Analysis of Critical Success Factors for Adopting Omni-Channel Retailing in India

In recent years, there has been a transformation in the way customers shop. They no longer view the offline and online channels of the same retail firm separately. They browse through the firm’s online channel while shopping in their bricks and mortar store or they search for a product online and buy it from the firm’s offline store. Customers interact with both the channels simultaneously. This has given rise to omni-channel retailing in which, both the channels of the firms are fully integrated. But this integration requires the retail firms to rethink their competitive strategy and accordingly alter their sup-ply chain strategy. Retail firms in developed nations like USA, UK, etc. have adopted this form of retailing successfully. By looking at the benefit of omni-channel retailing, firms in emerging economies like India are also trying to alter their supply chain strategies to merge their online and offline channels. But they are failing to do so because of a number of factors. Thus, in this research our focus is to identify the critical success factors for firms in emerging economies so as to successfully alter their supply chain strategy for adopting omni-channel retailing. For this purpose, we have utilized Fuzzy Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (F-TISM) method of multi criteria decision making to identify the inter-relationships between the critical success factors identified through literature survey and interviews of experts. Further, based on the output of F-TISM, Fuzzy MICMAC analysis is applied to classify the factors based on their ability to influence other factors. The results obtained are beneficial for firms in emerging economies for adopting omni-channel retailing.