Abheek Singhi
Managing Director & Senior Partner
Mumbai
Abheek Singhi leads The Boston Consulting Group’s Consumer practice in Asia-Pacific. He was named a BCG Fellow in 2015; his fellowship is examining how digital and other technologies can provide leapfrog opportunities in emerging markets.
Abheek has nearly 20 years of experience with clients in emerging markets such as India, China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. In addition, he has worked in BCG San Francisco with clients in the US and Canada.
He has worked with leading consumer packaged, consumer durable, and retail companies on a wide variety of projects related to strategy, operational excellence, and organizational improvement. In those assignments, he has led teams delivering significant top-line and bottom-line impact for clients.
Abheek has been a member of the National FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) Committee and the National Retail Committee of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for several years. In that role, he has worked to monitor the industry trends and to shape industrywide responses. Abheek has also been selected by the Aspen Institute as part of the India Leadership Initiative program and is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Abheek is a coauthor of the bestselling BCG book The $10 Trillion Prize (published by Harvard Business Review Press). He has also written several seminal reports on the Indian agriculture, consumer, and retail sectors, and he is a frequent contributor to national newspapers and a speaker at leading business conferences and seminars.
The report jointly developed by BCG and RAI details the shifts in consumer preferences. It also shares a path forward for retailers to lead and win in the changing demand dynamics.
The advent of COVID-19 has altered the course of India’s consumption story with both access linked constraints and income uncertainty negatively impacting household consumption. This report highlights key changes about how Indian consumers are likely to spend, shop, and save in the new decade.
Healthcare delivery transformation can be achieved through the creation of an “open digital health ecosystem” or a health ODE. Such an ecosystem is defined as an open and secure digital health platform that can be leveraged by all entities, public and private, to unlock transformative health delivery solutions. We believe that this ecosystem will fundamentally change the way in which healthcare is delivered today.
As the economy starts to open up, the new reality is unraveling across dimensions, impacting the way businesses function.
Emerging-market companies that sell through retailers must respond to evolving customer needs, navigate a new landscape, and lower their costs.
This report talks about likely trends that could shape the industry in the next 5-10 years, considering multiple dimensions of consumer shifts, supply side innovations, data and technology driven disruptions, new competitive forces and regulations.
The online food ordering industry in India is expected to be approximately USD 8 BN by 2022. The report outlines the triggers that drive Indians consumers to order food online, the key reasons which make them continue to stay engaged, barriers that prevent consumers from adopting online food ordering as a service, and potential growth opportunities for food tech players. In addition, the report also highlights examples of online food ordering businesses in other parts of the world and explains the different business models they adopted along their evolution journey.
The consumer market in India is estimated at INR 110 trillion in 2018. Domestic consumption has grown at the rate of 13% in the last decade and is expected to maintain a similar run rate of 12% CAGR to reach INR 335 trillion by 2028. Disaggregating the consumption growth reveals that rapid expansion in affluent and elite households, and a three-fold increase in share of online and organized retail have changed the consumer landscape in last 10 years. Nowadays, the same consumer follows different purchase journeys, with online and offline pathways often intersecting. With growing complexity, retailers need to develop a 360 degree view of the customer journey to identify moments of truths and design the appropriate customer experience proposition. Improving customer experience helps build advocates who drive positive word of mouth, and thereby, impact growth and market share. Therefore, a holistic approach is required to drive the Customer Experience Transformation. This comprises 3 phases – Diagnose, Design and Measure & Improve. Our report delves into each of the phases to help retailers understand what matters most to its customers; identify pain-points of target customers and prioritize investments on products and services to deliver a positive customer experience; measure and improve key metrics that drive customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy.
This study looks at value creation in retail to identify companies that have been able to consistently deliver superior shareholder return. Customer centricity emerges as a key lever for growth going forward.
The influence of digital in FMCG is often understated—India is severely lagging behind in digital spends despite a massive online population. By 2020, approximately $45 billion of the FMCG spend will be digitally influenced.
No technology, no matter how powerful or pervasive, will affect India’s 1 billion consumers—of whom 50% will soon be online—in the same way.
The size of the online hotel bookings industry in India is estimated to be $4 Bn by 2020. The Indian leisure traveler today has a long, complex hotel booking journey with low brand loyalty. Industry players will need to differentiate their product and service offerings from their competitors to attract, retain and convert consumers.