Amazon is Retail 2.0, we are getting into Retail 3.0: Future Group's Kishore Biyani

Kishore Biyani

Dismissing competition from e-commerce firms, Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani said on Thursday that his company is building a much more robust ecosystem for reaching out to its customers.

"It is a model called Tathaastu — you ask for it and you will get it. You ask anything and we will deliver it to you," said Kishore Biyani while speaking at the Nasscom Product Conclave in Bangalore.

According to him, stores need to be brought within close proximity of customers. "You become a member of the store, you get prices which are the lowest in the market," Biyani said. "As a consumer organisation we are the only organisation in the world with an end-to-end solution."

Future Group both manufactures products and retails it.

Talking about how Future Group will evolve in the next 10 years, Biyani said: "Our business model will not change. We are in three categories of business — food, fashion and home... we have manufacturing, we manage our own supply chains, we have our own stores and we have our own data."

Biyani said that competition is required because it is always healthy and brings the best out of any company. However, he took a dig at online grocery firms that have been burning cash to grow their businesses.

"Cost of doing business in a technology-driven model is very expensive," he said, adding that the payment charges in India are much higher than that in China.

Biyani has always been vocal when it comes to criticising the startup ecosystem in India. Last year, he had said that 90 percent of startups were not going anywhere, adding that the start-up ecosystem had become "too sexy".

In its first acquisition of an internet firm, Biyani's Future Group acquired Rocket Internet-backed Fab Furnish in a stress sale.