? Because we f*ck things up in either Denial or Being a victim. And when u do either of the two u r either running away or not owning problems so that u can solve them.

5. To be happy, we ask 'what i want to enjoy?' rather than 'what pain can i sustain?' The path to happiness is all about process and is full of struggles. But the problem is that we only want the result or the reward and believe that makes us happy, but rather its the action or struggle that makes us happy regardless of the result. Our struggles determine our successes.

6. Believe that u r not special. Period. Thats quite contrary to belief spread by so many books and movies like matrix! Life is full of mundane things and u need to accept this and work in the process. Its like a diet regimen that u need to eat boring veggies. But once u accept that u need to eat veggies to be fit or more healthy; u become more alive. Accept u r not 'the one' and its fine. And once u believe that u r ordinary, u can work on the process and can actually drive better results rather than living always with the false knowledge of being special and getting frustrated with no results.

7. Life and happiness are dependent on what value u choose to measure success or performance out of life. U can choose good or bad values. The key difference is bad values are reliant on external events while good ones are achieved internally.

Self improvement is about choosing better values to give a f*ck about. Because when u choose better values, u solve better problems and better problems get u better life! The 5 keys values as Mark mentions in the book are - 1 Responsibility 2 Uncertainty 3 Failure 4 Rejection 5 Contemplation of own morality.  And he describes his interpretation around them very well in the book.

8. Choice makes a difference. The difference between a problem being painful or powerful is a sense that u chose it and hence u r responsible for it. When we choose ur problems we feel we are empowered to work and solve it, but when we feel its been thrust on you and u dont have a control on it, u feel victimized and miserable. Thus always choose. But real question is about what we r choosing to give a f*ck about? What values? What metrics? Are these good ones?

9. Everything starts with action. Even if u havent made any plans about it, and u can choose to stay put and wait...dont. Just So something. Why? Because action leads to inspiration to futher motivation to further action.

10. This one is my personal favorite out o this book - Life is like a game of poker. in poker, people will get different cards, good or bad. But still people with bad cards will continue to play as they know its not just the set of cards that decide the result, but how one chooses to take risks with those cards.

Similarily, in life we get different situations but the game of life's ultimate result is dependent on how u choose to respond to these situations and keep making best choices to move forward. The people with the best cards or situations arent necessaily the ones who win or succeed eventually.

Its a must read for people dealing with the pursuit of happyness.

Retailing - Offline > Online (Part 2)

As explained in the first article, the premise here is that retailing basics dont change whether its online store or an offline store. In last article, 5 Key Areas of retail were described - Consumer Experience, People, Product, Topline & Bottomline. In this article, i would exhibit the linkages to online retailing, discuss key drivers & key actions/strategies enabling them.

1.Product/Service - For any business to succeed, the product/service which you are selling, has to be desirable for customers, offers a good quality experience on usage & adds to a consumer's life. However, before a consumer can experience the product post purchase, her attention has to be intercepted by your product/service for it to get sold.

This is where Visual Merchandising plays a role in offline retailing. From the window of the store talking about that 'stitchless shirt' which intrigues your mind & tickles you to enter the store; to attractive display of product with wonderful VM talking about the story behind say the ' no stitching' or 'anti-radiation mobile pocket' etc. You pickup the product & then interact with the customer associate & give it a shot. Boom. The sale is over.

However in online retailing, there is no intriguing window/VM to have product talk you into buying it? That gets replaced by the 'User Interface & Navigation' of the site enabling fastest discovery of such products. The window is the 'Home Page banner' wooing you to buy that stitchless shirt! VM is replaced by the 'quality of pictures/videos' shot in the studio with beautiful models to make you comfortable while making the buying decision.

Another barrier in online app/website is that you cant define a layout of the store to fix the category navigation the way it happens in offline retailing - putting the destination categories at the back of store & impulse next to cash counter, highlighting seasonal stories at the first fixture & basics at the back. In online retailing, its dependent on how the consumer uses the provided filters to lead to 'product discovery'. However, with #BIGDATA analytics, app should be able to provide varying UIs basis what a purchases. My home page banner on say an Amazon should vary from say yours; leading to bring in that personalized product discovery! Thats more power to online retailing if done well.

