Bharti and Wal-Mart have tied up for retail but if you want the first stores to open in your neighborhood soon, forget it, because Bharti-Walmart will supply to other retailers to your neighborhood stores and to the big retail giants.Bharti Walmart Private limited, a 50:50 joint venture for wholesale cash and carry and back-end operations in India will be a B2B model serving not just the small kirana stores but even large retail enterprises.
After a big political debate which even saw the intervention from UPA''s Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, questions were being raised on Walmart''s entry in India.This wholesale cash and carry model is perhaps Walmart''s best bet to enter a market it has been eyeing for a while. But the question is will it be easy for Bharti Walmart to convince archrivals like Ambani, Tata and Birla to source from them.
Though no ready investment figures are available the management insists that a model like this will require substantial investment going forward. The first wholesale cash & carry facility will be opened by end of 2008 and over the next seven years the company expects to open 10-15 facilities which will employ about 5,000 employees.
On an average a facility will be set up over 50,000-100,000 square feet and depending on the transaction land will either be leased or acquired. But to begin with the focus will be in North India which is an easier procurement hub.
However both partners are especially concerned about the crunch of talented manpower and it is upto the foreign partner to train employees the Walmart way. But for now end consumers like you and I will have to wait a little longer to get the Walmart experience.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment