1. CONTENTS
Topic
Page
BPO Industry Overview 3
Attrition Rate 4
Youth oriented Industry 4
Assumptions about organizational Structure 4
Level of Hierarchy 4
Requirement 5
Job Analysis of TCE 5
Job Description 5
Job Specification 5
Recruitment Strategy 6
Pharmaceutical retail chain Overview 7
External Environment 9
Industry environment 13
Porter’s 5 force model 14
Store Staff Structure 16
Recruitment Requirements 16
Major factors of External environment 16
Sources of Candidates 16
Application form 17
Selection process 17
Job description 17
Job Specifications 18
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2. References 18
Indian BPO Industry: A Transforming Landscape
Despite a volatile global economic climate in 2009 and gradual economic recovery in 2010, the
Indian BPO industry held its head up, continued to take centre stage in global sourcing strategies,
and maintained its position as a strategic offshoring destination. Efficiencies gained during the
economic crisis were not lost and the industry continued to re-engineer internally. Overall, the
BPO segment remained a net hirer, continuing to create employment opportunities.
BPO spend witnessed a recovery during 2009-10, growing at 4 per cent. Revenues from BPO
services rose to USD 158 billion in 2010. The industry was driven by traditional and developing
markets, the emergence and adoption of new technologies, new business models and new
customer segments.
Change too was the norm for the Indian BPO industry. The sector aligned itself to altering
customer expectations and their dynamic requirements. With BPO spend impacted by the global
economic slowdown, customers began looking at getting the highest Return on Investment (RoI)
out of every BPO engagement, through the extensive use of diligence and intense negotiation of
contracts.
In 2010-11, as the global economic tide began to reverse, Indian BPO organisations announced
transformative initiatives, including industry-specific BPO solutions and platform BPO
offerings, to differentiate themselves.
Transformation has in fact become the new theme for the global sourcing industry.
Transformation is about change and not repeating or replicating today’s issues, but doing things
differently, and eliminating activities that do not add value. Transformative service delivery is
business focused, aimed at delivering confidence and managing risks, using modern business
realignment, delivering higher performance and economies of scale, at the same time, enabling
sustained savings and value.
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3. During 2010-11, the Indian BPO sector also focused on value-based Mergers and Acquisitions
(M&As), purchasing small niche and regional players, to fill gaps in their current offerings, and
extend market reach. Though at a nascent stage, some components of BPO delivery also moved
to the Cloud.
The industry remained committed to achieving excellence in business process management.
Additionally, it focused on growing higher end knowledge services, that delivered significant
intellectual arbitrage. The result was that the BPO sector generated USD 14.1 billion in export
revenues in 2010-11, growing at 14 per cent over the previous year. The industry employed close
to 835,000 people in 2011. It accounted for over 34 per cent of the worldwide BPO market, thus
becoming the largest global destination for BPO services delivery.
In the new decade, the industry is expected to build on its existing phase of evolution — BPO
3.0, which is characterized by greater breadth and depth of services; process reengineering across
the value chain; increased delivery of analytics and knowledge services across platforms and
strong domestic market focus and SMB-centric delivery models.
High Attrition Rate
Attrition cannot be blindly classified with a negative connotation. A healthy attrition rate in any
industry is necessary for new ideas and innovation to flow in as well as to facilitate the overall
growth of the industry in terms of knowledge sharing. But after a particular level the same boon
becomes a bane.
Attrition rate shoots up to 55%.Recruiters explain that the high attrition rates significantly
increase the investments that are made on the employees. The problem of losing funds in
employee acquisition is more prominent in the high-end BPO segment. Companies invest a lot of
time and money in training a candidate for the first four months. But these investments do not
always get converted into actual profits. In case of the BPO industry, each agent level
recruitment roughly costs the company Rs. 5000/-. This is the amount which a company needs to
pay the job recruitment agency. Other than the direct cost, an associated cost of training and
administrative service is also involved. Each agent works is non-productive or partly productive
in the organization for nearly the first 2-3 months. Hence an employee leaving the organization
within the first 6 months is a bad investment for the company. Also, as stated earlier the cost of
attrition in the industry is 1.5 times the annual salary.
However, there is another perspective for attrition which is specific to the BPO industry in India.
India at the moment is working on low end Business Processes which do not require quite a lot
of amount of high skills. The reason for India’s success has been primarily the low cost, high
quality labor which India provides. Compared to other competitors such as Philippines, South
Africa, Ireland; India is the only country where we have a balance between the cost involved and
the quality provided till now. For Indian companies to remain successful in future they would
have to keep the cost low. Since the tasks performed by an agent are pretty standard and does not
require added skills, there is no benefit in retaining a highly experienced employee. At the floor
level operation, a non-experienced candidate could work with the same efficiency of a 2-3 year
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4. experienced employee after minimal training. Hence the industry players consider the present
attrition as a positive attrition which is serving the industry by keeping the cost low.
Youth Oriented Industry
For today’s youngsters, the call centers are a welcome addiction. The majority among those
employed in this sector are people in the age bracket of 19 to 25, or young India, to be precise.
Some conservatives may scream that this is nothing more than americanisation of the Indian
culture and these youth have their moral values etc.The industry has woven such magic around
the entire nation that these days a city without a call centre would be hard to find. Call centers
contribute a fair share to the revenue of the Indian BPO industry. About 70% of the BPO
industry’s revenue comes from call-centers, 20% from high-volume, low-value data work and
the remaining 10% from higher-value information work.
The average Indian’s attitude towards life has undergone a drastic change in the last few years.
The motto of today’s young Indian generation is “Live life king size”. The changing lifestyles,
demand for luxury and emergence of high-income spending groups coupled with a thoroughly
cosmopolitan outlook of life are changing the modern Indian. Call centers are a major turn on for
young graduates. In addition to providing employment, the call centres offer excellent benefits,
good working environment and attractive remuneration packages.
English coaching Institutes
The size of the BPO industry in India and elsewhere has increased like no other. In order to
ensure the best applicants in the leading BPO firms of the country, several institutes and English
coaching centers have started operating in different parts of the country to provide practical
training to students who wish to pursue a career in business process outsourcing. The chief cities
in India from where the maximum numbers of BPOs operate are New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata,
Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Gurgaon.
Assumptions about the Organization Structure
The company is a mid size organization employing 100-150 people, dealing with the clients
based in U.S. The company deals directly to corporate houses and does not deal with individual
customers.
This BPO company act as an intermediary between the Advertising Agency which promotes
hotel,inns, motels to international traveller and Hotels and Restaurants. The BPo company
company calls these Hotels and Restaurants on the behalf of the advertising agency and
persuades them to post their advertisements on their website with suitable lucrative offers and
other benefits.The organization targets youth force of age between 18-25 who form the main
chunk of the employees in organization. There is no discrimination on the basis of gender and
equal preference is given to males and females.
Levels of Hierarchy:
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5. Requirement
there is shortage of sixteen telecaller executives and one team leader. Overall four groups are
affected as four TCEs from each group is falling short of, while other six groups are perfectly
fine in their composition.
Job Analysis of Tele Caller Executives
Managing and receiving Calls
Tele Caller Executives are responsible for calling the motels are convincing them to post their
their advertisements on the Advertising agency’s website. Tele Callers have to meet the target of
making calls that has been given by the team leader. They should honestly handle the
representatives of the Hotel's to whom they are talking to, and should genuinely make them
realize the value of advertisement in order to increase their revenue and increase their brand
awareness.
Responding to Enquiry of all kinds.
It is the duty of the Tele Caller Executives that they should handle all kind of enquiries that are
being made by the representatives of the Hotel’s with due patience. As the Tele Callers are well
acquainted with the facts and figures of the advertisement costs and the facts behind that, so they
should deliver the true information without concealing the facts.
Resolve problem within given time frame.
Tele Callers should respond to the enquiry made by them within a given time frame rather than
making them wait too long. It is the duty of the telecaller executive to divert the call to other
telecaller if the information demanded by the seeker is not with him, but the telecaller is aware of
the fact that other telecaller knows about the facts demanded by the seeker.
Preparing daily reports about call volume and customers.
The most important task of the telecaller is maintain the daily report of the volumes of calls
handled by him/her. On daily basis this report is to be maintained and segregation is to be done
between incoming and outgoing calls, and whether the daily target has been met or not, and the
deviation from the target.
Job Description
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6. The job is expected to be undertaken with utmost integrity and commitment. The employee has
to add value to the organisation and safeguard its privacy by not leaking it to friends, families or
any person which may pose threat to organisations growth.
The employee will be provided with an amiable work environment but should be capable of
handling mental stress which is the nature of BPO industry.
