I Want to Reach the Number of Stores that the Indian Customer Wants

How supermarket specialist Damodar Mall, Chief Executive Officer, Value Formats, Reliance Retail Ltd., is helping the business meet the aspirations of India's unique, assertive and emerging consumers with a cart loaded with experience and customer orientation

- Shiv Joshi

Retail veteran Damodar Mall has earned the moniker SupermarketWala for his hugely successful book with the same title as well as his contribution to shaping the course of modern grocery retail in India working closely with pillars of Indian retail like Radhakrishna Damani, Kishore Biyani and now Mukesh Ambani.

However, for Mall, who is now the Chief Executive Officer of the grocery business of Reliance Retail Ltd. (RRL), becoming a grocery retailer was never part of his career plan."Selling 'daal-chawal' as a chosen vocation for the educated son was not my parent's idea of smart choices," he wrote in a blog on Forbes.

Finding His Calling

It happened as a result of his visit to Sao Paulo, Brazil during his stint at Hindustan Unilever, which he joined after completing his postgraduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore after a Bachelor of Technology degree from the coveted Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

In Brazil, Mall saw successful modern retail in a developing market. Driven by the realisation that if it can happen in Brazil, it can happen in India, he returned with a project plan to start a modern supermarket in India. His project was for 'Annapurna Supermarkets' by HUL. When he did not get the required support from Unilever as it was not aligning with the FMCG behemoth's global business model, Mall decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge.

He found a backer in the legendary stock market investor Radhakrishna Damani, who shared his vision. Together, they roamed the streets studying the supermarkets of the time Apna Bazaar, Sahakari Bhandar and Raigad Bazaar-all run by cooperative societies.