Introduction to Big Bazaar

Big Bazaar is a chain of shopping malls in India currently with 31

outlets, owned by the Pantaloon group. The idea was pioneered by
entrepreneur Kishore Biyani, the head of Pantaloon Retail India Ltd.
The idea from the very beginning was to make Big Bazaar very
comfortable for the Indian customer. That was -Kishore’s strength as
a retailer. He had a lot of confidence in what he was doing, even
though it defied conventional logic. Big Bazaar is not just another
hypermarket. It caters to every need of your family. Where Big
Bazaar scores over other stores is its value for money proposition for
the Indian customers. At Big Bazaar, you will definitely get the best
products at the best prices & that’s what they guarantee. With the ever
increasing array of private labels, it has opened the doors into the
world of fashion and general merchandise including home
furnishings, utensils, crockery, cutlery, sports goods and much more
at prices that will surprise you. Big Bazaar plans to add much more to
complete their customers shopping experience. If one looks at Indian
bazaars, mandis, melas, they are environments created by traders to
give shoppers a sense of moment, of event, of place. They provide an
inclusive environment where men and women from all castes, creeds
and classes can come and shop at the same place. The founders of Big
Bazaar were from the beginning very clear that they had to reflect the
look and feel of Indian bazaars at their modern outlets, so that no
customer would feel intimidated with the surroundings. In India most
of us are not prepared for the consumerism that is setting in this
country. We underestimate how many people are going to fly and
that’s why our airports get crowded. We underestimate how many
people will speak on the phone for how many billions of minutes and
therefore our cell phone networks are always congested. But the
minds responsible for the huge success of Big Bazaar have captured
and understood the force of consumerism that is unfolding. Big
Bazaar’s all over India attract a few thousand customers on any
regular day, and a lot more if they are offering something extra on
each buy, which they normally are and the sales force at Big Bazaar
along with the executives is prepared for them
Merchandise
“Main objective of the store layout is to maximise the interface
between customers and merchandise”. It provides easy accessibility to
the customers to view the offerings of the store. Layout of the store
has been strategically designed in order to make effective use of
merchandise and passage to draw customers’ attention on store’s
offerings. Big Bazaar has a wide range of merchandise they have both
branded and unbranded products like:
 Home lien items: Like bed sheets, pillow covers, carpets to
kitchen utility items like steel utensils and crockery and other
minor utility items required in a house
 Electronic items: Like refrigerator, T.V, vacuum cleaner, music
system, vacuum cleaner, washing machine. etc
 Mobile Zone: A wide range of mobile phones and accessories is
available at lowest possible price
 Furniture: All kinds of furniture is available that one may
require to decorate their house.
 Star Sitara: In this section all kinds of cosmetic items are made
available
 Opticians: In this section all brands and types fashion glasses are
available
 Men Ladies and kids wear: This section includes fashion and
casusal wear for men, ladies and kids both branded and
unbranded.
 Foot wear: In this section footwear for men, women and kids is
made available.
 Music: A wide collection of CDS , DVDs is made available.
 Toys: All Kinds of toys for children is available
 Stationary: all kind of office stationery and stationery for school
going kids is available.
Location
Big bazaar is located has 31 outlets in India, big bazaar locates its
outlet near the commercial area and residential complex’s so that they
can cover all their target customers for their outlet in phoenix mall ,
lower parel mumbai, is located near commercial areas so that the
working class people can drop in and shop house hold items after
office hrs. On the other hand their outlets in single is a bit different
from what we would see at say, high street Phoenix in mumbai. For
instance isn’t air conditioned instead, there are air coolers installed
inside the store ,also there are many shoppers there on days as an
weekends . Unlike office going people in big cities, people in smaller
towns do not restrict their shopping to weekends .#he choice of
location of Big Bazaar in many ways captures the essence of what
they were doing & they adapt themselves to the habits tastes and
preferences according to the location. One of the distinct feature of
their location is that it is easily accessible and they try to locate their
outlet in such a location where they can reach a large customer base.
Layout
In today’s competitive environment store design has now become a
strategic tool for differentiating the offerings of the store and retaining
customers. Customer’s perception regarding in & store design has
changed. They see shopping as an activity which gives fun and
excitement. Customers like to shop in a changing and exciting
environment. Retailers are developing innovative strategies for store
design. Store design is now become a marketing tool for retailers.
Thoughtful design of physical elements is a significant aspect for
communicating store image to customers. Retailers are giving more
attention on creating favourable in store environment for customers,
this requires deep understanding of the target customers. In retail
environment now more systematic attention is been given to efficient
designing of the store which influences the buying behaviour of the
customers. Visual merchandising and store layout are considered as
most significant elements of in & store design. Visual merchandising
coordinates stores marketing, positioning and communication
strategy. Thoughtful in & store display creates favourable appearance
of the store for the target customer and attracts them towards
products. Effective display provides easy accessibility of product to
target customers and demonstrate the products in a way to make
selection process easy for the customers. Efficient design of the store
layout contributes to profitable utilization of store space. Efficiently
designed layout can create enjoying the environment by providing
convenient shopping. Retailers adopt different patterns of store layout
to encourage circulation of the customers to all parts of the store and
to provide easy accessibility of merchandising. The ultimate
ob0ective of efficient store design is to increase sales and profit of the
store. Directly or indirectly the elements have some impact on the
buying behaviour of the customers. Visual merchandising is
considered to create an interest in the customers and create a
favourable image of the store in the mind of the customers. Store
layout provides convenience to customers and makes shopping
smooth. Retailers always try to create favourable psychological
impact on customers by designing element of the store in most
sophisticated way. Eg. retailers use graphics with social meanings to
associate customers with some life style.
People often complain that Big Bazaar outlets always look very
crowded. But few realize that itis concisely designed to look just like
that. When the shop looks neat and empty, the masses never walk into
it. There has to be what is called the “button brush effect’, and an
organized chaos. As Indians, we like bumping into people, chatting,
gossiping and eating while we shop. Big Bazaar layout consists of
layout of long rows of parallel fixtures, with no aisles because aisles
can be boring they restrict space and can’t be dramatized. At Big
bazaar, they create multiple cluster or mini & bazaars within every
store. It was designed as an agglomeration of bazaars with different
sections selling different categories.
  It uses space effectively.
 It provides easy fitting of merchandise and linking of the
product throughout the store.
 It allows more customers in the store at any time.
 Allows staff of the store to work easily alongside the customers
without disturbing them.
 Provides self service environment.
The structure of Big bazaar at phoenix mall in mumbai covers two
floors that is basement middle level and first floor.
The basement includes:
 Furniture
 Home line
 Mobile Zone
 Star and sitara
 Opticians
 Watches
The middle level includes:
 Electronic item
The first floor includes
 Men, ladies and kids wear
 Apparels
 Foot wear
 Music
 Toys
 Stationary

