Future Group and Reliance

Proposal on comparing and contrasting the resources, capabilities and

competencies of two leading Retail firms in India Future Group and Reliance

Background
Future group
Future Group is an Indian private conglomerate, headquartered in Mumbai. The
company is known for having a significant prominence in Indian retail and fashion
sectors, with popular supermarket chains like Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar, lifestyle
stores like Brand Factory, Central etc. and also for having notable presence in
integrated foods and FMCG manufacturing sectors.
The Future group companies can be segmented based on Target market as:

Retail
Future Retail
Ltd

Future
Consumer
Enterprise
Limited

Future
Lifestyle
Fashion Ltd

The Future group retail services can be segmented based on operating companies
as:

Future
Retail Ltd

Food
Bazaar

Future
Bazaar.c
om

FBB

HomeTo
wn

The brands under Future group India are:

Fashion and Lifestyle

Indigo Nation

Big
Foodhal Easyda
Bazaa
E Zone
l
y
r

Scullers

John Millers

All

Rig

Integrated Foods and FMCG

Tasty Treat

Fresh & Pure

Ektaa

Premium Harvest

Mera Swad

Pratha

Punya

Sach

Reliance (Retail)
Reliance Retail Ltd. is a subsidiary company of Reliance Industries. Founded in 2006
and based in Mumbai, it is the largest retailer in India in terms of revenue. Its retail
outlets offer foods, groceries, apparel and footwear, lifestyle and home
improvement products, electronic goods, and farm implements and inputs. The
companys outlets also provide vegetables, fruits and flowers. It focuses on
consumer goods, consumer durables, travel services, energy, entertainment and
leisure, and health and well-being products, as well as on educational products and
services.
It has a total of 3,383 stores as of June 2016 in India with an area of over 13 million
square feet across 210 cities.
There are over 45 Subsidiaries & divisions of Reliance Retail .Following are the major
divisions:

Reliance
Retail
Relianc
e Fresh

Reliance
Digital

Relianc
e LYF

Relian
ce
Jewels

Relianc
e Time
Out

Reliance
Trends,
Reliance
footprint

Relian
ce
Market

Project Methodology
The project will involve analyzing, comparing and contrasting the resources and
capabilities of the Future Group and Reliance retail. These two dimensions will be
used to arrive at their respective Competencies and finally derive their competitive
advantage. The competitive advantage of both groups will then be compared.
F.G

Resources

Relian

Relian

Distinctive
Competencie
s

F.G

Capabilities

F.G

Competitive
Advantage

Relian

Competencies
Distinctive competencies are firm specific strengths that allow a company to
differentiate in products from those offered by rivals and/or achieve substantially
lower cost from its rivals.
Distinctive competencies arise from two complementary sources:

Resources
Capabilities

F.G
Relian

Since we are analyzing two business groups of India with number of operating
companies or independent business units in the retail industry we will also analyze
if they are:

Transferring competencies: Involves taking a distinctive competency

developed by a business unit in one industry and implanting it in a business
unit operating in another industry. The second business unit is often one a
company has acquired. Thus studying the companies acquired by these
groups will be required for determining if the groups are transferring
competencies. In the context of this project business units can be retail in
everyday products, retail in food, retail in fashion or retail in consumer
durables.

Leveraging competencies: Involves taking a distinctive competency

developed by a business unit in one industry and using it to create new
business unit or division in a different industry. Leveraging competencies is
different from transferring competencies in the sense that in case of
leveraging competencies, an entirely new business unit is created whereas
transferring competencies involves sharing of competencies between two
existing businesses.

Resource Analysis
Resources refer to the assets of a company. Resources can be divided into:

Tangible Resources
Intangible Resources

Tangible Resource Analysis will include analyzing the physical entities owned by
the group like land, buildings, plant, equipment, inventory and money. Inventory,
money and even equipment in some cases will be difficult to analyze for the two
groups in this project and thus these dimensions will lie beyond the scope of the
project.
Intangible Resources are nonphysical entities that are created by managers and
other employees such as brand name, reputation of the company, knowledge that
employees have gained through experience, and the intellectual property of the
company including that protected through patents, copyrights and trademarks. For
the two groups being studied in this project, determining level of employee
knowledge as an intangible resource will lie beyond the scope of the project. Brand
name and reputation among consumers can be analyzed through a consumer
perception survey. Intellectual property for the companies will be compared based
on quantity and to some extent quality of patents, copyrights and trademarks.
Resources will be considered particularly valuable during the analysis if they enable
a company to create strong demand for its products and/or to lower its costs.
Also resources of the company will be considered more valuable if they are:

Rare, that is Competitors do not possess them

Difficult for rivals to imitate, that is there barriers to imitation

Capability Analysis
Capabilities refer to a companys skill at coordinating its resources and putting them
to productive use. These skills will be identified by getting deeper insight into the
organizations rules, routines and procedures for Future group and Reliance. The
companys internal process management will be analyzed by studying:
Organizational structure
Processes
Control systems
Hiring systems
Capabilities are intangible and they reside in the way individuals interact, cooperate
and make decisions within the context of the organization. Thus capabilities for both
groups can be difficult to analyze.
Like resources valuable capabilities are also likely to lead to a sustainable
competitive advantage.