The Impact of the Hockey-Stick Phenomenon on the Retail Industry in India:  Pre and During COVID-19

Tooba  AHMED; Salma AHMED; Hamza  NAIM

doi:10.52459/jowett24170922

Authors

Tooba AHMED Faculty of Management Studies and Research, Aligarh Muslim University, India https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7407-0798
Salma AHMED Faculty of Management Studies and Research, Aligarh Muslim University, India https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9354-5402
Hamza NAIM Faculty of Management Studies and Research, Aligarh Muslim University, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8260-8735

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52459/jowett24170922

Keywords:

Hockey-stick phenomenon, Bullwhip Effect, Sales, India, COVID-19

Abstract

The hockey-stick sales phenomenon has been less examined in the earlier studies and doesn’t receive much attention due to the cumbersome process involved in the change of sales policies in the companies and the overall restructuring of the supply chain management. The process is costly and mostly the hockey-stick sales phenomenon has an adverse impact on the profitability of companies. However, this was not observed in the case of the companies belonging to the retail industry in India. Our study shows that hockey-stick sales have a positive impact on the profitability of the companies measured by Profit After Tax (PAT) while on the other hand during the COVID-19 period, the hockey-stick sales phenomenon appears to impact negatively the profitability of the companies specifically. The results could not be generalized as the results are industry specific, but the methodology could be applied to a different industrial sector in order to study the relationship between hockey-stick sales and profitability and its impact on the performance of the companies.

CITE THIS PAPER:

Ahmed, Tooba; Ahmed, Salma; Naim, Hamza (2022). "The impact of the hockey-stick phenomenon on the retail industry in India: Pre and During COVID-19" Journal of World Economy: Transformations & Transitions (JOWETT) 2(04):17. DOI: https://doi.org/10.52459/jowett24170922

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Author Biographies

Tooba AHMED, Faculty of Management Studies and Research, Aligarh Muslim University, India

is a research scholar in Operations Management under the supervision of Prof. Salma Ahmed. The area of her interest is supply chain management and logistics.

Salma AHMED, Faculty of Management Studies and Research, Aligarh Muslim University, India

Prof. Salma Ahmed has PhD and MBA. Her research interests include Supply Chain Management, Knowledge Management, and Information System. She has published over ninety papers and attended and presented papers in more than fifty conferences both at the national and international platform. She has also authored a book entitled "How to Write and Analyse Cases" which was released in New Delhi in 2011. Notably, the book was also distributed as a part of learning module to the selected twenty participants of an International Conference on Global Supply Chain organized by Malaysian Institute of Purchase and Materials Management (MIPICS) in collaboration with Indian Institute of Material Management (IIMM) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2011. She has a special interest in writing and analysing cases and has to her credit seventeen case analyses published in Vikalpa -- published from The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Hamza NAIM, Faculty of Management Studies and Research, Aligarh Muslim University, India

is a research scholar in the area of finance and is NET (National Eligibility Test) qualified. The area of his interest includes corporate finance and corporate governance.

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