2.People - In offline retailing, the omnipresent 'human touch' is what at times makes you discover a new category or brand you would never buy. Thats the power of human interaction. It delivers variable and personalized and live-dynamic delivery of knowledge & product experience. Thats why good brands invest in training their sales people. A product/Brands gets alive in the way creator has conceptualized only when a person gives that product presentation making the story complete. That, 'Joe' in your favourite high street store calls you when your desired product arrives, wishes you on your birthday & invites you to the store, helps you get benefited by the steal deals, customizes your clothes as per your taste/measurements, and once in a while lets you have your ego massaged; is something! Something, that a fixed computer screen cant match!

In online retailing, this important bit gets replaced by the Product Presentation(Picture/Video, Copy, size chart, reviews, ratings, etc). Now, basis all this information, one can take the decision; and as these factors are incomplete vs a human presentation; thats why ecommerce companies offer liberal return policy & faster delivery mechanisms trying to make up for this void & making is easier for consumer to shop. However, with advanced AI & bots; this is getting better to give that human touch to ecommerce.

3.Customer Experience - If the consumer walks into your store & gets presented by the sales person; but doesn't get serviced properly or the store experience is not good given sloppy display or no cooling or rude behavior; everything goes for a toss. A bad consumer experience is like a camphor catching fire; it burns & burns the entire neighborhood of customers. Thus, offline art of retaining is all about consumer experience, the capital factor.

In offline, the experience is elongated. From website experience to the product delivery. The app wasnt loading or the filters were going wonky or the payment gateway wasnt working; all kills the experience. But so does late delivery of goods or rude behavior of delivery boy or wrong delivery of product in the box. Online retailing has its own challenges to ensure a great consumer experience. Most of the ecommerce players have been able to fix the technology side; however most of the issues crop up on the logistics/warehousing errors.

4.Top-line - As discussed in Part 1, Topline being the objective No 2; there needs to be clear understanding on drivers of topline & relationship in between to revenue. As in offline, online retail has similar relationship -

Offline Sales = Footfalls (No of Customers * Freq) X Conversion X Basket Size X Average Sales Value

Online Sales = No of hits (No of unique visitors * visits) X Conversion (Sales Transactions/visits) X Cart items X Average Sales Value

Now the drivers in online piece, are obviously -

A. No of hits or Traffic to the site driven by lead generation out of various campaigns (SEO, SMM, ATL, BTL etc);

B. Conversion on the site driven by 1. Ease of product discovery & transaction on website (User Interface & Steps to transaction completion) 2. Product Presentation (Pics/vids/info/reviews/Pricing) enabling users to make a buying decision 3. Transaction completion net of returns (Lot of transactions get cancelled post conversion/post delivery due to poor acceptance or impulse) which needs to be controlled with better product quality checks/ product presentation & efficiency in logistics & delivery.

C. Basket Size on the eCommerce website can be boosted by running campaigns of cross promotion (shop across shirts & trousers & get extra discount), shipping free (order > Rs 1000 get shipping free) and so on. Cart can also be boosted with recommendations showing users who bought A also bought this book. Basically giving a benefit (discount, freebie) on increased basket.

D. Average Sales Value is the last factor on the topline; which is driven by premium assortment, branded merchandise, better quality and so on. Sell more suits and blazers than shirts & your average sales value sky rockets! How can a website influence you to up-trade your ASP? Using recommendations tickling the ego (Consumers choosing an apple iphone have bought apple branded accessories only); highlighting high priced products basis shopping history; or plain and simple 'personalized pricing' within an app (Same hotel room to Mr X is $1000 while Mr Y is $1200).

5. Bottom-line - Obviously, this is the No 1 objective for which businesses exist. One needs to drive all revenue factors up and all costs factors down without dropping consumer experience, product quality & people standards in offline retail. Same factors apply here in online retail - One needs to boost margins by arm-twisting vendors, ask minimum guarantees, increase #private #labels, boost traffic at lowest cash burn, drop costs of logistics & warehousing, and reduce discounts and so on. Make unit economics work!