Job Specification:
Knowledge: Basic knowledge about BPO industry
Skills: Good command over english
Excellent communication skill
Patient and Pleasing disposition
Basic computer skills
Abilities: Able to handle customer grievances and requests
Able to handle call volume
Recruitment Strategy
Internal hiring with the existing employee referrals
The organization aims to recruit employees through employee referrals as this works in
relatively short time with minimal cost.Moreover as they are well acquainted with the quality
and the nature of the work they will refer only the people with right attitude that fits into the
organization.
Advertising through posting online on job Portals
Online job portals have become one of the largest source of attracting the job seekers. As India is
a booming economy with exponential growth rate in the BPO industry, online portals have been
successful in attracting job seekers in short span of time with virtually no cost to the
organization.
Tie-Up with institutes providing English speaking and Personality development courses.
Candidates can be directly hired from English speaking institutes, as many students during or
after the graduation primarily learns english to join the BPO industry. One of the benefits in
hiring from these industries is that they are already been given training on telecalling, that also
leads to low training costs by the BPO’s.
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7. Recruitment Strategy for Guardian Lifecare Pvt Ltd:
A Pharmaceutical Retail chain
Retail Industry in India: An Overview
Indian economy, with one of the handsome economic growth rate in the world, is also witnessing boom in
India’s retail industry. Although the recent recession slowed down the growth for some time, it still has
great prospects. To show the extent of its scope consider this – penetration of organized retail in US is
more than 85% where as in India it is just about more than 8%.
The Indian retail industry is divided into unorganized sector and the organized sector. Organized sector
consists of the retail shops which are registered, licensed (where applicable) and pay sales and income
taxes. It also consists of big malls which provide a jubilant shopping experience with all the glitz and
glamour. Unorganized sector typically consists of small grocery stores, more popularly known as kirana
stores, hand cart vendors, street vendors, door-to-door direct sales vendors, bargain shops etc.
Though in urban parts of the country, there are many retail shops and malls, a big chunk of contribution
towards GDP from the entire retail industry still predominantly comes from the unorganized sector.
Almost 93% of retail is manned by unorganized sector. Efforts are to bring the contribution to 9-
10% by organized sector. The retail industry also happens to be the largest source of employment after
agriculture.
The penetration of organized retail will happen much faster in the coming decade, even in tier 2 and tier 3
cities, because of the changing demographics of our population and a healthy rate of economic growth.
With good underlying economic growth, increase in disposable income, increased awareness due to
penetration of broadband and mobile devices with internet accessibility, the demand for consumer goods
will rise. With better systems and processes in place, all this is bound to assist in increasing the
penetration of the organized retail sector in India.
According to report by McKinsey & Co., the organized retail market in India is expected to grow
to 14-18% by 2015 of the total retail market in India from 8% in 2008. Its value is estimated to be
around US$450 billion by 2015.
The BMI India Retail Report for the first quarter of 2011 forecasts that the total retail sales will grow to
US$ 674.37 billion by 2014, from US$ 392.63 billion in 2011. The growing wealth with the middle-class
in India, the population size and the big percentage of population being in 30s, makes immense
possibilities for entrepreneurial growth in the retail sector. Some of the fastest growing segments of this
industry are food & beverages, electronics and apparels. The consumer electronics segment is expected to
grow at about 55% between 2011-2014, with most of the growth driven by demand for TVs, mobile
devices and laptops and desktops. With changing lifestyles and habits, food segment is also expected to
double to US$ 150 billion by 2025.
Pharmaceutical retail
Based on a 2006 McKinsey study, the size of the pharmaceutical retail market was estimated at over
US$9.5 billion up from approximately US$3 billion in 1992. In addition, at least another US$10.5 billion
of FMCG products were being retailed from these chemist shops, putting the total size of the total chemist
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8. market at over US$20 billion. All these stores are mostly traditional ‘mom and pop’ stores; the concept of
chain pharmacy stores had started in India in first decade of 21st century.
With over 15 million outlets, India’s retail sector is highly fragmented. Out of this total number of retail
shops, one of the major retail segments is the “Chemist shop”. We can find a chemist shop at every corner
of every village and city in our country under different names, ranging from ‘druggist’ and ‘chemist’ to
‘drug store’ and ‘pharmacy’.
It is estimated that there are between 7.5 lakhs to 8 lakhs chemist shops dotted across the length and
breadth of our vast country.
Five years ago as the Indian retail landscape was being explored, every retail chain took a decision to
launch their own pharmacies inside their supermarkets.
