Odisha Craft – crafting the right expansion strategy

Learning outcomes Familiarize with the retail operations of handicrafts, facility location problem, apply multi-criteria decision through the goal programming approach and solving the same with MS Excel. Case overview / synopsis The case portrays a dilemma in the context of retail operations of a small-scale handicraft company known as Odisha Craft. Located in Odisha, Susanta Mohanty, the owner, was finding it a challenge to decide on the most promising location for his new retail outlet in the neighbouring city of Kolkata. He had five choices for the locations. Odisha craft was established by his father-in-law in 2009 with an objective to preserve and promote the rich culture of the handicrafts designed by the local artisans and ensure sustainable rural livelihood. The company had been facing numerous challenges and the pandemic has given a very formidable blow to the monthly revenues. The case brings out the multi-faceted dilemma of deciding on the facility location in 2020, involving a set of conflicting criteria. The case unfolds a systematic solution approach resolving the dilemma using MS Excel. Complexity academic level Courses such as operations research, operations management, service operations and retail operations for MBA students and trainings for junior-middle level executives. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 09: Operations and Logistics

A Comparative Empirical Study of Discrete Choice Models in Retail Operations

Choice-based demand estimation is a fundamental task in retail operations and revenue management, providing necessary input data for inventory control, assortment, and price-optimization models. The task is particularly difficult in operational contexts where product availability varies over time and customers may substitute into the available options. In addition to the classical multinomial logit (MNL) model and extensions (e.g., nested logit, mixed logit, and latent-class MNL), new demand models have been proposed (e.g., the Markov chain model), and others have been recently revisited (e.g., the rank list-based and exponomial models). At the same time, new computational approaches were developed to ease the estimation function (e.g., column-generation and expectation-maximization (EM) algorithms). In this paper, we conduct a systematic, empirical study of different choice-based demand models and estimation algorithms, including both maximum-likelihood and least-squares criteria. Through an exhaustive set of numerical experiments on synthetic, semisynthetic, and real data, we provide comparative statistics of the predictive power and derived revenue performance of an ample collection of choice models and characterize operational environments suitable for different model/estimation implementations. We also provide a survey of all the discrete choice models evaluated and share all our estimation codes and data sets as part of the online appendix. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.

Consumer Neuroscience as a Tool to Monitor the Impact of Aromas on Consumer Emotions When Buying Food

Building a unique USP sales argument (unique selling proposition) through various forms of in-store communication comes to the fore in a challenging competitive environment. Scent as a means to influence the purchase of goods or services has a long history, however, aromachology as field of in-store communication is a matter of the present. This new trend, the importance and use of which has grown in recent years, is the subject of a wide range of research. In order to increase the efficiency of these elements, it is necessary to familiarise ourselves with the factors that affect the customer, whether that be consciously or unconsciously. Consumer neuroscience is addressed in this area. This paper deals with the comprehensive interdisciplinary investigation of the impact of selected aromatic compounds on consumer cognitive and affective processes as well as assessing the effectiveness of their implementation in food retail operations. At the end of the paper, we recommend options for the effective selection and implementation of aromatisation of different premises, by which the retailer can achieve not only a successful form of in-store communication, but also an increase the retail turnover of the store.

Evaluation Of The Efficacy Of Iot Deployment On Petro-Retail Operations

After the Internet revolution, Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to be the next big technological change, connecting equipment as well as everyday objects to help businesses explore new ways of creating and delivering value. In the Oil & Gas industry context, IoT has been deployed extensively in the upstream sector and also to some extent in the mid-stream sector. However, it’s implementation in the downstream (retail) sector has been limited. This paper explores the applicability and impact of deploying an IoT solution at a fuel retail outlet. In our experiment, a live outlet was chosen in Kolkata, where a limited IoT solution was deployed, for a period of 3 months. Our research shows that IoT implementation can yield significant operational benefits by reducing the response times, leading to increased operational uptime and hence sales. It can also help improve the root cause analysis process by providing increased data to identify the issue(s).

Business Transformation on Retail Operations Due to COVID-19 and Its Impact on Indian Economy

Year 2020 brought a huge challenge in business environment all over the world due to COVID-19. India is not an exception and faced similar challenges which impacted heavily on the economy. India has a huge retail market being the second largest populous country in the world with huge potential and young workforce. It is an important factor for the GDP growth of any country. The aim of this paper is to compare the past, present and predict the future economic scenario by considering various factors which majorly impacted the retail market due to COVID-19. A huge transformation observed in the retail business. Buyers’ choices shifted away from local retail purchases to online. Buying behaviour and consumer spending have shifted towards online purchases and also card transactions. This research also aims to study the impact of COVID-19 on Indian economy and way out of the downfall. Keywords: Buying Behaviour, Economic Growth, India, Pandemic, Retail Business.

RFID Applications in Retail

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is one of the latest product tracking technologies being utilized by retailers. Operations management improvements were among the first recognized applications of this technology earlier in the century. RFID applications in managing retail operations, such as inventory management and control, lead to significant benefits. However, RFID applications are not limited to operations management and go beyond the operations side to offer improvements in other areas in retail such as marketing and managing customers’ shopping experiences. In this research, we review the applications of RFID technology in retail since its introduction and how those applications have evolved over the last two decades to help retailers provide omnichannel services to their customers in the current market. We will demonstrate what strategic and tactical factors have helped retailers implement this technology and what factors have slowed down the process of adoption. We will also report on the latest status of the utilization of RFID in the retail sector.