I think the basics remain the same; be it online or offline; its the passion that drives the business ahead to serve consumers! I hope this 2 part article; was a good read. If yes, please drop in your valuable comments & lets strike a conversation around retailing - Offline or Online!

For going to part 1 of this article, please click here. 

Book Review - Rich Dad Poor Dad

This is a book which i heard about reading in my first job at infosys. But like many other nerds or other 'worker' people, i neglected the advice thinking i hate finance. At 37, when i just happened to pick this from a footpath and read it recently, i realized what a waste of 15 years had been.

This is a MUST READ book for any human being who makes a living. It should be rather part of school curriculums so that so many lives can be saved. You must be wondering about the hyperbole, but here is what it is about -
"Poor ppl work for money, and rich ppl make thier money work". Now, you must have been intrigued. Yes, the book unveils a thinking around finance principles needed for a healthy life. It talks about assests and liablities, cash flows, income and expense but in a manner that a layman can understand.

I would just mention a few key points from the book that might make you pick it up if you havent -

1. Poor ppl work for money, and rich ppl make thier money work.
2. Poor ppl look at expensive things and say, i cant afford it. Rich ppl look at same things and say, how can i afford it.
3. Poor ppl look at the biggest thing in thier life - house, as an asset, rich understand that its a liability.
4. Poor ppl work day in day out to increase thier active income of salary while rich work on thier passive incomes ( stocks, bonds, real estate etc).
5. Poor ppl first pay thier bills and taxes and then pay themselves. Rich ppl first pay themselves and push themselves to then pay the bills and taxes.
6. Poor ppl understand that the only way to realise thier dreams is through harder education and then job labour giving higher salary, thus perpetual rat race. Rich ppl know that rats race and hence to not to become a rat means financial freedom, and hence dreams.
7. Savers are loosers, Investors are winners. Savers are risk averse, investors are opportunity makers.
8. Winning at financial game is - Its not how much money u make, its about how much u keep.
9. The rich buy assets. The poor only have expnses. The middle class buy liabilities they think are assets.
10. The rich focus on thier asset columns while everyone else focus on thier income statements.
11. The biggest asset we all have is our mind. If it is trained well, it can create enormous wealth.
12. Failures inspires winners. Failure defeats losers.
13. Find a reason to be rich greater than reality - the power of spirit.
14. Make daily choices.
15. Choose friends carefully, birds of same feather, flock together.
16. Learn new formulas quickly and keep up with the times.
17. Pay yourself first. Focus on cash flow, people and personal time.
18. Be an indian giver - the power of getting sth for nothing.
19. Use assets to buy luxuries. Eg if u want to buy a car, invest into sth which can get u a car rather than create a liability thru a car loan.
20. Power of giving, spread the knowledge, make others rich and you shall recieve in kind.

Amazing book, read it asap, the earlier the better. And a great word of admiration to Mr Robert Kiyosaki for spreading such vast knowledge to people.

Retailing - Offline > Online?

With so much happening in the retail industry in India; Online Vs Offline is a topic touching emotions anytime in a room. There has been huge hue & cry about how online retailing is changing the way consumer shop or how it is killing the offline retailing or how offline retailing is under pressure from Mall rentals or how offline retailing's touch n feel cant be replaced by online and offline retailing understands economics while e-commerce players don't. I am penning my thoughts around something called retailing as i learned it from my childhood days in a family owned retail business to organized retailing work experience in offline/online world.

Selling a product/service to an end-consumer is primarily retailing. Does its principles change when the mode of transaction with end consumer is immediate (offline) or distant (online)? Are these so different that people who run these businesses apply different skills to run them? Does the consumer of the two modes of retailing different? Answer is No. Lets start from basics.

What are the key focus areas of a retail business? I call them as BIG 5 Pillars of Retail -

1. Product/Service - These are the "goodies" you are selling to the consumer. These are goodies as they are supposed to be 'good', making a consumer happy after purchase. If you sell them well, it becomes a part of life of consumers adding value to them. If you dont sell them, they remain part of your inventory adding to your costs. Its important to keep the product at its best levels & measure the indicators through various activities.