Within a few months, we had home-grown pharmacies in the following supermarkets
1. Big Bazaar (Tulsi)
2. Reliance retail( Reliance Health and Pharma)
3. Ranbaxy (Fortis)
4. Sagar Drugs & Pharmaceuticals' (Planet Health)
5. Subhiksha
6. Vishal
7. Dabur (New U)
8. Zydus Cadilla (Dial for Health)
9. Religare Pharmacies
10. Medicine Shoppe
11. Morepan's (Life Spring)
12. Lifetime Healthcare's (LifeKen)
In addition, there were over twenty other individuals or companies such as CRS, 98.4, Health and Glow,
Lifeken, 24x7, Trust Chemists, Viva, and Rx, which had started their own pharmacy chains, the biggest
being Apollo Pharmacy.
Today there are only four major pharmacy chains left in the country:
• Apollo Pharmacy
• Guardian Lifecare
• Religare wellness
• Med Plus
In addition, there are less than six small chains spread across different cities and states, such as Trust
Chemist in Karnataka, GNRC in Guwahati, Planet Health in Ahemdabad, Frank Ross in Kolkata, and
Viva and 98.4 in NCR.
All these pharmacy chains started off as regional players and today some of them, including Guardian, are
slowly beginning to expand their presence across the country.
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9. External Environment
Demographic Environment:
Demographic environment has been proved beneficial for the company and at the same time also
possesses the challenges before the company. Since the company is providing the solution to the existing
problems with the earlier format of Chemist shops, so company have the immense opportunity to expand.
When the company was started, it started as a regional player but it has the presence at pan-India level. In
Demographic environment, following factors comes in picture.
Population Size:
India is second highest population country in the world with approx 121 crores of population. India’s 70%
population lives in rural India, providing immense opportunity for the company. Guardian started the new
format of Aushadhi stores in India.
Age structure:
India’s total population comprises of 63.6% people in age bracket of 15-64 and 5.3% are more than 65
years of age. Guardian has the products to cater the requirements of each age group. Since Guardian has a
lot of non-prescription products i.e. nutritional products, FMCG products and a lot of other types so
Guardian can untapped this opportunity easily.
Geographic Distribution:
India’s 30% population lives in urban India and company exiting focus are to first explore the
opportunities in urban India. Company has opened 80% stores in urban areas of different states. Guardian
is present in 26 cities in North, East and West India- Mumbai, Gurgaon, Delhi, Noida, Meerut,
Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Jaipur, Varanasi, Hissar, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Allahabad,
Agra, Jhansi, Kota, Mathura, Ranchi, Bangalore and Pune. So we can easily interpret that at present
Guardian is completely concentrated in urban India.
Ethnic Mix:
As the company have the plans to be a national player, then company will have to go through a lot of
challenges in promotion and advertising of private level products in southern part of country due to a
change in language and state government rules are also vary slightly in different states.
Income Distribution:
These pharmaceutical retail chains sell products mainly in 4 categories. These categories are
prescriptions, OTC drugs, FMCG and nutritional & wellness products.
As the disposable income of the consumers have increased due to increase in education label, LPG, and
others, People have started to spend more on nutritional and wellness products. This is here the main
profit lies. Company earns less profit on prescription and high profits on private label brands. Guardian
has 270-275 private label brands. So an increase in income has definitely enhanced the sale of Guardian.
Social cultural Environment:
People have become more conscious about their health. Now more people go for routine check-ups and
ultimately it increases the sale of pharmacies. The one of the most problem with drug industry is that lot
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10. of spurious drugs are available in the market. Patients and doctors both have the serious concerns about
this.
With the busyness in day to day life, nuclear family culture customers in urban area wants better services,
reliability, cleanliness, ambience and availability of medicines.
Initiatives by the Government and NGOs have also helped a lot in the change of social cultural
environment. GOI has also done a lot of work in healthcare sector in its 5 year plan in 2007-2012. Active
involvement of WHO, Bill and Mandela Gates Foundation, Red cross and a lot of international support
has initiated a change in the way of looking of people towards their health and wellness.
Indian workforce
India has a young workforce. A large number of people are entering the Indian professional workforce at
a time of rapid economic expansion. This provides increased opportunity for the well qualified and well
connected individuals. However, access to higher and professional education, socialization, entry and
career progression and advancement is still disproportionately concentrated among certain groups of
society. These groups have traditionally dominated the professional fields. Despite its much strength, the
educational system doesn’t provide sufficient trained talent for the job market, particularly the IT sector
that is the new economy’s engine of growth. And IT has a big role to play for the banking industry, as
today most of the banking operations are depending on IT services for their smooth functioning. This puts
a lot of pressure on employers in India around finding, competing for, holding and cultivating the skilled
employees they need.
