Guardian lifecare: customer centricity as a value proposition

Abstract

In December 2014, Guardian Lifecare Private Limited (Guardian), a pharmacy retail chain in India, was looking for ways to maintain its high growth in India’s emerging market. Riding a surge of growth in organized retailing, Guardian had become the second-largest player in the Indian pharmaceutical retail market within a decade of its launch. This market had been plagued by several structural weaknesses such as widespread sales of spurious and substandard drugs, customers’ lack of education, a poor overall customer experience, and low margins caused by the market’s highly fragmented nature. Placing customer centricity at the core of its value proposition, Guardian had addressed these weaknesses to build a successful retail chain. Now, as it prepared to open more stores as part of its consolidation phase, it needed to address several long-term growth challenges such as poor penetration in rural areas and competition from e-commerce and small local pharmacies.