The Indian retail sector, with its mix of departmental stores, the local kirana shops, luxury merchandise outlets, speciality stores, supermarkets and more, is a huge market. This sector directly employs 40-50 million Indians, and accounts for 58% of the country’s GDP. The Indian consumer loves retail therapy and enjoys the experience of shopping more than the purchase itself.
With the lockdown, this sector was badly impacted. Falling consumer income, restriction on social gatherings, no or limited online presence for several retail businesses, and the deeply hit supply chain affected retail in India quite adversely.
Now as India unlocks, the 15 million big and small retailers are keen to reopen their outlets and restart their operations at full throttle. However, ensuring both the safety of customers and employees and the return of revenues is proving to be a daunting task for these business owners. Some of the top challenges before them include:
Retail chain outlets are spread across the country. While some are located in the green zone, others exist in the containment zones. How to establish uniform safety protocols across all stores?
How to convince customers that a store is committed to the highest levels of hygiene and sanitisation?
How to offer customers the optimum service that has so far been a key differentiator in retail, given the limited staff reporting to work?
How to strike a balance between employee safety and productivity?
How to ensure uninterrupted supply of stocks in store, given the varying restrictions on inter-state travel and the lockdown schedules across the country?
The solution to such challenges lies in giving retailers complete visibility into operations and processes, effective oversight of the location and well-being of employees, and tools that help monitor essential standard operating procedures (SOPs). Technology makes all this and much more possible.
Salesforce’s Work.com helps businesses reopen safely and accelerate on their path forward. Work.com comes with dedicated modules that:
Monitor return-to-work readiness
Gauge employee health and wellness
Offer manual contact tracing
Streamline shift management
Enable emergency response management
Ensure compliance with government guidelines
As a retailer, you can leverage the right technology now to build a resilient business ecosystem that is prepared for the future.
To know in detail how Work.com can help you reopen your business, download the Definitive Guide to Safely Reopening Retail Spaces.