Workforce Diversity
In India, the main diversity is categorized based on gender, religion, place of birth (ethno-linguistic
region) and, for Hindus, caste – specifically, whether individuals belong to one of the traditionally
dominant “Forward Castes,” one of the traditionally excluded “Scheduled Castes” or “Scheduled Tribes,”
or the large “Other Backward Castes” grouping.
Earlier in India caste discrimination used to be a big challenge in the receiving employment opportunities
and converting them. In order to discourage this practice government came up with many solutions with
different approaches. Overall, the approach toward tackling caste-based employment discrimination has
been quantitatively fixed in the form of reservations (quotas) in public-sector jobs, state-financed colleges
and legislatures. The pros and cons of this approach are passionately debated, in ways reminiscent of
public controversies earlier and even today in India. Indian government also wanted to extend the same
approach of reservation for victimized social groups in the private sector as well. But the recent attempts
made by the Indian government to extend the reservations system to the private sector have met stiff
resistance from Indian industry, and this initiative is now on hold. Backlash against the existing
reservations system has also won some legal victories. The coming decade will see continuing
controversy and change in this aspect of India’s legal framework. A sign of voluntary change is the
adoption by most of India’s major IT companies of the U.N. Global Compact’s principles regarding the
elimination of discrimination with respect to employment and occupation.
The scope of diversity does not only limit itself to the gender and different social groups which were
underprivileged but also to the persons with disabilities, different nationalities, different cultures, different
generations, sexual minorities such as the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) categories and so
on. Holding a rich diversity always attracts healthy discussions and different viewpoints in any
organization. An enriched, diversified system always leads to efficiency and effectiveness.
Women in the workforce
Men dominate the numbers of those enrolled in higher educational degrees with a whopping 61.7 %
whereas women have secured only 38.3 % out of the total. This is also a very big answer to the question
that why are women less than men in number when we take workforce diversity into account. This is
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11. because when less number of women will receive higher education as compared to men, the economy will
have less qualified female graduates or post graduates ready to pull in organizations.
• Indian Census found that only 31.6% of all workers are women.
• Women are an estimated 38.2% of all economically active individuals.
• Out of all women that work in the Indian work force, only 20% of them work in urban areas.
• Women in India earn 66% of men’s salary for equal work.
• 26.2% of women in India as compared to 9.0% of men face a lack of role models as a barrier to
advancement.
Economic Environment:
Increase in Disposable Income:
Increase in disposable income and change in foreign direct Investment rules have affected the industry to
a great extent. Increase in disposable income has affected the industry in a very positive manner.
Foreign Direct Investment:
FDI has affected the whole retail industry to a great extent. At present Government of India has allowed
100% FDI in single brand retail, 50% in multi brand wholesale cash and carry but GOI has not allowed
FDI in multi-brand retail. There are following global retail players in the Pharmacy retail who can step in
once GOI allowed FDI in pharmacy retail.
• Walgreen (USA)
• CVS (USA)
• Rite Aid (USA)
• Duane Reade (USA)
• Boots (UK)
• Shoppers Drug Mart (Canada)
• Watsons (Hong Kong)
• Nepster (China)
Political Environment:
Government is supporting the retail industry by not allowing the FDI in multi-brand retail because
Government wants these retail chains to develop in a protected environment. In India a big voting section
is in unorganized retail and Government does not want to make them anger. Ultimately it is good for the
organized retail chains. Since India is a country of diversity and these domestic retail chains have
immense experience about the culture, need, and requirement of people of different states that will be a
plus point over global players.
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12. Legal Environment:
In pharmacy retail chain, every store should have a person in-charge who has Pharmacy License. Getting
a Pharmacy License is not an easy task.
The provisions under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act in India are challenging and must be met. Some of the
requirements to get a license are:
1. Minimum area of the store must be 110 square feet.
2. Minimum height between ceiling and floor must be nine feet and two inches.
3. Only one door, both for entry and exit, is permitted irrespective of the size of the store.
4. Ceiling and walls must be made from brick and mortar. Wood or any other material would not do.
5. A pharmacist’s license must be shown along with his curriculum vitae. The original degree
certificate of the pharmacist must be taken by the company since there have been several
instances of multiple uses of the same degree for several pharmacies.
6. A copy of rent receipt confirming that applicant has taken the store on rent.
7. Blueprint of the shop (a photocopy of the design does not work).
8. One refrigerator with a minimum capacity of 165 liters must be in the store. The receipt of
purchase of the refrigerator has to be attached to the application form.
