Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Walmart and the Indian Mess (FDI in retail)

Since many people have said many things about this hot topic (in many ways), here`s my take on it:
Let`s see what are the most importantly visible issues faced by the indian economy in the day:
1) High Inflation rate.
2) Slowing growth rate.
3) Depreciating currency.
4) Unemployment.
5) Red-tapism.

Well, there are many more but i focused on these few which are directly related to out topic for discussion today.
In india, we have a population of nearly 20% of the world and songs of fast progress are heard from kashmir to kerala, we hear about the history of india and current intellect that shows our progress in knowledge industry like softwares etc.

Then why do we fear??
Is this issue actually of so much importance??
i was a unsupportive of this development until a couple of days coz i thought this is another propoganda of thr ruling congress to sell out our nation to western powers; but soon i realized (after a lot of research) that this may be far useful for the nation in these troubled times. I will tell you how;
But before that, certain imp. facts about walmart:

a) Walmart posted nearly 420 million in revenues in 2010 which is around 40 % of indian GDP.
b) it is world`s largest employer of around 2 million people.
c) Ranked by revenue, it is world`s 18th largest public company.

Now, let us begin with agriculture:
Indian agriculture is a messy business occupying 50% population producinf 8% GDP.
It is widely controlled by government and prices, imports, exports are closely monitored; and hence at the end of the day, we have 33% of our crops/vegetables rotten before they reach our plates due to known or unknown reasons.
Such mishandling after close monitoring makes unusual sense that someone can be held responsible for making (prosperous) india hungry. We all know who is the culprit.

Anyway, how can this problem have a solution in organized retail and if there is, why it couldn`t be done by local organized retail giants (so-called)??
Answer- we have Big bazar, reliance and aditya birla group as important retailers in the trade but they don`t seem to create a mark as there is not much difference in their prices when compared to small retail shops and they cannot give you credit unlike the latter. They are rather a "all brand under one roof" instead of shopper focussed retailers.
So, how can walmart be different?
Following is the chain of supply of crops and food materials in india:

Farmers----> Government-----> Processors----> Retailers-----> Customer.

This gives us that farmers interest are kept at the highest stakes as government sets the price for the produce at which it can be produced by processing people like mandi or sugar making company etc. which is further transferred to retailers and then to the customer.
Now, this was the model by the govt. but what red tapism is doing is far bad, as in, government officials are supported by prcessing units and govt. acts as the representative of them instead of farmers. This benefits both the government and processors while farmers are left alone. Hence, the prices for the retailers hike and ultimately customer has to pay a higher margin even though it costs much less, which also gives rise to food inflation which is already running in double digits in our country.
Walmart, which in itself is of a size of a country, can protect the interest of consumer and actually they will have to in order to stay profitable in this country for the basic premise that one wouldn`t go 10 KM`s out of his home to purchase stuff instead from a kirana wala next street at the same price just because the store is swanky.
Sorry for incomplete post. will do it in some tym.

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