New York -> Big _ _ _ _ _ ?
Get that & you’ve got the firm’s name right

(column by Angshuman Paul)

Those were the jazz musicians of 1940s and 50s who were credited with assigning this moniker – Big Apple – for New York. And closer home, it’s Munish Hemrajani who’s credited with assigning this top brand name for his belligerently emerging company, Express Retail Services Pvt. Ltd. (ERSPL). But why use ‘Big Apple’ as a brand name? Reminisces Munish Hemrajani, the founder and Managing Director, “We wanted to give a convenient shopping experience to Delhi ites within walking distance of their homes, and also wanted to give our retail stores a health-oriented image. Especially as, at that time, farm produce retail was not focussed on health standards per se – thus the brand Big Apple!”

The drive of ERSPL towards retail has surely been because of the fact that this sector is growing humongously. Ernst & Young’s sector report forecasts that the Indian retail industry would touch a massive Rs.1.1 trillion by 2010. Even the conservative KSA Technopak puts the estimate at $427 billion by 2010. Add to this, AT Kearney’s Global Retail Development Index ranking of number one to India, and ERSPL’s reasons to retail are complete. As if to provide supportive evidence, Big Apple has gone all cylinders firing to now have a product portfolio that comprises an incredible 2,500 commodities.

Bucked up with an experience in the field of real estate, Hemrajani started ERSPL with just 6 people, a time when even rivals like Modern Bazaar and Sabkaa Bazaar looked foreboding. Hemrajani resorted to the strategy of being the first mover geographically and started with 20 stores that deeply penetrated into areas where others were not present. Not only that, to maintain a fixed supply of staples and farm produce, they started directly tying up with farmers; and to steal the show from kirana stores, they started offering high quality cleaned pulses and staples. “We have our own two warehouses where our own people clean and maintain the hygiene of the product. We also offer our products at lower prices than general stores,” divulges Munish. This enabled Big Apple to generate an extensive turnover of Rs.48 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2007, which was a steady 50% quarter on quarter growth.

But will such price cuts and quality promises help Big Apple to down competitors, especially with competitors like Subhiksha upping the ante with the same strategies, and with the likes of Reliance also roping in sprawling farms to cater fresh foods and vegetables? “I don’t believe in killing the competition by massive price cuts; but of course, we will be venturing into newer arenas like in apparel retailing. And we will have 100 stores by July of this year,” promises Hemrajani.

KPMG reports say food retailing will grow at an exorbitant rate of 9.2% for the next five years. If Hemrajani’s Big Apple has its way, we forecast it’ll grow by much more... too much more!

(End of Angshuman Paul column)

Manhunt Mania – An ‘eye’ for detail!
A perspective change in ‘talent acquisition’ that pulled through and became the answer for ‘talent retention’

(column by Rajlakshmi Saikia)

“The big challenge at Bausch & Lomb was that people engagement and retention needed a fresh introspection on the whole approach to talent acquisition,” says Uttam Ghosh, Head-HR of Bausch & Lomb Eye care (India) Pvt Ltd, while he takes us through the journey of attrition (not so admired by most organisations), and the turnaround the company brought about to consolidate its numero uno position in the Indian eye care industry. Bausch & Lomb concentrates on three businesses – Vision Care, Cataract and Refractive. Notably, the Vision Care division operates through distributors in the country, to service its ophthalmologists, optometrist, optical & chemist customers, while the key accounts for their Cataract and Refractive business are ophthalmologists.

Recent attrition in the Indian healthcare sector has usually been below the feared 20% mark (jocularly called the Hindu attrition rate, a side reference to the classic Hindu growth rate). But here comes the cord breaker. Over the years, though Bausch & Lomb experienced attrition rates much below the industry standards, in the fiscal year 2005- 06, Bausch & Lomb for the first time had to face the challenge of increased attrition rate, which reached an alarming 25%. The hitherto complacent 153-year-old eye care giant was shaken to the core as it found itself suddenly in the throes of a manpower crunch with top executives leaving – lured by better opportunities and fat packages.

