Indian retail market has potential to grow to 1.1-1.2 trillion USD by 2020: Report

The report was unveiled by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) at the CII National Retail Summit on Friday.

Organized retail and e-commerce will grow rapidly to be 140-160 billion USD and 45-50 billion USD respectively by 2020, according to the report.

The report also highlights the challenges faced by Indian organized retailers in terms of value conscious  and digitally connected consumers, lower bargaining power against suppliers, strong competition from traditional retailers and e-commerce as well as regulatory barriers, factors that result in lower profitability and return on capital for India retailers in comparison with other sectors and global retailers.

The report states that companies have to make an effort to transform the performance trajectory of a company, where senior leadership should craft a large- scale transformation agenda based on three priorities – winning in the medium term to establish competitive advantage through strategic/ structural moves, rapid cash release in the short term from current business to fund the journey, and building capabilities to be future ready.

According to Shashwat Goenka, Chairman, CII National Committee on Retail 2015-16 and Sector Head, Spencer’s Retail, RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, “With the expected exponential increase in digitally savvy consumers over the next decade, technology will play a key role in the development of the Indian retail sector. Retailers will have to adopt technology in both back-end and front-end, to bring the digitally savvy consumer into the mainstream retail fold.”

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