Unlocking the $2Tn Retail Opportunity in the Next Decade: An Activist Agenda

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in association with Retailers Association of India (RAI) has released its annual flagship report which captures the current state of retail. As the sector pushes against short-term headwinds, long-term prospects continue to be buoyed by structural tailwinds for the economy and are expected to reach $2Tn in the next decade. The report delves into key factors propelling the pace and shape of growth, especially shifts in consumer spending preferences, trends on affluence, increasing urbanization, supply expansion, and channel shifts.

The report also advocates retailers to balance growth and profitability for sustained value creation. Given this, it lays out imperatives for retailers to win by adapting the business model to the given trends. The report also lays out the top 5 value creation themes that retailers can activate and provides inspiration from global retailers. It advocates challenging traditional trade-offs in business model, leveraging digital and AI for personalized customer experiences, enhancing value chain efficiencies with AI, fostering partnerships to unlock new revenue streams, and adopt systemic localization in merchandize & formats to win in “Many Indias”. It also attempts to guide the reader to re-imagine businesses by taking inspiration from retail peers who have challenged existing inefficiencies and model trade-offs and found success.