9. Payment of a fee of Rs.3000, and a copy of the treasury receipt.
10. Air conditioning is recommended for all chemist shops, though this requirement is generally not
enforced.
11. The shop cannot be located on a DDA plot or in a flat, or at any location which is disputed or
non-commercial.
12. Proof of ownership of the premises should be presented by the landlord.
13. The drug license is given in the name of the company for a specific pharmacist; if the pharmacist
is on leave and there is no other pharmacist, the store cannot be opened.
Regulatory environment in retail pharmacy sector in low income countries:
Formal pharmaceutical retailing in most countries in the world is governed by regulations concerning
ownership, staffing, medicines, prescriptions and prices. However, in most low and middle-income
countries regulatory enforcement of these regulations is difficult or impossible constrained by limited
government capacity, and complicated by the fragmented nature of pharmaceutical retail markets.
This paper documents the current status of private-sector retail pharmacy legislation and regulation in the
low-income countries where private financing of healthcare is most important. We look at regulatory
frameworks in 25 countries, what legislative and market forces are causing changes in the practice of
retail pharmacies, and what the effects of these changes have been in recent years.
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13. In most countries studied, pharmacy legislation and regulation is fragmented and there is sporadic and
limited enforcement of regulations. Market consolidation through shared ownership, franchise
arrangements, or formal collaboration, is usually impeded by ownership laws. Consolidation in South
Africa has resulted from a recent legislative change, while in India it has been driven by refinement of
existing legislation and changing market forces. In these two countries recent changes have permitted
rapid expansion of pharmacy chains. The early effects of these chains appear to be lowered prices, greater
competition, and an initial balance between newly opened stores in shopping centers and the closure of
independent pharmacies.
Four main factors determine the extent to which consolidation is possible in the private pharmacy sector:
1. Legislation on ownership, 2. Regulation, licensing and registration of pharmacies, 3. Availability of
qualified pharmacists, and 4. Access to finance to set up a pharmacy.
Industry Environment:
Since the operation costs and competition from unorganized sector are very high and margins on
prescriptions are low, very few pharmaceutical retail chains are still viable in business. Out of more than
15 retail chains earlier, very few are still exist. Even in those retail chains very very few are in profit. One
of the drawbacks of other retail chains is that they sell the products of other company. They don’t have
their own label brands.
But Guardian has more than 250 own label products and with time has established a good brand loyalty
for its own label products. The profit margin is 10-15% high on company label products than on the
products of other companies.
Guardian Lifecare Private Limited is India’s fastest growing chain of Health, Wellness and Beauty stores
with over 230 stores in the country. The company has presence in 26 cities, spread over 6 states Mumbai,
Gurgaon, Delhi, Noida, Meerut, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Jaipur, Varanasi, Hissar, Ludhiana, Lucknow,
Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Allahabad, Agra, Jhansi, Kota, Bangalore and Pune.
It is expanding across India by adding two new stores every week. According to the company website, It
serves 10 million customers in a year.
Guardian is the master franchisee for GNC Live Well, the global leader in health and nutrition
supplements.
In addition to retail store operations, Guardian also has a strong presence in hospitals.
Porter’s five force model:
1. Threats of new entrants:
Retail is a capital intensive business and pharmaceutical industry is completely different from the other
retail industry segments. Strict and compulsive requirements of Drugs and Cosmetic act also make it
difficult. Generally supermarket and hypermarket retail chains keep their stores inside the supermarket
and hypermarket which are normally far away from the residential societies. To be successful these
medical stores have to be near Hospitals, clinics or in housing societies so those big players cannot reap
its benefits. For every store there is a requirement of drug license, so your expansion plan also depends
on it. Due to high attrition rate, it is very difficult to maintain staff of pharmacist.
2. Bargaining power of Suppliers:
In pharmaceutical retail chain industry we can divide the suppliers in three major segments
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14. 1. Suppliers of prescriptive drugs.
a. Branded drugs
b. Generic drugs
2. Suppliers of OTC drugs
3. Suppliers of FMCG, beauty and wellness products
In the early years of the inception of Guardian, they used to buy the products from distributers but with
the presence of more than 250 stores, company buy the products directly from the manufactures and holds
good relationship with them. Bargaining power differs with the suppliers of different segments.
Bargaining power in case of suppliers of prescribed drugs:
In case of prescription drugs, pharmacy stores have no power at all because drug manufacturing
companies adopt pull strategy. Ultimate buying power resides with doctors who prescribe the medicines.
