Retail industry in India with its more than 12 million outlets, is providing the second largest employment opportunities after agriculture. It contributes 8%-10% to the GDP. One of the fastest growing sectors in India is the Organized Retail Sector, which grew at the rate of 40% per annum by 2008. At present, organized retail accounts for only 4%-6% of the total retail market. The structure of retail market is developing, especially in cities. Shopping malls are proliferating rapidly in metros and there would be at least 150 shopping malls by the end of 2008. The number of departmental stores is growing faster than the overall retail markets at an annual rate of 24%. Supermarkets have been taking an increasing share of general food and grocery retail over the last two decades. Leading global retailers such as Wal-Mart, Tesco, Carrefour and others are keen to enter the Indian retail market.

The first paper of this issue, "Impact of Store Size on Impulse Purchase", by Sumeet Gupta, Xu Heng and Vimal Sahu provides an overview of the retail management and retail consumer behavior in India. The authors pronounce that there is no explicit recognition of a need among customers for such a purchase prior to entry into the store. According to this study, the impulse purchases made from a large store must be large enough to justify the investment and turnover of the store as compared to a smaller-size store. The study reveals that impulse purchases as a ratio of total spending is the highest for the mid-sized departmental stores and is almost the same for small-sized and big-sized retail stores.

The second paper of this issue, "Effect of Switching Cost, Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction on Customer Loyalty of Cellular Service Providers in Indian Market", by S K Chadha and Deepa Kapoor is an empirical study which speaks about mobile telecommunication services which has become one of the booming sectors in India. This sector has been experiencing the highest growth rate in terms of number of subscribers and revenues to the country. With increasing competition among the cellular service providers in India, consumers are becoming more demanding towards mobile telecommunication services and their expectations are rising. The authors observe that the main condition for protecting and winning the subscriber base and their loyalty is to examine the effect of switching cost, service quality and customer satisfaction on customer loyalty on cellular service.

The third paper of this issue, "Viewer Relationship Management in Indian News Channels: An Analysis Using 7 Ps Framework", by Anand Sapre and Amit Nagpal talks about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applied to audio-visual media, a business-related philosophy and a set of processes and policies, which help in acquiring and retaining viewersirrespective of whether they are direct or indirect. The main idea of this paper is to optimize viewer satisfaction, revenue and business efficiency by building the strongest possible relationships with the viewers at the organizational level.

The fourth paper of this issue, "A Case Study on ORPAT Group's Diversification Woes", by Khuman L Rathod deals with the journey of ORPAT Group, the most successful family-run business houses of Gujarat. The Journey of ORPAT started with the manufacture of mechanical clocks, under the name of Ajanta Transistor Clock Manufacturing Company. The humble beginning from Clocks to calculators, telephones, CFL and vitrified tiles has been a commendable growth in terms of product portfolio and diversification. With infusion of new blood and changing scenario, the group has diversified into businesses which are having neither technological synergy nor marketing synergy. This case focuses on the diversification strategy of ORPAT and its challenges and future strategies.

Finally, the issue concludes with a Book Review on "The Game – Changer: How You can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation". The book focuses on the framework for driving innovation around which the entire strategy of P&G, a FMCG conglomerate has been built, which can be replicated across organizations all over the globe.

-- B Shafiulla
Consulting Editor