Good Afternoon and welcome to the Panel Discussion on Modern Retail: Practices and

Perspectives. Modern retail has undergone dramatic changes over the recent years. Business
have moved from street selling to electronic selling. Products are reaching consumers at their
choice of place and time. Retailers in emerging markets are constantly evolving to create higher
value and lower prices for their customers. To deliberate this further, we have with us today
some very eminent panelists with a deep understanding and experience in this area.
Let me introduce our guests to you. I will start with the chairperson of the panel discussion,
Mr.Venkat Ram, Chairman, British Standard Institution.

Mr.Venkataram is a graduate from IIT Delhi. His career started with Simon Carves where he was
involved in construction of a refinery, a fertilizer plant, an oil and gas terminal and a boiler. After
5 years with Simon Carves, he joined Det Norske Veritas (DNV) as a Field Engineer for project
inspections. He spent 6 years in Iraq in various oil and gas projects. He later returned to India
and worked in projects such as IFFCO Aonla, NFL Guna and other sites ensuring that the
projects were constructed to specifications.
Following the introduction of ISO 9000 and its certification, he was one of the pioneers and a
prime driver of the new concept of managing businesses. He headed the certification operations
of DNV covering Middle East, South and South East Asia with countries starting from Egypt,
through Middle East, Iran, India and its neighbors, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and
Vietnam. He later headed the internal global business process re-engineering project as Director.
After completing 25 years with DNV he joined British Standards Institution (BSI) in 2006 as the
Managing Director for India. He continues to help the Indian industry with the latest standards
based management approach that includes Business Continuity Management, Energy
Management and more recently Risk management, and he is one of the few experts in this field,
having practiced Risk Management in organizations for over 15 years. He has facilitated several
risk assessment workshops in companies, using a model developed by himself. He has created
the BSIs global courses on Risk Management.
I request Mr.VenkatRam to kindly take his seat on the dias. (Kanishk to escort to dias)
I now request Ms.Karishma to extend a floral welcome to Chairperson Mr.Venkat Ram.
Welcome Sir.
Our first panelist is Prof.Badal Mukherji, Professor Emeritus, JNU.
Prof. (Dr.) Mukherji gained his Masters in Economics from Calcutta University and went on to
gain a PhD from MIT, under supervision of Nobel Laureate in Economics, Paul Samuelson. He
has taught around the globe and has served Delhi School of Economics for 34 years and retired
as Director of the Delhi School of Economics in 2005. His research interests include the theory
of economic growth, interlinked markets, game theory and the problems of agriculture in the
Indian economy. Currently he is professor emeritus Jawahar Lal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi
after completing his term at TERI University as Head of Economics Department.

I request Prof.Badal Mukherji to kindly take his seat on the dias. (Mahim to escort to dias)
I now request Ms.Karishma to extend a floral welcome to Prof.Badal Mukherji. Welcome Sir.
Our second panelist is Dr. Rajnandan Patnaik, Professor of Strategy at IMT Nagpur and
Chairperson: International Relations & Editor of IMT Case Journal. He has more than 11 years
in teaching and 9 years in industry.

Dr.Patnaik teaches Strategy Formulation and Strategy Implementation, and Capsim simulation
game as advanced elective in Strategic Management. He is also a visiting faculty to new IIMs on
Strategic Alliances and Joint Ventures. His research Interests lie in Complex Adaptive Systems,
Evolution of Industry through Punctuated Equilibrium, Industry Dynamics, Competitive
Strategy, Corporate Strategy, and Case Research.

Has published more than 25 journal papers, 40 magazine articles and book reviews, a book
Value Chain Revolution and about 10 teaching cases. He has a Ph.D. (Business Management),
Utkal University , MBA (Strategy), University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and BE
(Mech.), Utkal University, Orissa

I request Dr. Rajnandan Patnaik to kindly take his seat on the dias. (Karan to escort to dias)
I now request Ms.Karishma to extend a floral welcome to Dr. Rajnandan Patnaik. Welcome Sir.
Our third panelist is Mr.Rohit Bhatiani, Associate Director, Strategy Transaction Services,
KPMG India Private Limited. An MBA and a B. Tech, Rohit is part of SSG, which provides
consumer market, food and retail intelligence and business due diligence and advice to clients.
He has 11 years of experience in Strategy Consulting in the Food and Consumer Goods domain
with KPMG and KSA-Technopak.

He has been actively involved in Market assessment and India entry strategy for UKs largest
health and beauty retailer, UK based footwear retail chain, and a leading UK based department
store apart from a leading US based ice cream retail chain. He has also designed Retail entry
strategy for leading Indian companies covering various segments including department stores,
health and beauty and pharmacy.

I request Mr.Rohit Bhatiani to kindly take his seat on the dias. (Kanishk to escort to dias)
I now request Ms.Karishma to extend a floral welcome to Mr.Rohit Bhatiani. Welcome Sir.

May I now request Chairperson Mr.VenkatRam to kindly take the session forward.