• Customer Feedback/Satisfaction - Work on the goodies basis consumer feedback. Consumer knows on what she like about you and also wants to tell you on what can make it better.
• Competition Bench-marking - Work on keep improving the goodies Vs competition.
• Product Performance - What are the various indicator's of its performance -
• a) Inventory Sell Through - If the goodies are good, then how fast are you selling them? What are the activities which can speed things up?
• b) What is selling better? - Out of an assortment of goods kept in store, what is selling better, so that you can change the mix accordingly? What categories give you better profits (margins)? (Category Performance)

2. People - These are the "human beings" that advocate your goodies to end consumer and sell to them. If these are good/well-trained/motivated sales force, they ensure fast selling of goodies and ensure consumer keeps coming back basis the last interaction (Customer Service). If they are'nt happy/not trained; it shows on customer experience and consumers wouldnt connect with your goodies & lead to poor sales/repeat sales.

• People Competence - Is my staff trained & competent on giving your desired customer service? What are the drivers? Invest in right talent & training. Are they clear on what they are selling? Are they sold on the product themselves to sell it to consumers?
• People Satisfaction - Is my staff happy/motivated so that they can wow the consumer? What are the drivers? Keep them engaged, make work a fun place, recognize their performance, reward them with commensurate rewards/benefits,
• People Performance - Is their performance evaluated at periodic times so that they can make changes to improve? Are there simple monitoring systems & improvement methods known to them?

3. Consumer Experience - This is the ultimate driver of a retail business which leads to sales & growth of a company. A good consumer experience entails everything - From the kind of ambeince in which goodies were delivered, from the kind of interaction with the salesperson that added value to the consumer's life, the kind of after sales journey consumer goes through; all add to the chances of her coming back to the company for more!

• Consumer Satisfaction Scores & Feedback - Keep working on understanding levels of satisfaction and what they are saying about your products. This helps in improving again and again.
• Consumer experience is an amalgamation of everything and you need to understand exactly whats going wrong. It could be any cog in the wheel, that might derail you - Store ambience (was it lit enough? Was it clean?), Product/Assortment (Product quality wasnt good? I couldn't find the product? (Supply Chain/Layout), It wasnt appealing? (Quality/Visual Merchandising), Customer Service was not good? (Training/Motivation), Price wasn't right and so on..

4. Topline (Sales Revenue) - This is objective No 2, out of investments in first 3 drivers to generate value for the business. One needs to understand various drivers and relationship leading to revenue. In retail, it is as simple as -

Sales = Footfalls X Conversion X Basket Size (BS) X Average Sales Price (ASP)

And then one just needs to work on the cause effect ladder for all the drivers to arrive at levers of these drivers & list down activities & indicators to create a plan. For eg -

• Footfalls = (Old customers coming back again & again) + New customers
• Retained Sales drivers = Activities for greater engagement leading to them coming to buy and coming back multiple times, usage of loyalty program benefits to bring them back, usage of sweeteners (points, points back, discounts), exclusive events.
• Acquisition Sales drivers = Activities to add new footfalls like trial generation activities, alliances with non-compete brands, attracting footfalls within catchment through an event or a mega broadcast through advertising.

Footfalls = (Retained customers X frequency) + (Acquisition of new customers)

• Conversion - This is the success factor in a retail store; how many footfalls get converted into buyers or invoices. In order to boost conversion; you work on training on selling skills or product knowledge (people cant sell properly), or discovery of desired products in store is an issue (layout change) or desired merchandise is missing (category mix issue or poor estimation of demand leading to stock outs) and so on. Activities can include a in store promotion/in-store communication/etc.

