Retail is a Science !! is it In India ?

..........There is more to retail than just handing over goods /services across , the counter , if you look at some highly evolved retail business , you will find that there is a constant up heavel to take data based decision , the upheavel is caused because of data correctness ( hours are spent at boardrooms ,pondering over data accuracy !!! ) ,a number of retailers are taking decision based on gut only !! however the ones taking decision based on data seem to be getting it rite ( maybe the rate of growth doesnt give the true picture on whats happening , i mean all the analysis whether it is working or not )

however consider these for some INTERESTING data based decision in Retail in India ::

There is a retailer in India who will decide space in Malls based on Car parks , they have developd an alogrithm that estimates this , based on past data

There is another retailer who talks only GMROF , GMROI ,GMROL , ie gross margin return on sqft ( GMROF ) , inventory etc

There is another set of retailers who has built its advertising to drive store walk in model and conversion based on past data

Isn't all this interesting ! There are more , for instance the VM function which is purely looked at an operational function , has a lot of science that can be used .....more of this later !

All this ofcourse requires a solid data backbone and great patience to get it right , there is lot more to be done on this front though !

This opens up the door for a huge requirement of Analytics