No – because retail is a very broad and ongoing activity area. You might see a repeated multi-year up-down business cycle in retail and you will see seasonal cycles but these are not hype cycles. Yet, with just couple of bounding constraints on this vast business domain we might uncover newer and more innovative business concepts within retail that are indeed subject to hype cycle effects. Let me give you an example:
- Constraint one ‘modern’
- Constraint two ‘India’
There might well be a hype cycle going on in Indian ‘Modern’ Retail right now. Take a look at this article reappraising the recent gold rush to extend Western style organized retailing – shopping malls, supermarkets and all the rest- to the growing Indian middle classes. There are some tell-tale keywords here:
“Modern retail in India is proving to be fraught with stress for new entrants who had embraced it as the next sunrise sector, drawn by the hype of an impending consumer market revolution propelled by the buying power of a vast and expanding middle class.”
“…patience seems to be running out among many new retailers, who are slowing expansion, paring the number of outlets, cutting headcount and in some cases, considering exiting…
“That’s a sea change from three years ago when modern retail was thought to be the next big thing after information technology and telecom in a country of more than one billion people.”
That sure sounds like a fall from ‘peak of inflated expectations’ towards a ‘trough of disillusionment’.
We think the Hype Cycle does apply to major new business and management ideas, not just technologies. In this case, sorting out business model details that work well is the management science part of the equation that appears to be running behind the social expectations.
What unusual business Hype Cycle situations have you noticed recently? We’d love to hear about them.
