Industry Knowledge for Decision-Makers
ITC pips HUL to become India's leading branded food and beverages company Economic Times ITC has overtaken Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) in branded food and beverages sales a decade after it entered the business, giving a shot in the arm to Y C Deveshwar's ambition of making the cigarette maker India's largest FMCG firm. ITC, the maker of Sunfeast biscuits and Bingo chips, has posted branded food sales of over 4,600 crore in 2012-13, a 24 percent growth over the previous year.     |
 | Single-brand retailers await clarity on sub-brands, e-commerce Livemint Even as IKEA and H&M prepare to invest in the Indian market to set up single-brand retail operations, some companies already in the country are still looking for clarifications on clauses related to e-commerce and sub-brands. According to the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy circular issued last month by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), retail companies can only engage in e-commerce that's business-to-business. Also, the current single-brand retail policy allows for brands to retail goods only under one brand name. |
Upping The Ante On Private Label Sourcing For the past decade, retailers have increasingly embraced private brands as a strategy to continue bottom-line growth. However, most have focused disproportionately on branding and positioning and have not fully rolled up their sleeves to address sourcing strategy and execution - which could be critical to unlocking the value of private brand profits. In this article, sourcing capabilities needed to be effective in today's private label environment will be outlined. The risks, rewards, and influence that private labels have on a retailer's competitive strategy will also be explored. |
 | Liquid Gold One of the prevailing dictums of shopper marketing is that retailers are brand agnostic. That is, they are primarily interested in category growth and are generally indifferent as to whether they sell a bottle of Coca-Cola or a bottle of Pepsi--as long as shoppers walk away with one of them in their basket. While retailers desire to remain brand agnostic, given their relationship with multiple manufacturers and distributors, strong brands are critical to satisfying retail experiences. |
 | Beyond The Hype: Capturing Value From Big Data And Advanced Analytics Retailers and consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) companies have long had access to vast amounts of transaction data: every day, companies capture information about every SKU sold to every customer at every store. In addition, companies regularly use sophisticated market-research techniques to answer a variety of questions. Can big data and advanced analytics truly deliver more useful insights than existing tools? In fact, big data and advanced analytics are among the most 5 important battlefields for retail and CPG companies today. |