Changing Business Environment: Customer Satisfaction

Introduction

This study deals with changing business environment prevailing in the global marketplace. In this particular assignment, retail business external environment is critically analyzed with the help of PEST Analysis. Big Bazaar is a retail industry in India opened in the year 2001. This particular retail industry sells large variety of merchandise at affordable rates. It operates in more than 150 stores. The next concept explained in the assignment is theories of retailing. It gives detailed investigation on the concepts like Wheels of Retailing, Theory of Natural Selection and Accordion theory.

Pest Evaluation of Big Bazaar

Political and legal aspects - Steady Government at the centre smooth the progress of speedy recovery of the economy and at the same time c

Economic facets- India is one of the greatest as well as fastest developing nations that has registered 6 to 6.5% of GDP Growth rate. Retail industry grows at a rapid rate to 300 billion in the year 2010. It primarily augments the contribution percentage essentially in the service sector to GDP. This particular sector mainly increases in the investment on IT that mainly focuses on cost minimization.

Social-cultural factors- There are huge increase in nuclear families in recent times. People most prefer in shopping in local stores at affordable prices rather visiting supermarket stores. There is increase in working women proposition. Constant lifestyle changes and increase in young population proves to be one of the main social factors in the near future (Pantano, 2014). There is shift in product as well as services preferences hampering the growth of retail sector.

Technological factors- Technological development depends especially for fast billing as well as services. It requires better application of information technology especially in modern retail industry like store management, customer relationship management as well as supply chain management and point of sale (Li, 2016).

Competitive Analysis

On analysis, it is noticed that Big Bazaar faces stiff competition from all quarters of RPG Spencer Super Stores, Food Bazaar as well as Reliance fresh stores and Trinethra stores. 

Theories in Retailing

Accordion Theory

The Accordion Theory of retailing refers to a theory of retail institutional evolution from the common, broad-based outlets having wide assortments to different narrow based institutions having specialized assortments and again back to the general, broad based collection (Kajalo et al., 2016).

Wheel of Retailing

The wheel of retailing refers to the procedure followed in retail marketing where a discount store improves the services as well as products in a bid to augment prices once it becomes completely established. A discount retail business might possibly develop into a bigger departmental store by following consequential steps (Kajalo et al., 2016). The first step involved in the theory of Wheel of retailing refers to the process of establishment as well as penetration in different markets. The second step involved in the process of the wheel of retailing includes the process of expansion in the market. Consequently, the next step refers to the process of stabilization of the business model that in turn helps in attraction of business margins. The final step in the wheel of retailing refers to the admittance by other competing retailers that finally overthrows the original one. The retail industry in India also faces the similar cycles and passes through four different stages. The retail company Big Bazaar also passes through the cycles of retailing where the firm has entered the market by following the strategies of market penetration with low margin.

Figure: Stages in Wheel of Retailing

(Source: Goworek & McGoldrick, 2015)

Theory of Natural Selection

As rightly put forward by Li (2016), the theory of natural selection refers to the fact that the retailing institutions that can efficiently adapt to different environmental alterations in the business environment have greater propensity to prosper. However, the environmental needs for a specific type of retailing company leads to evolution of the firm. Again, the retailing firm ceases to exist at the time when the identified need ceases to exist (Cho et al., 2013).

The retail industry in India also needs to assess the business environment of the retail sector in order to gain an overview regarding different aspects of the business environment. The management of the company Big Bazaar in India can also keep a close watch on the different environmental changes in order to adapt to the changes occurring in the business environment in which the company operates (Berman & Evans, 2013).

Retail Life Cycle

As correctly put forward by Pantano (2014), the retail institutions need to pass through particular stages of innovation, development, maturity as well as decline. The first stage of the retail life cycle that refers to the phase of innovation includes the differentiated products, services as well as business formats. The stage of innovation in the retail life cycle can also be characterized by the existence of the few competitors, higher rate of growth and at the same time moderate profit. Again, the stage of accelerated growth is accompanied by the augmentation of the sales figure, increase in the investments and emergence of the new competitors. Again, the phase of maturity can be characterized by increase in competition, decrease in the rate of growth and repositioning (Bawa et al., 2013). Finally, the stage of decline refers to the losses of the competitive edge, decline in the rate of growth, decrease in the rate of profitability and the increase in the cost.

Conclusion

At the end of the study, it is concluded that Big Bazaar requires in focusing mainly on Customer Relationship Management and improved in-store assistance. It will help the company in building loyal customers as well as developing more profitable loyalty cycle. The above study explains the concept of retail business environment using tools and techniques for future business activities. These theories of retailing give proper justification on the specialized assortments in the most appropriate way. 

Reference List

Bawa, P., Gupta, B. L., & Sharma, B. (2013). Retail Service Quality's Impact on Value Delivery & Customer Satisfaction in a Retail Store Environment. Journal of Marketing & Communication, 8(4

Berman, B. R., & Evans, J. R. (2013). Retail management: a strategic approach. Pearson Higher Ed.

Cho, Y. N., Rutherford, B. N., & Park, J. (2013). The impact of emotional labor in a retail environment. Journal of Business Research, 66(5), 670-677.

Goworek, H., & McGoldrick, P. (2015). Retail Marketing Management: Principles and Practice. Pearson Higher Ed.

Kajalo, S., Kajalo, S., Lindblom, A., & Lindblom, A. (2016). The role of formal and informal surveillance in creating a safe and entertaining retail environment. Facilities, 34(3/4), 219-232.

Li, C., 2016, July. Occupational Safety and Health Guidelines for the Retail Industry. In Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016). Isaconf.

Pantano, E. (2014). Innovation drivers in retail industry. International Journal of Information Management, 34(3), 344-350.

Popli, G. S., Madan, D., & Jaiswal, G. (2013). An Empirical Study on the Importance of Retail Supply Chain Management in the New Business Environment of India. An Empirical Study on the Importance of Retail Supply Chain Management in the New Business Environment of India (January 30, 2013).