Boston Days - Part 4

The USD 10 Airport shuttle ride. And What It Taught Me About Loyalty Tiers.

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims. This article covers the “Retailer’s focus towards Consumer Loyalty”)

The airport shuttle from Boston Logan to my hotel was a shared one.

A van, rather than a cab. And at the wheel was a lady driver who, without being asked, helped me load three weeks’ worth of luggage into the back — heavy bags, packed for a long working stay — with the kind of quiet efficiency that makes you feel looked after before you’ve even sat down.

The exterior of the vehicle carried the branding of Holiday Inn — clean, recognisable, the unmistakeable IHG logo doing exactly what logos are supposed to do.

Inside, already seated, was a couple. First-time visitors to Boston, though they had lived in the US for over two and a half decades — originally from Dallas, Texas. Warm, curious, easy to talk to. We fell into conversation almost immediately.

And then came a moment of mild confusion.

The couple were headed to the Marriott. I was headed to the Holiday Inn Express, next door. The driver, to her credit, sorted it out quickly — but for a few seconds, all three of us were momentarily uncertain about the sequence of stops.

I explained to the couple that the shuttle served both hotels as part of a shared airport transfer arrangement — a practical, cost-efficient solution for properties in close proximity.

What stayed with me, though, was not the logistics. It was the pricing.

USD 10. For both.

The Marriott guests and I paid an identical flat fare, rode in the same vehicle, loaded bags in the same hold, and were dropped at adjacent lobbies within minutes of each other.

The Marriott couple had chosen premium — a globally trusted brand, a higher nightly rate, and the reasonable expectation that a more expensive stay would reflect itself in the quality of every associated touchpoint.

I had made a different, deliberate call. Value-driven. Functional. Perfectly suited to a three-week working visit for a senior leadership programme.

But the shuttle made no such distinction.

And as I dragged my bags through the Holiday Inn lobby that evening, my mind — as it almost always does — travelled home. 

To Indian retail. To our loyalty programmes. To the elaborate tier architectures we have built, named with such aspiration, and then quietly failed to bring to life on the shop floor.

Shoppers Stop’s First Citizen Club runs across five named tiers — Classic Moments, Silver Edge, Golden Glow, Platinum, and Black — each defined by escalating annual spend thresholds. Pantaloons segments its Green Card membership by spend. Lifestyle’s Inner Circle moves loyalists deliberately through Silver, Gold, and Platinum designations.

The nomenclature is aspirational. The investment in building these structures — the CRM systems, the points engines, the tier communication — is real, recurring, and significant.

And yet.

The Platinum First Citizen member frequently stands in the same billing queue as the Classic Moments enrollee. The Golden Glow loyalist receives the same carry bag, the same counter engagement, the same fifteen-second farewell as the walk-in customer who signed up at the door twenty minutes earlier.

The tier lives in the database. It rarely survives the journey to the shop floor.

The Dallas couple and I paid the same ten dollars. The shuttle, to its credit, never pretended otherwise. It was a logistics vehicle with a flat fare structure and no aspiration to be anything more.

A retail brand’s Platinum member, however, has been explicitly promised something more.

The more important question — the one that stayed with me long after I had unpacked and settled into my room — is whether our stores are actually delivering it.

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims.)

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9 here.

Boston Days - Part 3

The Universe Has a Sense of Timing

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims. This article covers the “Power of positive manifestations”)

300 minutes. That is precisely how long the day’s sessions had run — case studies, leadership frameworks, management metrics, and the kind of deep deliberations that leave you simultaneously drained and quietly electric.

As the glass doors of the Chao Centre swung behind me, I made a deliberate choice. Not the room. Not the power nap. The campus. The Boston evening. The open sky.

My first stop was the Tata Hall — a building that carries unusual emotional weight for every Indian who walks this campus. 

Donated by the late Mr. Ratan Tata, it stands as a quiet monument to Indian generosity meeting global ambition, housed in elegant red brick and understated dignity.

Spangler came next — the social heart of HBS. Closed for the day by 5 pm, it stood still in the evening light. A banner near its entrance read: “Hard work. With humility. For humanity.” I stood there long enough to let those words do their work.

Then came Baker Library. As participants of the Executive Management Program, access is granted until 7 pm — a privilege I was not about to surrender to fatigue. I stepped inside and simply stopped moving. 

Over 700,000 volumes. Reportedly the world’s largest business library. The ceiling, the amber light, the cathedral silence — it felt less like a library and more like a place of pilgrimage.

