Earlier this week, the doyen of organised retail in India, Pradipta Mohapatra, passed away. He was on the selection panel of Chennai Business School that hired me. He was a person who donned many hats — he was a great orator (I have sat through many of his classes), a prolific author (of many books on different subjects), an entertainer (a captivating storyteller), and highly versatile (in addition to serving on the board of RPG group, he was a horologist. He even produced a movie titled God Mother featuring Shabana Azmi).
I had the good fortune of working closely with him at CBS, as well as co-authoring a few articles on various management topics. Today, I will share what I learnt from him — specifically as far as retail India goes.
First, when he ventured into this space, organised retail in India didn’t exist. Today we talk about different classifications such as supermarkets, hyper-markets and other such spaces, but in the early 2000s, there was either a kirana store or a self-service store.
I would credit him for bringing alive a lot of these taxonomies in the retail sector. Nobody could have talked about the role of a retail salesman as well as he could. He would mention how experienced retail salesmen (at the Helvetica shop in Spencers mall) would assess walk-in customers based on their watches or shoes and handbags, and then decide how much time to spend with each of them. Calculating return on investments for each kind of retail store was a favourite discussion point for him.
From him, we also learnt how to estimate cost elements for a retail store, how to arrive at revenues generated and thereby figure out what the final return on working capital can be. The exercise involved a lot of data collection and visits to the stores, but since he was highly respected in the sector, getting such information was never a problem.
Predicting what would happen in the industry was another aspect he would spend time discussing. There were hundreds of retail stores coming up, not only in the food and groceries sector but also other in areas such as eye-care and pharmacy. He always followed them with a keen interest and often asked us what we thought would happen to these, in the mid to long term.
The forecasts he made were studied; he had clear views on how these categories would move. I have had the pleasure of having written articles along with him in the Hindu BusinessLine (2010) on brand-building and the watch industry, among others. He was a regular visitor at international horology conferences and many articles were based on these events.
True to his nature, he was constantly up for good research and would forward material that helped us come up with good output. It was a personally enriching experience to interact and debate with him. Having just moved from the corporate world to academia, he was one of the first people who made my transition easier. He made research look like an everyday thing to do, without the aura attached to it.
I have to talk about his love for history! He used to teach ‘world history’ at Chennai Business School for students of international business. The course was a combination of world religion, world politics and, of course, the historical course of events. The classes were great fun and he was a walking encyclopaedia on any topic. In fact, he would insist that faculty members sit through his classes so that our knowledge improved too.
It is a sad moment, indeed, for those of us who knew and worked with him. There was never a dull moment when he was around and we would always look forward to his visits at CBS. My biggest regret is that I could not chat with him about the impact of demonetisation on retail India. I am quite sure he would have had clear and interesting views on this subject, and it would have been a delight to discuss it with him.
May his soul rest in peace.