Retail Icons of India: The People, Ideas and Events that’ve transformed India’s consumption story, a collector’s edition book narrating lessons from retail leaders, major developments and events impacting, facilitating and transforming retailing in India launched on August 26 at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai at an exclusive ceremony in the presence of leading lights and luminaries from India’s retail and retail support sectors.
Readers will be introduced to little–known facts, stories and learnings from over 100 of India’s most impactful, innovative and influential business leaders in retailing and allied businesses over the past 25 years through this remarkable volume.
As an instance, an excerpt from the feature on Kishore Biyani, Group CEO, Future Group as published in the book goes: “Over the next five years, you will find the boundaries between digital and physical retail networks completely vanishing; retail will be a very personalised and customised experience for every customer. And you will notice retailers building large ecosystems for new businesses in and around their areas of operations.”
Also featuring in the book is this observation from Amit Agarwal, Senior Vice President and Country Head, Amazon India (excerpted from his feature): “As a leader, it is essential that you are willing to fail and be misunderstood. In his shareholder letter, Jeff (Bezos) highlights that with your scale, the quantum of your failures should increase or you are not inventing big enough.”
“This is our tribute to the pioneers, innovators, disruptors and facilitators who’ve created or nurtured the entire ecosystem for retail to evolve in India and have transformed consumption patterns and channels irrevocably,” says Amitabh Taneja, Chairman & Managing Director, IMAGES Group. “In many ways, it reflects the longevity and depth of our collaboration with the entire retail sector, as we’ve evolved into India’s largest retail intelligence organization over the past 25 years.”
Beginning with a detailed narration of retail’s evolution in India by Devangshu Dutta, CEO, Third Eyesight, the tome pays homage to four iconic retail leaders whom the industry and India have tragically lost over the past years including Chetan Shah of Pepe Jeans, Ved Prakash Arya of Globus, Raghu Pillai of Future Value Retail and V G Siddhartha of Coffee Day Enterprises.
Further on, the book features four distinct sections, under which over 100 Retail Icons of India are featured: Pioneers, Modernists, Facilitators and Disruptors. Personality insights, little-known anecdotes and business learnings from their professional journeys make for a truly differentiated content structure of the book.
“The process of conceptualising, curating and producing this encyclopedic volume has taken well over a year, reflecting IMAGES Group’s tenacity and commitment to create a collector’s special that will be time-agnostic,” says Nupur Chakraborty, Curator and Editor, Retail Icons of India.
Priced at Rs 10,000, Retail Icons of India will be available in select bookstores and lifestyle retail destinations from September 2019 onwards.
