Major business groups in india, ranging from reliance to the mahindras, the goenkas to the rahejas, the tatas to the sunil bharti mittals, have concrete plans of entering the retail business.reliance, for ex. is spending more than 25,000 crores on setting up retail outlets at more than 1500 locations around the country caterinf to retail products that include fresh produce, footwear, and apparels, lifestyle products and healthcare products.The format od the stores is expected to range from Convenience stores, Speciality stores, Supermarkets to Hypermarkets.Reliance is proposing to eventually employ a staff of five lakh people.This would, hence, be a good time for these indian majors to understand the crirical issues of running a retail business, especially the expected complications when such retail businesses achieve critical mass in terms of size and scale, in the future.

The indian Majors, foraying into retail business, thus, need to acknowledge the following facts and be ready fo ...more