Interior design
“The interior of a Big Bazaars comprises of the living space of the
store which includes ceiling, walls, flooring and lighting, fixture and
fittings” #he elements of the interior design are selected economically.
The general design of the interior is in uniform with the e'xerior.
Following are the interior attributes:
Envelopes the internal structure and decoration of the building that
provides the physical boundaries within which shopping takes place.
Internal layout: the internal paths customer use are in order to view
merchandise.
Methods of displays including the fitting and fixtures their positioning
and the color and texture are within the product themselves.
Visual merchandising display of the items on sale together with
models, pictures and other items that illustrate product use or create
lifestyle impressions relating to their use”. The interior design of Big
bazaar is very vibrant they have a colour combination of vibrant
colors like blue and orange that leave an impression on Indian minds.
The interior of big bazaar is truly designed as Indian hyper market
that promises one stop shopping. It is designed as agglomeration of
bazaars with differently sections selling different categories. The “U”
shaped section and islands have proved to be more appropriate for
Indain content than long aisles.
Services
Big bazaar provides a wide range of services to its customers like trial
rooms , elevators, car parking , security, baggage counter , trolleys so
that one could shop easily. They even provide them with after sale
services in case of buying electronic items. One of thema0or service
provided by them is one stop shop as one could get a whole range of
items under one shop and at the most reasonable price. They always
have their outlets in such a location where it is easy to commute. They
have also given ma0or emphasis to convince for customers in which
layout has played ama0or role. The layout of the store is so effective
that customers find their way out of what they want. Big Bazaar
provides good employee service i.e their salesmen are always ready to
provide help. Employee service is often neglected as part of good
retail marketing but customer and employee interaction can be used as
the significant tool for retail marketing.

