There will be a lot of people in India and in the rest of the world who will be rueing the fact that they did not predict the crisis of 2008. They could have actually anticipated this crisis way back and acted on signals that were there even in 2007.

Speak to the average Distribution and Logistics Head about improvement initiatives and the discussion invariably revolves around costs. A majority of the companies view this function as a cost head and focus effort on reducing logistics costs, rather than viewing it as a possible revenue enhancer.

Innovation is a process for creating experiences or effects that people find valuable – valuable enough that they choose to adopt (begin using) the product or service that provides the experience. It is also a transformation process – from ideas or knowledge into value typically, but not always, in the form of money.

Although the need and benefits of enhancing customer satisfaction are well known, we see very few corporates following a systematic process to identify and prioritise improvement areas. A broad-brush approach across relationship initiatives rarely helps.

In the backdrop of the modernization of Indian retail and the existing structure of the cold chain industry in India, this paper attempts to answer two questions – one, to what extent will the demand for cold chains rise in India; second, will this demand be met captively by retailers or will it be an opportunity for independent service providers to flourish.