Earlier that day, I had written to a few luminaries associated with HBS, quietly hoping for a response. 

As I walked past the Dean’s quarters in the early evening, my thoughts turned — almost involuntarily — to Prof. Nitin Nohria.

The 10th Dean of Harvard Business School. Its first Indian-American leader. And by most accounts, one of its finest.

His decade at the helm, from 2010 to 2021, was nothing short of transformational. He introduced the FIELD curriculum — a bold pedagogical shift that brought real-world, experiential learning into the HBS classroom. 

He championed the MBA Oath, calling on graduates to pledge ethical and responsible leadership — a quiet but powerful act of institutional conscience. 

He launched HBX, now HBS Online, democratising business education beyond the walls of this storied campus. He made HBS more global, more inclusive, and more honest about what the world actually needs from business leaders.

I was still thinking about him as I rounded a corner near the library.

A gentleman in a white shirt. Round glasses. Walking at an unhurried pace.

I looked. Hesitated. Walked closer.

“Prof. Nohria?”

“Yes,” he said.

I stood still for a few seconds. What had just happened?

What followed were ten of the most quietly extraordinary minutes of my professional life. He asked about me — genuinely, not perfunctorily. I told him about 25 years in Indian retail — the airport retail ecosystem I helped build at BIAL when it first opened in 2008, the hundreds of cafes I scaled across India at Cafe Coffee Day, the dealer network I doubled for Royal Enfield. 

He listened with the full attention of a man who does not perform interest; he simply has it.

We spoke about the present and the future of Indian retail. His optimism was not the polished variety one dispenses at conferences. 

It was thoughtful, specific, and warm — the perspective of a scholar who has watched markets evolve and still believes in what is coming.

I walked back to my room a different person.

The universe, it would seem, rewards those who choose the campus walk over the power nap.

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims.)

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9 here.

Boston Days - Part 2

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims. This article covers the “Challenges of optimal merchandising”)

After dinner on Sunday night, my batchmates bid goodnight even as I entered Circle K convenience store in downtown Boston. One of them asked me what I was going to shop. I replied that this is just another classroom for me to learn! 

There are moments in a retail professional’s life when the store does the teaching, and you simply have to be still enough to listen.

Inside, I found what you’d expect from a well-run c-store. 

Snacks, packaged food, bakery products, beverages — Pepsi, juices, bottled water stacked neatly. A tobacco wall doing what tobacco walls typically do. No alcohol — this particular outlet had clearly made its choice on Boston’s licensing landscape.

I walked the store in under three minutes. Nothing caught my eye particularly — until I reached the billing counter.

There it was. A universal travel adapter. USD 15. Sitting right at eye level, at the point of sale, as though it had been waiting specifically for me.

I had been struggling for two days with my Indian plug and the American Type A socket. I’d improvised, but barely. And here was the solution, placed precisely where it would find me at my most receptive.

I picked it up. I paid. I was back on the street in under ninety seconds.

That one transaction has stayed with me as a retail practitioner.

Here is the thing about category management — the discipline we teach, debate, and deconstruct in every retail seminar — placing the right product at the right place at the right time at the right price for the right consumer. 

Every retailer I have worked with knows this, almost by reflex.

And yet, how many of them apply it rigorously to the non-glamorous, non-FMCG accessories that sit quietly, almost apologetically, in their stores?

Planogram optimisation, when practised honestly, should begin with margin contribution per centimetre of shelf space — not with brand equity, volume targets, or vendor negotiation leverage.

FMCG products — biscuits, shampoos, soaps, beverages — are essential. They drive footfall. But net margins rarely cross 8-12%. Trade schemes, returns, damages, and seasonal promotions erode even that thin number further.

A travel adapter, a universal charger, a power bank, or a cable — priced at a healthy premium, placed at the billing counter, propelled by pure necessity — can deliver 50–60% gross margins with zero promotional support and zero scheme cost.

No gondola end negotiation. No loyalty programme. No scheme. Just the right product, in the right place, for a consumer with no time and no alternatives.

The Indian convenience retail sector is still in its formative years. But the lesson from a Circle K billing counter in downtown Boston is clear and directly transferable.

High-margin functional accessories are hiding in plain sight. They deserve a planogram. They deserve a category manager who sees beyond the FMCG gondola.

They deserve, at the very least, to be placed where a distracted Indian retailer — jaywalking through life — can actually find them.

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims.)

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9 here.