The FMCG companies and retailers in India are evolving at a rapid pace and facing major disruption in various parts of the value chain. Innovative solutions, technologically advanced start-ups, hi-tech processes, modernisation and digitisation of back-end operations, tech-savvy consumers, and a growing internet and smartphone penetration are few major factors causing this disruption.
Along with these, India’s macroeconomic factors and favorable demographics are fuelling the growth. The supply and demand factors are expected to further accelerate the change of growth in the consumer and retail sectors. In addition, the government is also providing strong impetus to make the business environment more conducive for companies operating in this space through developments in infrastructure (electricity, transportation, digitisation of processes and economy, skill enhancement, Foreign Direct Investment [FDI] regulations, etc.), which is facilitating growth.
It is against this backdrop that the FICCI-Deloitte report ‘EVOLVE for Consumer’ (http://ficci.in/publication.asp?spid=23130) is developed, which looks at how the Indian consumer/shopper is evolving, how the shopper journey is changing today, and how the key decisions of the shopper (the What, When, Where, Why, Who, and the How) are evolving. These changes are driven by the rapid development of the retail environment from offline to online to omnichannel and thus, both the shoppers and channels are progressing independently and together, riding on the technology wave. In this process, it has become critical for brands to be highly adaptive to cater to these changes and keep abreast with the rapid evolution of trends and best practices in India and globally to be able to alter their strategies and meet the consumers’/shoppers’ expectations.
The author is Partner, Deloitte
