The Hindu Business Line : Expert's advice on retail

WANT to arm yourself with knowledge about a happening thing? Try, The Art of Retail, from Vision Books (www.visionbooksindia.com). "It's fun to go to work because you are challenged every day with a new set of uncertainties about how the customer will react, and you are given the power to make decisions at the store level so that tomorrow you can see the results of your decision," writes James W. Keyes, CEO of 7-Eleven. Data mining and analysis, dynamic response and test marketing, interactive customer service, and viral and cooperative promotional techniques are all standard practices of successful online retailers, says R. Whitney Anderson, CEO of MotherNature.com.

"Keeping customers happy pays off in more ways than just keeping them loyal to your store," advises Steven G. Puett, President of Las Vegas Golf & Tennis. "You have to hire people who like your business and the product you sell," exhorts Jeffrey W. Griffiths, CEO of Electronics Boutique Holdings. "As a for-profit enterprise, our organisation understands that the creation of shareholder value is not an option, but a requirement," declares Jeffrey Stone, CEO of Tweeter Home Entertainment. "In our store, we're looking for the highest margin possible that does not affect the customer's opinion of our prices," is a secret from Dick Dickson, CEO of The Paradies Shops. "The average retailer invests eight hours of formal training in a first-year, full-time employee. We provide more than 241 hours...

And it has certainly been a huge factor in the success of our company over the past 25 years," says Kip Tindell, CEO of The Container Store. And there's more...

Great value for money, with "real world advice from real experts."

The judicial tussle

ALL THE three institutions of state — legislature, executive and judiciary — owe equal responsibility towards achieving the objectives of the Constitution for the benefit of the society.

Thus writes Somnath Chatterjee in his Foreword to The Supreme Court Versus the Constitution, edited by Pran Chopra, from Sage (www.indiasage.com).

Topical, you'd recognise, in the light of judicial challenges to happenings in the House.

The book has more than a dozen essays from notables and experts such as I. K. Gujral, N. R. Madhava Menon, P. P. Rao, Fali S. Nariman, Salman Khurshid, Subhash Kashyap, S. K. Dholakia, Ajay K. Mehra, P. K. Dave, R. K. P. Shankardass, Justice A. M. Ahmadi, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, K. C. Pant, Ramaswamy R. Iyer, Ajit Mozoomdar, and Soli Sorabjee. Good read.

Comprehending competition

ARE COMPETITION issues relevant in the context of the Indian steel industry?

That's a question from A.S. Firoz in, Towards a Functional Competition Policy for India, edited by Pradeep S. Mehta, and published by Academic Foundation (www.academicfoundation.com).

For answer, however, one doesn't have to travel beyond recent headlines such as, "PM takes up Mittal's Arcelor bid with Chirac."

Firoz mentions "the near simultaneous announcements of steel price increases several times in the past" as an indication of "cartelisation and price manipulations".

He writes that prices are divorced from costs and are based on `the best alternative cost principle'.

Elsewhere in the book is an essay on the energy sector by Devendra Kodwani.

"To facilitate price competition in the electricity generation market, the supplier (generators) should not, alone, have the freedom to compete on prices," he writes. "Buyers (bulk consumers and distribution licensees) should also be provided with cost effective access to transmission grids."

Catch up also with: The story of how, "in 1991, the Indian cement industry was formally accused of price rigging, for the first time"; the telecom sector in India is "one of the most open in the world"; and there is "limited use of software in the domestic sectors of the economy."

A book you can't ignore.

Law map of China

A successor to the earlier, Law Firms in Greater China is Chinalaw Profiles 2005 from Asia Law & Practice, distributed by Bharat Book Bureau (www.bharatbook.com).

The bilingual reference has `an editorial overview of the legal environment in each jurisdiction', apart from profiling the leading firms.

One learns that there were only 200 lawyers in the whole of China `at the beginning of the reform period in 1979'.

The number doubled by 1987, to about 450. "Until 1989, all Chinese law firms were state-owned." Now? "There are at least 10,000 domestic law firms and 1,10,000 lawyers registered in the PRC.

Today, almost all commercially significant Chinese law firms in the fast-growing coastal cities are privately owned and managed."

The book notes that an overwhelming majority of local firms have no international orientation and never come into contact with foreign investors or business. International law firms have thriving practices in China.

"Mergers and acquisitions activity has been touted as among the most active practice areas for the past couple of years in China."

A key driver has been the April 2003 law, `Acquisitions of Domestic Enterprises by Foreign Investors Tentative Provisions.'

This was China's first dedicated M&A law with more emphasis on the A than the M, says the book.

Of value, especially to those who are exploring newer terrains of professional opportunities!

BooksOfAccount@TheHindu.co.in

D. Murali

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