Pharmacy stores get fixed and low margins on these prescribed drugs. The nature of this industry is like
buyer does not take substitutes of drugs often. It is very difficult to persuade the buyer to take the
substitutes.
Bargaining power in case of suppliers of FMCG products, beauty and wellness products:
The relationship between the manufacturer and retailer has been started to change. The manufacturer can
no longer dump stocks on the retailer at the end of each quarter to meet their quarterly targets, only to get
the returns later. The modern retailer has become as educated and well trained as the manufacturers. He
can think like manufacturers and can talk like manufacturers.
Earlier, these companies were used to dealing with small stores to which they could push their stocks at
the end of each month, quarter or year. Manufacturing companies are beginning to change and most of
them have set up a separate department for trade.
Since there are a lot of substitutes are available before the buyers and retailers so these are the
manufactures who holds less bargaining power and trade on low margins but high volume.
Guardian carries a very large range of FMCG products and therefore they have strong relationship with
most major FMCG companies.
These companies were receptive to dealing with Guardian, a new retail chain but now Guardian ranks
among the largest buyers in the pharmacy retail segment of the country.
3. Bargaining power of Buyers:
This is the only Industry where the manufacturer or brand owner, instead of treating the person who pays
for his product as the primary customer, accords that importance to the one who prescribe itand the
person who sells it become the secondary customer.
The pharmaceutical Industry sees the doctor as its customer and not the patient who buys its products.
Most Pharmaceutical manufacturers spend all their marketing rupees on promotional activities to woo
doctors. However this trend is now beginning to change through strong implementation of legislation.
The customer who buys the medicines is clueless about what he is buying and has no way to verify or
check their quality.
Issue of ‘Fake & Spurious’ medicines:
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15. The Pharmaceutical Industry was and continuous to be faced with the huge issue of fake and spurious
medicines, and in spite of a lot of media coverage, customers’ general comment is that they are aware
Of the seriousness of the problem, but are also convinced that their chemist would not sell them fake
medicines.
Counterfeit and fake medicine and manufacturers, distributors and retailers are the bane of every society
and the strongest possible action should be taken against them. But the laws in India are very lax and the
implementation of these laws leaves much to be desired.
The motive of these manufacturers, distributors and retailers is simply profit and nothing else. They will
sell harmless medicines –that will never kill or harm the patient who is their golden goose. But whether
the medicines are effective is an altogether different matter.
Guardian has understood this pain of patients and customers and has established the whole company on
the base of honesty, trust and commitment.
4. Threats of Substitutes:
Pharmaceutical retail chains majorly sell allopathic medicines. These retail chains also sell FMCG
products, Beauty & Wellness products also. Herbal drugs, Ayurvedic medicines, Unani drugs , Spa are
the substitutes which are gaining momentum with time and likely to be proved a major threat in near
future. Due to various concerns like side effects, fake medicines people are diverting to these substitutes
but due to the lack of scientific research in these areas there have not been much research to find the
answer of various diseases. With the change in the environment, diseases have become more complex
than earlier and needs extensive research to find out the solutions. Only big MNC can do such extensive
and costly research to find out the solutions.
And looking at the present scenario of India there is much more to do still in case of Allopathic
medicines. People in rural area are still struggling to get genuine medicines that it all depends on the
company to explore and cash the opportunity.
But Guardian has explored the opportunity by adding some brands of herbal products and has also
launched its own Ayurvedic and herbal products.
5. Competition and rivalry among firms:
Guardian has the competition from other organised retail chains in India, Pharmacy stores in unorganized
sector and the global players in near future.
There is intense competition among the pharmaceutical retail chains in India. In the last decade more than
15 retail chains entered in pharmaceutical retail business but only 4-6 are still viable and doing well. Most
of the firms were selling the products of other companies which give very less profit while companies like
Guardian Pharmacy, Apollo Pharmacy, Religare Wellness, 98.40 also manufactured their own private
label products which give higher margins to compensate the higher operation cost in retail chain business.
The other substitute of pharmaceutical retail Industry; Small pharmacy stores(unorganized sector) present
s a different case. In case of threat, the case is reverse. This organised retail sector has been proved a
threat to the existing model of unorganized retail sector. These retail chains have huge capital power,
advance technology, huge experience, better customer service, ambience, high number of brand presence,
and high bargaining power with suppliers, changing buyers’ habits and so on.
