Walmart - Will it ever come in India? If it does, will it succeed?

There has been news of the retail giant Walmart trying to enter India for almost a year now. As soon as we got this news, the next immediate news was the insane left fanatics raising their customary idiotic opposing red flag for Walmart's entry. It will be a hard road for India to climb as long as we have the Government Unions and the quotas. The reason for India's success so far can be attributed to the opening up of the foreign sector pioneered by the then Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh. So the deciding authorities here should take a long term view and ease the way for the retail giant's entry into the Indian market.

brings me to the next issue. Whenever Walmart enters India(I see this happening around 2007-2008)...Will it succeed? I feel that Walmart will have a tough road to conquer but in due course of time with its industry experience and business acumen it will succeed....Walmart will have a struggle because of the following factors. One of the prime reasons for Walmart's success is its supply chain with its suppliers and retailers and their quick transport of the products to all the stores. It will be really difficult to maintain a high efficient supply chain in India and also the infrastructure in India will pose some problems. Another reason for walmart's success is its ability to predict the customer behavior as close as possible...predict what people will want in that particular time of the year and how much of that item to stock....Customers throng to walmart as they find whatever they want when ever they come will be very difficult to predict the buying behavior of the average Indian customer because of the vast cultural, economic and sociological divisions within the society. The third reason is though there are a number of supermarkets in India...it is still not fully acclaimed especially in the rural areas...I for one personally miss going to the shops two blocks away from my house. Majority of the Indian consumers still do majority of their shopping in these small roadside shops situated in each and every corner of the road. Finally, Walmart's key to success is its low price..it was able to provide low price to the consumer because of the cost reduction due to superior supply chain management and other factor. I have a strong doubt about their ability to provide low price because of their possible higher margins.

Is Walmart a good thing or bad thing for India? It is definitely good for the consumers as competition produces the best price for the consumers. The people most likely to be affected will be the roadside shops. I still have a strong feeling that can keep their business running as long as they provide quality products with reasonable price. The business will run but with slightly lower profits than before and they can increase it in the long run by retaining the customers and with some innovation and homework. The people eliminated will be the free riders. Walmart or for that matter any retail giant's entry will eliminate the people who make huge profits on huge prices just because there was no competition for him in the neighborhood. Hence I think that it will do more good than harm. This is from a common man's view.

On a higher view it will be a great chance for India to go to the next level. India is the number one leader in S/w outsourcing. China is trying to catch ground and making good progress in that . China is the number one in manufacturing Outsourcing and India has lots of ground to cover in that regard. I feel this could be a golden opportunity to show to the world our strength in manufacturing too. If we are able to do that this will create thousands of jobs for the average high school graduate which will set the economy rolling. It will be a major step in India's march towards supremacy. Finally I was surprised to read this article referring to Walmart sometime back. Walmart said it was sourcing fans from India to U.S. The reason behind this was that it did not want to depend on China totally and more importantly it wanted China to feel some competition? How about that?

Later,
Gany