Visual merchandising
Visual merchandising at Big Bazaar uses “Store display for
promotional purpose, but as customers are becoming more
sophisticated, big bazaar has found various techniques for effective
display for providing information and communicating image of the
store to the customers, helping them in taking purchase decision and
creating exciting shopping environment” Big Bazaar not only uses
visual merchandising for promoting their product, but they use it as a
significant tool for creating appropriate store environment and
influencing purchase decision of customers. They use danglers and
hoardings at the entrance of the store as this may be a deciding
element in a consumer’s decision to enter a store. It uses various
visual merchandising like it uses remarkable window display for
creating a shopping environment as it creates initiative impression in
the mind of customers as window display also sometimes become a
deciding factor whether to enter the store or not. Retailers develop
visual merchandising in order to relate customer’s social life with the
product, arouse their personnel interest for the product. “
Retailers can use combination of elements of in store displays such as
colour, texture, lighting, fixtures, graphics, signage.”

Promotion
Big a$aar uses various promotional strategies like the prices on
wednesdays are very low compared to other retailers, this helps is
bringing in a huge number of customers they even have a concept of
“BIG DAY” which means they give huge discounts to their customers
on the 26 of January and 15 August. On such days they come up with
promotional offers like bring old items from your house and take huge
discounts and freebies. They come up with offers like
  Discounts on all school requirements like school bags, water
bottles, lunchboxes.
 Win a pencil case with every purchase worth Rs. 500 & above
 Send us your experience of the “best day that you had in school”
the most humorous one will get a free shopping trip worth Rs
1000
 Discounts ki barish: various discounts across the board
 Special discounts on raincoats & umbrellas
 lucky draw : On purchases worth Rs1000 above : drop in your
name into our drop box & you could be one of the families to
enjoy the rains in goa.

Advertising
Following are the media channel used:
 Newspaper: ig a$aar uses newspaper as one of its media
vehicle because most of the population in urban areas is
educated. They place their full page and half page ads mostly
in times of India or 1industan times. #hey also give their ads
in newspaper in rural areas like “Sangli” in local language
newspaper.
 Radio: Radio is another media vehicle used by ig a$aar
in urban areas “Radio mirchi” is used and in rural areas “All
India Radio” is used widely for placing their ads.
 T.V: This also used as one of its media vehicle when they
come up with huge offers on the “big days” like the 26
January and 15 august.

CRM in big bazaar

The present study is to understand the impact of Customer
Relationship Management on Big Bazaar and to find the gap in CRM.
Analysis:
1. Frequency of visiting Big Bazaar: 34.40% are visiting once in a
month, 12% twice in a month, 9.60% visit more than twice and 44%
of respondents are visiting rarely.
2. Offers and discounts.: 3.20% of respondents are highly dissatisfied,
4% dissatisfied, 42.40% rated neutral, 47.2% are satisfied and 3.20%
are highly satisfied.
3. Services of Big Bazaar associates: 2.40% of respondents rated
poor, 11.20% rated average, 37.60% rated satisfactory, 47.20% rated
good and 1.60% rated excellent.
4. Quick response by customer service department in meeting
customer needs: 2.40% of respondents are highly dissatisfied, 1.60%
dissatisfied, 43.20% rated neutral, 51.20% are satisfied and 1.60% are
highly satisfied.
5. Home delivery service.: 4% of respondents are highly dissatisfied,
2.40% dissatisfied, 44% rated neutral, 47.20% are satisfied and 2.40%
are highly satisfied.
6. Replacement of defective products: 3.20% of respondents are
highly dissatisfied, 5.60% dissatisfied, 39.20% rated neutral, 48% are
satisfied and 4% are highly satisfied.
7. Special offers and gifts to frequent customers: 2.40% of
respondents are highly dissatisfied, 4% dissatisfied, 29.60% rated
neutral, 57.60% are satisfied and 6.40% are highly satisfied.
8. Customised products: 1.60% of respondents are highly dissatisfied,
2.40% dissatisfied, 33.60% rated neutral, 57.60% are satisfied and
4.80% are highly satisfied.
9.Phone calls or messages on special occasions and to inform
availability of products: 50.40% of the respondents received and
49.60% have not received any phone calls or messages.
10. The feeling of comfortability while shopping at Big Bazaar:
0.80% of respondents are highly dissatisfied, 1.60% dissatisfied,
24.80% rated neutral, 66.40% are satisfied and 6.40% are highly
satisfied.
11. Will you suggest this mall to your friends or relatives: 90.40% of
the respondents have responded yes and 9.60% responded no.
12. Overall experience with Big Bazaar: 0.80% of respondents are
highly dissatisfied, 1.60% dissatisfied, 28% rated neutral, 62.40% are
satisfied and 7.20% are highly satisfied.
FINDINGS
1. Most of the customers are visiting only once in a month and some
are rare.
2. Most of the customers are satisfied with the offers and discounts at
Big Bazaar.
3. Big Bazaar associates have give good services to the customers.
4. The customer service department have given a quick response to
customer needs but still some are not satisfied
5. The home delivery service is also satisfactory at BigBazaar.
6. There are also dissatisfied customers in replacement of defective
items.
7. Most of the customers are neutral in rating the special offers for
frequent customers.
8. Big Bazaar is good in offering customised products but still some
are not satisfied.
9. Only half of the sample customers are getting messages or phone
calls from Big Bazaar about offer and on special
occasions.
10. Almost 85% of the customers are feeling comfortable in shopping
at Big Bazaar.
11. 90% of the respondents are willing to suggest this mall to their
friends and relatives.
12.While rating the overall experience with Big Bazaar, most of the
customers are satisfied but still there is a gap in satisfaction.