On war front basis, an initiative named ‘Project Insight’ was the first immediate step taken by the company. The project aimed at helping them understand why people were leaving the organisation. Although their research brought up reasons that were no different from what others in the industry were facing, Bausch & Lomb was quick to realise that this attrition was not only a result of certain micro issues and flaws within the company, but it was also a ripple effect of the macro change in the industry as a whole. The last five to seven years had seen an increase in the number of jobs in the country, as well as a sense of ‘high employability’ by people, which led to the fast paced movement of manpower across industries and organisations. Over the years, Bausch & Lomb has now re-calibrated its hiring strategy in order to focus on recruits desirous of creating a career in healthcare or the medical devices industry. This is so because Bausch & Lomb products require a lot more than mere selling skills to do a great job; it requires the competencies of consultative selling and demand generation and the right passion for the industry, to stick on. Its employees associate themselves with an enormous pride of providing the best products and services to its customers.

The concept of ‘engagement’ is what Uttam Ghosh calls the need of the hour because the business of keeping people loyal no longer depends only on the salary paid to them. In fact, at Bausch & Lomb, engagement is treated as a ‘hygiene factor’, the absence of which will breed dissatisfaction among people. And this concept of engagement is not just restricted to the HR’s role in creating the right environment, it’s a factor that is instinctive in every member of Bausch & Lomb. Even when the organisation is hiring people, some of the key features they look for in the candidate are whether the candidate has the right amount of coaching abilities, customer intimacy, warmth and passion for effective relationship management and a well demonstrated infectious enthusiasm. At the same time, the company also recognize the need for people to connect with the new environment and therefore,this concept of engagement begins much before the new hire is even on board. One unique aspect of this whole process is that as a part of their comprehensive induction program, every new recruit is assigned a ‘Buddy’ for the first three months; a person who can support the new recruit at any time with any query. Besides this, every Regional Manager personally takes each recruit through the learning and internalization process during the 15 day induction programme.

Other initiatives at Bausch & Lomb are the Global Health Survey (Viewpoints) and the India Team Survey (I Care). These two tools are used to obtain regular feedback about managerial conduct, goal alignment, supervisor feedback, communication within the company, instructions given to employees, training et al. These tools strive to maintain a transparent culture at Bausch & Lomb, which has gone a long way towards making employees more committed to the organisation. According to Ghosh, “The challenge for people management in today’s era lies in the extent of synergy and integration that the organisation’s practices and systems can imbibe, and Bausch & Lomb tries to address this by its formal goal setting and performance review system that takes place twice a year.” These review systems act as follow-up mechanisms to check performance, impart developmental feedback and also to create a platform for cross-functional interactions in the organisation.

As mentioned before, with salary becoming less of a critical retention factor, it has become a basic requirement for all companies to lay adequate emphasis on ‘employee development and growth’. To that effect, Bausch & Lomb’s training and development dimension ensures that every employee’s training need assessment is done on the basis of a formal performance review with intensive feedback sessions, followed by exposing the employee to training programmes to bridge the identified gaps. And to support these initiatives is the exemplary Bausch & Lomb University, which designs all Sales, Behavioral and Leadership related training modules, which are imparted through supervisors, co-workers, through internal trainers or with strategic delivery partners. For example, there even exists a sales certification program, which is not only unique in design, but also blends all methods of learning in delivery. This programme, which extends from 6 to 9 months, has a detailed road-map of training for every sales person, to take them through a series of product training, practical exercises, e-learning and on field activities etc.

Bausch & Lomb’s dynamic nature and transparent systems of operation have perhaps been the key components in enabling such quantum shifts in terms of transforming its people strategy, to the extent that they have been able to see positive results in the last 8-10 months. At this early stage however, Ghosh calls such euphoria as being “cautiously optimistic.” And why not! If only one could really quantify and predict human behaviour – the corporate world would have been one better place, with organisations easily forecasting – through complex tools and complicated extrapolation software – the people who would leave them next week, next month, next year and so on. Sigh... that would be called ‘foresight’ eh?

(End of Rajlakshmi Saikia column)