Conversion = # of Invoices/# of Footfalls

• Basket Size - BS or UPT(Units per Transaction) is no of items in a customer's basket. To boost BS, one needs to work on product knowledge of sales persons. One starts training people on cross-selling to educate customers to buy a matching trouser with a shirt. Or buy a shampoo, conditioner & serum of same variant. Apart from cross-selling, retailer work on basket building promotions like - Buy 3 get 2 Free, inducing the consumer to buy more items or bundled packs with a price off (Buy 3 soaps at price of 2).

Basket Size = Total items sold / # of invoices.

Average Sales Price (ASP) - Average Sales Price is nothing but the average selling price of a unit sold. To boost the ASP, one needs to work on the merchandise mix in a store. As retail space is expensive, one needs to stock & sell merchandise with higher ASP. In garments category, its about having a mix of merchandise at Entry, Mid & Premium price points. The retailer will always work to move the average to Mid & Premium price points. You also need to educate salesperson to "Up-sell", which means selling a Rs 2000 shirt instead of Rs 1500 by talking about the benefits of Rs 2000 one (a wrinkle free shirt Vs a normal cotton shirt). You need to highlight premium options in a store like a special section with inviting visual merchandising so that consumers get attracted, and so on.

Average Sales Price = Total Sales / # of items sold

• Average Transaction Value (ATV) - ATV is another factor important in retail; which is nothing but average sales value of a transaction. In order to boost ATV, one can boost Basket Size or one can boost Average Sales Price or both. A retailer running an offer of - Shop worth Rs 10,000 & get a duffle bag free; is trying to push the ATV to 10,000.

Average Transaction Value(ATV) = Total Sales / # of invoices

Also, ATV = BS X ASP

5. Bottomline (Profits) - This is No 1 objective for a business; and one uses the earlier 4 pillars in such a manner that you generate profits. When i look at bottomline as a key focus area; i look at various costs which impact the revenue generated leading to bottomline.

One needs to list all costs & work towards minimizing them (without impact on the earlier 4 pillar) and create positive bottomline. Again, you list all factors of costs & activities to boost bottomline. Eg -

Cost of Goods, Cost of Discount, Cost of Inventory, Rentals , People , Utilities

With all these 5 pillars well monitored & executed for perfection, one can expect a good return out of a retail business. There are surely many other factors or jargon you might find; but you can bucket them in these 5 pillars, thus bringing clarity of thought and focus. Just, keep these 5 pillars under your control like 5 fingers of your hand & you shall do well. In the next piece, I shall write about how the same 5 pillars matter in Online retail as well & the basics never change.

Termites > Earthquakes + Hurricanes

“Hurricanes and earthquakes get all of the publicity, but termites do more damage and they take such little bitty bites!” 

Thats what Zig Ziglar once said, referring to the power of small steps leading to big changes. All radical changes on the planet are an outcome of minute steps done on a daily basis for a long time!  

Apply in your lives. A small workout done daily adds to your health. A brief periodic connect with old friends adds to your happiness. A daily time spent with your family adds to your life. A daily 5 pages of a book, adds a book's wisdom in a month. All in all, a day thus makes you a better version of yourself. Makes you complete a marathon, not a sprint.

"Daily" is the biggest value-add to your life. 

Ecommerce in India will ever make money?

#Ecommerce is on a high, but will it ever make money? Will investors keep putting in money in enterprises which sell similar products at throw away prices with similar delivery/site experiences?

My take - A #differentiation/price premium game or A #volume/low price game.

First one is about that factor that competition cant copy (hard to find - CoD, Ppl, Tech, Selection all copied) & lets you scale up bcoz competition cant deliver it.

2nd one is what is happening in the indian horizontals. Leading to a game between top 2  #Homegrown Vs #Global. Scaling to be the biggest fastest to keep the challenge. But consumer doesnt care if x or y, till the need gets over. As volume game is commodities. This will end till the money is over as the article says.

But what is the differentiation in a horizontal play? Building private labels that are big drivers (Echo/Roadster). Building exclusive tieups which are strategic and long term (mi or one+). Building additional services around the common core which differentiates ( prime video or a loyalty pgm with offline experiences).

How about offline connection which is strategic and long term across all categories? Online/Offline - #OneRetailerNetwork!!

A dated article below but insightful.