And in Pharmaceutical industry manufacturers do not sell drugs directly to the consumers so there is no
threat from manufacturers’ side.
Since GOI has not allowed FDI in multi-brand retail in India so at present there is no threat from the
global players. These global players can be proved strong competitors in the near future.
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16. Store Staff Structure
• 1 store manager
• 1 -2 pharmacists
• 1 nutritionist
• 1 delivery boy
• 1 security guard
Recruitment requirements:
 Hiring: 5 Pharmacists
 Location : Gurgaon, Haryana
 Joining Date : May first week, 2012
Assumption:
 No internal hiring since it is an entry level job.
Major factors of External Environment:
Following are the points which will be need to be considered while going for recruitment process:
 Intensive competition among rivalry
 Strict regulations of Drug & Cosmetic Act
 High attrition rate at operational level
 Sufficient supply of pharmacists
 High training cost
Conditions:
• Local residents will be given preference.
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17. • Male pharmacists will have to work 15 days in first shift and 15 days in second shift. Female
pharmacists will be given duty only in first shift.
• Pharmacists should have done Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science or Diploma in
Pharmaceutical Science
• Pharmacist should be registered with Pharmacy Council of India.
• Pharmacist should be ready for Transfers across city.
• Pharmacist will have to wear lab-coat during duty.
Sources of Candidates:
• Company data bank: Company has the option to upload the resumes on its website so
that whenever there will be a requirement, company can use the database and can call the
candidates.
• LinkedIn
• Employment Agency
• Campus Recruitment
Recruitment yield Pyramid:
Based on the experience of past recruitment process company has decided to follow the following yield
ratio in order to fill all the posts.
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18. New Hires
Offers Made (3:2)
Candidates Interviewed (3:2)
Candidates Invited (4:3)
Leads Generated (3:1)
Application form
Application form should be divided in to 3 sections:
1. Personal History
2. Employment History
3. Personal Declaration
Selection Process:
Selection process includes three steps:
1. Aptitude Test: This test includes the tests of general reasoning ability (intelligence) and tests of
specific mental abilities like memory and inductive reasoning.
2. Area Specific Test: To check the knowledge about drugs, its components and its side effects.
3. Interview process
Job Description:
18

19. • Pharmacist will read the prescription and will check all the medicines before giving to the
customer.
• Pharmacist will have to sign the bill after checking the medicines.
• Pharmacist will have to call doctors in case of any doubt in prescription
• Pharmacist will check the stock from time to time to check the expiry dates of drugs.
• Pharmacist needs to offer substitutes in case of non availability of drugs.
• Pharmacist will try to do cross selling/ up selling to get the incentives.
Job Specifications:
Knowledge: knowledge about drugs (salts and brand names), its side effects, Synergic effects,
precautions, basic computer knowledge
Skills:
Good Communication skills
Confidence
Abilities:
To stand 8 hours during job
Able to handle customer grievances and requests
References:
http://www.coolavenues.com/mba-journal/human-resources/managing-attrition-bpo-win-win-
model-satisfy-employer-and-employee
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Indian-Journal-Industrial-Relations/185430721.html
http://www.bpoindia.org/research/bpo-in-india/
http://www.chillibreeze.com/articles/How_the_Indian_BPO_industry_works.asp
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20. http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2010/01/are-bpos-altering-the-youth/
http://www.coolavenues.com/mba-journal/human-resources/managing-attrition-bpo-win-win-
model-satisfy-employer-and-employee
References for Pharmaceutical retail chain:
http://www.franchiseindia.com/interviews/Debutant/Guarding-health-profits-301/
http://www.guardianlifecare.com/
http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/india/mckinseyonindia/pdf/india_pharma_2015.pdf
http://www.livemint.com/2009/08/16142344/Pharmacy-retailing-to-grow-exp.html
www.cci.in/pdf/surveys_reports/indias_retail_sector.pdf
http://www.google.co.in/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=report+pharmaceutical+sector&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCoQFjAB&url=http%3A
%2F%2Fwww.cci.in%2Fpdf%2Fsurveys_reports%2Findian-pharmaceuticals-industry.pdf&ei=q4pcT-
O_AYPIrQeyofD5Cg&usg=AFQjCNEuNdbgCH8nt-EQc2_teawiH2c13g
http://www.ibef.org/industry/retail.aspx
http://www.ibef.org/industry/pharmaceuticals.aspx
http://www.growthinstitute.in/emagazine/apr11/coverstory.html
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/e202f7/indian_pharma_sect
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