The ICRIER report seems to have encouraged the Government to take the plunge towards a completely free market regime in the Indian retail space and a discussion paper is already in circulation. The ICRIER report had indicated that the opening of a large hypermarket in any geography across India will have a small and temporary impact on the existing small retailers in the vicinity and that there is ample scope for growth for both kinds of retail model alongside.

It was clear through the discussions during the conference that while the ingredients for an explosive growth continue to be in place, the cleaning up of excesses in the industry, after the exuberance of the past decade, is giving hopes of a saner approach to business. Strengthening of supply chain and sourcing channels as well as effective point-of-sale operation is topping board meeting agendas and has replaced front end expansion as the number 1 priority.

N. Sukumar, Senior VP, Reliance Industries explained that for organized retail to truly realize its potential, supply chains will have to shorten with the ultimate goal of retailers picking up goods from a manufacturer's facility and admitted that we are still several years from this situation.

Sriram Venkateswaran, Director- Supply Chain and QA, McDonalds India explained that in new markets like India, retailers will have to often assume several roles and go as far back end as is needed, thereby catalyzing scale, skills and infrastructure that will ultimately support their core function. He recalled how McDonald's spent six years in setting up its Supply Chain before opening its first store in India.

Dheeraj Gupta, founder of Jumboking, told the story of his growth from 500 vadapavs a day in 2001 to 35,000 a day currently and advised entrepreneurs to build their supply chains with great granularity, deeply involving your vendors in your growth.

Patrick Xu, Director- Supply Chain, Best Buy (China) shared deep insights from the Chinese retail sector explaining how collaborative partnerships between vendors and retailers have broken down the quest for a control over retail supply chains and adding a sense of science to supply chain management.

Several retailers including Hypercity, Gini & Jony and the Loot admitted to having tried outsourcing their supply chain function to a professional 3PL in the early part of the last decade only to find challenges with that model. Gagan Seksaria, Associate Director, Transportation & Logistics, KPMG suggested that the scale and service that 3PLs in India are able to offer today is vastly different compared even to a few years ago. This, he explained, is largely owing to significant private investment that has gone into logistics services companies over the last 3-4 years allowing a few of them to break out of the unorganized lot and offer India-wide, technology linked networks and world class services to their clients. He urged the players in the retail sector to not make their previous experiences a representation of the current 3PL's capabilities and consider adopting this global trend afresh.

Juzar Mustan, CEO of AFL Logistics and Prasad A S R, Head of Brand Distribution & Services of Future Supply Chains shared one voice over the need for more and sensible outsourcing of retail supply chain management with greater autonomy for the 3PL and a longer term view. Marc Dragon, Supply Chain & Optimization Leader, IBM Asia Pacific shared his experiences on how cutting edge technology applied sensibly can inject cost and operational efficiencies in retail supply chains.