SUGGESTIONS
1. Big Bazaar management should take some more measures to attract
customers to visit frequently.
2. Continue offers and discounts as customers are more attracted to
them.
3. Big Bazaar associates must be trained more to provide services
more efficiently.
4. Must focus on replacement policies and satisfy the customers.
5.Special offers for most frequent customers must be taken care of.
6. Must focus on more customised products as customer satisfaction is
more important for the growth of the
organisation.
7. Making phone calls and messeges to frequent customers about the
availability of products will maintain good relations with customers.
So Big Bazaar management must keep an eye on it.
8. Even though most of the customers are satisfied, some are still
unsatisfied. So Big Bazaar management should focus on attaining
100% satisfaction rate.

HISTORY of big bazaar:

Big bazaar is a hypermarket format that combines the look, touch and
feel of indian bazaars with the choice and convenience of modern
retail in 2008. Big bazaar opened its 100th store, marking the fastest
ever organic expansion of a hypermarket. The first set of big bazzar
store sopened in 2001 in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bangalore. The
group‟s speciality retail formats include books and music chain,
depot, sportswear retailer, planet sports, electronics retailer, e-zone,
home improvement chain, home town and rural retail chain, aadhar
among others. It also operates popular shopping portal,
futurebazaar.com. and future capital holdings. The group‟s financial
arms provide investment advisory to assets worth over $1 billion that
are being invested in consumer brands and companies, real estate,
hotels and logistics.
Operations:
Most of big bazaar stores are multi-level and are located in stand-
alone buildings in city centres as well as within shopping malls. These
stores offer over 200,000 SKUs in a wide range of categories which
are led primarily by fashion and food products. Food bazaar, as
upermarket format was incorporated within big bazaar in 2002 and is
now present within every big bazaar as well as in independent
locations. A typical big bazaar is spread across around 50,000 square
feet (4,600 metre square) of retail space while the larger metropolises
have big bazaar family centres measuring between 75000 square feet
(7,000 metre square) and1,60,000 square feet(15000 metre square).
Big bazaar express stores in smaller towns measure around 30000
square feet(2800 metre square)
Human resource department:
The HR department of big bazaar is very dynamic. Employees are the
biggest strength and asset of the organization and the HR department
realises this very well. This is very evident from the way the HR
department handles all its employees. They take utmost care to select,
train, motivate and retain all the employees. They have continuous
developmental programmes for all the employees. There are two
shifts for the employees. The first shift employees arrive at 10 AM in
the morning and leave at 7:30 in the evening, while the second shift
employees report at 12:30 in the afternoon and leave at the time of
store closing(10 PM).
Recruitment procedure:
Following are the main sources through which big bazaar recruits its
employees:

Consultancy services- The top level management employees are

recruited through private consultants. They are usually appointed as
departmental managers.
Walk inns- This is the main source through which big bazaar recruits
its employees. People seeking jobs usually approach the human
resource department for job vacancy through this mode. Employees
who get selected from this source are appointed at the entry level as
team members.
Employee referrals- This is the other main source through which
employees are selected. Candidates who have given their previous
employer as referrals are first interviewed and from their previous
employer opinion is taken about their behaviour and performance in
the job. If they receive a positive opinion from their previous
employer, they are selected
Campus recruitment- Young people bring new ideas and fresh
enthusiasm, therefore, big bazaar visits some of the reputed
educational institutions to hire some oft he most talented and
promising students as its employees.
Selection procedure:
The following is the selection procedure that the human resource
department practices to hire its employees:
Interview- Candidates for the entry level jobs are interviewed by a HR
person. They are asked few basic questions about their education,
previous work experience and if any languages known etc. This is
done to evaluate the candidate‟s ability to communicate freely and
also to evaluate other skills.
Psychometric tests- Candidates for higher and top level jobs are asked
few questions which basically test their sharpness, analytical ability
and ability to handle stress, presence of mind etc. This is done
because managers are required to make some vital decisions under
stressful conditions.
Group discussion-In campus recruitment, students are required to give
written aptitude test and group discussion where they will be given a
topic on which the group has to discuss and arrive at a solution or a
decision which is accepted by the whole group. Finally a formal
interview is be conducted to assess the overall skills of the students.
Description of job profile:
Store manager- the store manager along with the assistant store
manager takes care of the overall management of the various
divisions. He is the overall head of the outlet.
HR manager -he is responsible for managing, overseeing the
personnel department within the organisation.
Departmental manager and assistant departmental manager-every
department has a departmental manager and assistant departmental
manager who works and focuses on achieving the sales target for their
respective department.
Team leader and team members- the team members are those who are
in direct contact with customers helping them in their purchase. They
report to their respective team leaders who supervise the work of team
members and in turn reports to departmental manager
Marketing manager- the marketing manager strategies various
advertisement schemes, decides product price and takes care of
promotion of the products. Among various roles marketing manager
also determines the demand of product and services in the market.
Housekeeping and maintenance-
housekeeping staff takes care of the cleanliness of the store and the
maintenance staff is responsible for the systematic arrangement of the
various products in their respective shelves.

EXISTING ARCHITECTURE of IT System(Hardware)

The company maintains a 3 tier architecture.
4.1 Client: The client represents the face of IS, through which data
relating to various retail operations could be keyed in and data stored
in database can be extracted. It constituted the Terminals at the
counters.
4.2 Application Server: The middle tier will comprise of clustered
servers also called transaction servers, as they facilitate transactions
taking place in the big bazaar. This is essential for the system to
handle high workloads, especially during peak hours. The middle tier
will serve as an interface between the clients and the database. The
application server runs on a Dell Server.
4.3 Database Server: The database server will receive and process
queries received from the middle tier transaction servers. All the data
will be stored in this database server. The database server is located in
Mumbai. The system runs on a HP Super dome server on HP UNIX
11i and the database is from Oracle.
4.4 Inventory management: For this bar-coding is used. Around 80
bar-coding machines are used in Calicut Big bazaar branch.
4.5 Personnel management: For this attendance swapping machines
are in place to keep track of in and out time of employees. Also an IT
system, called the PECK system, is used for automatic ordering of
items whose stock goes below a minimum prescribed level. The
reorder level depends on the Minimum Base Quantity (MBQ).
Suppose,
Improving Warehouse Management by strategic use of IT
Big Bazaar faces many challenges. Not only it has to manage and
coordinate a large number of local, regional, across complex supply
chains but also the customers demand an increasingly large variety of
products and faster deliveries, which often means that it has to hold
smaller quantities of a larger range of SKUs. To satisfy customer
demands and execute on its business strategies, you need a complete
and accurate picture of where inventory is deployed and of its
movement across the supply chain network. At the same time, you
need to keep supply chain costs low, especially given fuel costs.
Optimizing transportation management – and synchronizing it with
warehousing plans to meet fluctuating customer demands and store
needs -is essential to competing successfully when margins are tight.
5.3.1 Billing System
The company has successfully implemented an ERP system with a
comprehensive set of accounting applications. This helps in
integrating the cost, profit, and revenue information of sales that are
made, and presents in a granular way. The system is a very robust one
that has failed only once in the past 3 years.
5.3.3 Order Tracking
On the business side ERP is useful in order tracking. When the
company receives orders for a product, being able to properly track
the orders allows the company to get detailed information on their
customers and marketing strategies. If different software packages are
being used, this data may not be consistent.

5.3.4 Customer Relationship Management

ERP is highly useful in Customer Relationship Management as it
helps in providing the best customer services by immediately
attending the customer queries and with timely delivery of products.
All customer delays have been effectively removed by the
implementation of the ERP system as it aids in resolving the customer
payments well before the scheduled deadline.