The Indian retail industry which witnessed disruption during the pandemic-induced periodic lockdowns is witnessing a massive turnaround. Most retail spaces’ footfalls are back at the pre-covid levels. By 2030, Retail in India is expected to contribute 10 percent to the GDP and 8 percent to employment as per a report by World Bank. During Covid times, there was a mass perception that a major chunk of shopping could move online. However, the current growth in retail leasing has proved that there is space for both online and offline formats to co-exist and grow at the same time.
Tier 2 and 3 cities are further driving the next phase of growth for India’s retail sector. Over the past decade, the shift in consumption patterns in smaller towns has resulted in higher purchasing power on discretionary items in these markets. Retailers are looking beyond the top metros to fuel expansion as consumers’ appetite for branded goods and access to quality retail infrastructure.
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Unify Facility Management is increasingly using the data from the trends to acquire further traction in the retail vertical while also meeting the ever-changing customer expectations. Commenting on the same, Saurabh Agarwal, M.D., Unify said “Retailers and mall developers are now looking to leverage the buying power of the increasing populace in tier-II cities as these cities are poised to be the new growth vectors in the coming years. We at Unify are bullish about the growth of retail throughout the country and have wrought ourselves accordingly,” Secondary reports from CBRE and the Kearney India Retail Index have identified 10 such high-growth cities. Unify has spruced up hiring in these cities to ensure that their clients get the much-needed operational support when they launch. They already have offices in three of them i.e., Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Kochi. The other seven high-growth centers are Chandigarh, Jaipur, Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Visakhapatnam, Lucknow, and Coimbatore.” Unify is operational in these centers as well.
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India has emerged as the world’s fifth-largest global destination in the retail space and is expected to reach a whopping US$ 2 trillion in value by 2032, according to a recent analysis by the Boston Consulting Group. It is one of the top sectors for Unify. The company has the mandate for managing 22 malls, the highest for any facility management player in India. The company delivers a wide range of integrated facility management services across 145 cities with over 8000 employees and is aiming to reach a team size of 25,000 employees by FY ‘25.
