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From the Publisher

Conversation with Kishore Biyani

It was a Thursday morning that started like no other. At 7:30 in the morning, I received a call from Sadashiv Nayak, head of our operations in the western region informing me that there was a long queue of customers waiting outside the Big Bazaar in Lower Parel, Mumbai. The store was supposed to open at eight. I decided to check the situation first-hand, but even before I could get started, similar calls from Bangalore, Gurgaon, and Kolkata informed me of long queues of customers waiting outside Big Bazaar stores at those places as well. By the time I was about to leave, news came in that things were fast getting out of hand at many locations. In Kolkata, where one of our stores is located on the V.I.P. road that connects the city to the airport, eager customers had spilled on to the streets and blocked the airport traffic. Our second outlet in Kolkata is located within a residential compound called Hiland Park.

There our managers had started to pull down the shutters after residents of the locality complained that they couldn’t get in or out of the compound due to the large crowds blocking the entrance. A similar step was being taken at V.I.P. Road as well, but Kolkata being Kolkata, customers had started banging on the shutters and heckling the staff. The police, who had earlier insisted that the stores be shut down, was now unable to control the situation and told our staff to reopen the store.

By 10 a.m., I managed to enter the Big Bazaar at Lower Parel. Spread across 55,000 square feet, the store attracts a few thousand customers on any regular day. The store was now bursting with ten thousand people inside and an equal number waiting outside the store. Our attempt at appealing to customers with rock-bottom prices at Big Bazaar stores had resulted in a situation that even we couldn’t have imagined.

Over the years, we have been offering special promotions and offers at Big Bazaar during Diwali. Last Diwali, these offers had elicited an unprecedented response from customers. The sales team was fairly enthused about it and had suggested that we organise an event on which customers could benefit from even better promotions and offers. We had then decided to do it sometime in January or February when retail sales are typically sluggish.

The 26th of January being the Republic Day, is a national holiday when most people spend time at home with their family. This provided us with an ideal opportunity to add more vitality and celebrations for customers. Some smart sourcing deals were struck with a large number of small vendors and a media blitzkrieg was launched promoting the Sabse Sasta Din or Maha Savings Day on radio and in newspapers.

RAJAN MALHOTRA[1]

The brief was very simple, ‘Create a day without a season that truly belongs to us every year.’ The Republic Day was quite close and it seemed to be ideal. I suggested the catchphrase, ‘26 ko 26’ and thus the target of Rs 26 crore of sales in one single day was set — a feat and a number not projected by any mathematical equation but a number born simply out of a desire to unlock our minds and do something truly extraordinary.

[1] Rajan Malhotra is Head, Big Bazaar. He joined the company in 2000.

As always all the teams — marketing, operations, IT, category management — went about what’s called the ‘war drill.’ Yet to be honest there was always that nagging doubt in our mind that we had chosen a window of just twenty-four hours. What if the sales did not take off?

There was hardly any time to correct our plans, if the response from customers didn’t live up to our expectations. I remember discussing the same at our review meeting on Monday. But as usual, KB assured us that all trends were positive and we would have an exceptional day. We made the mistake of not believing in him fully.

The result was both alarming and astounding. Within a few hours the anxiety and excitement had culminated into a fear. The focus soon shifted from meeting sales targets to the safety and protection of thousands of customers who were inside our stores. While our colleagues at the stores are trained to handle chaotic situations on a daily basis, no one was really prepared to handle such a mammoth crowd.

At almost all locations the police came in to control the crowds waiting outside the stores. And within a couple of hours of business most stores had to be closed down so that the situation

didn’t go completely out of hand. At Koramangala in Bangalore, attempts at shutting down the store failed. This prompted the local police official to unilaterally announce on the public address system that the sale had been extended for another day.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 8129111373
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rupa (1 April 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9788129111371
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8129111371
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 318 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14 x 1.73 x 21.59 cm
Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ India
Net Quantity ‏ : ‎ 1.00 Count
Best Sellers Rank: #13,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #33 in Anthropology (Books) #301 in Society & Culture (Books) #305 in Biographies & Autobiographies (Books)
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