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FDI in Retail: More heat than light
(This piece appeared in the Financial Express on November 26, 2011.) The debate on allowing more foreign investment in retail reminds me of an incandescent bulb: producing more heat than light. With a...
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The Year That Could Be
The transition between calendar years offers a pause. We can use it to evaluate what passed in the previous year, chalk out our journey for the next one. The first response of most people to the...
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Global QSRs Dissecting the Indian fast food pie
Global quick-service restaurant brands are expanding their footprint in the quickly evolving Indian market. But some are also falling by the wayside. Here are some perspectives from the industry (ET...
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Liberalised FDI – Not A Threat to Franchising
As the debate over FDI (even for single brand retail) continues, over 250 international brands in the food service and fashion and lifestyle sectors alone continue to service the Indian consumers....
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Luxu-Re: Back to the Roots
Luxury is dichotomous, conflicted and conflict-creating by its very nature. “Luxuria” is Latin for “Lust”, the first in the list of the Seven Deadly Sins. The British poet Edith Sitwell is quoted as...
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International Shoes & Accessories Brands in India – The March Ahead in 2012
India’s economic growth may seem to have taken a dip last year with India’s GDP growth falling to 6.9% for 2011-12 from 8.4% the previous year. But that has not translated into a slower entry of...
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Indian men take to shoes – MINT video
There was time when there were two choices for the middle-class Indian male of all ages—(usually) Bata or (occasionally) the Chinese guy who made shoes to order. Over the years, other brands also...
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Retail’s Elves
(Published in “BusinessWorld SME Handbook 2012-13″, released on Oct. 29, 2012 in New Delhi, and “Indian Management”, the journal of the All India Management Association in January 2013, published by...
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India’s Luxury Love Affair: It’s Complicated!
Luxury is an ill-defined concept. There is no specific line or limit of price, quality or availability that separates the luxurious from all that is not. However, like other similarly intangible...
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New perspectives needed for food and agricultural growth
These are thoughts shared in an emailed interview with the AgriBusiness and Food Industry magazine (published in the November 2014 issue.) A Perspective on the Indian market: Our first word of advice...
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Retail Integrated – the Best of Both Worlds
Retailers seem to be fighting a losing battle against the growth of ecommerce, and it is only the nature of the shopping activity, especially for fashion – interactive, social, and immersive as it is...
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Café Coffee Day – steaming or sputtering?
(Published in the Financial Express, 10 May 2016) In about 20 years, Café Coffee Day (CCD) has grown from one ‘cyber café’ in Bengaluru to the leading chain of cafés in the country by far. In its...
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Patanjali – from Yoga to Noodles
Third Eyesight’s CEO, Devangshu Dutta recently participated in a discussion about the phenomenal growth of the Patanjali brand, from yoga lessons to a food and FMCG conglomerate taking well-established...
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Packaging – Uncovering Personality
Packaging of products is, undoubtedly, an extremely strong means of conveying the essence of the brand, its ethos and its personality. Packaging is not only a vehicle to endorse the identity of a...
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For QSRs, India isn’t a quick-fix but a long game
When American fast food standard bearers McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza stepped into India in the mid-1990s, the market was just ripe enough for take-off. McDonald’s and later Domino’s Pizza can be...
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One Ring That Rules Them All
In this piece I’ll just focus on one aspect of technology – artificial intelligence or AI – that is likely to shape many aspects of the retail business and the consumer’s experience over the coming...
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Wellness: From Lifestyle to an Industry
In recent decades, the dependence on established medical disciplines has begun to be challenged. There is the oft-quoted dictum that healthcare sector tends to illness rather than health. Another...
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Retail 2.019: Navigating by Customer Experience
Do you have this feeling that 2018 went by a little too quickly? Well, however quick it seemed, it was certainly momentous for retail in India. If 2016 was marked by the shock of demonetization, and...
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5 Pieces of Advice to Young Professionals Entering the Fashion Industry
(The following is the video and the text of the Commencement Speech by Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight, at the Convocation of the batch graduating in 2019 from the National Institute...
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Retail 2020
Remember the year 2000? After Y2K passed safely, that year some optimistic analysts predicted that India’s modern retail chains would reach 20 per cent market share by 2015. Two years after that...
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