Efficiency Measurement and Benchmarking : An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis to Select Multi Brand Retail Firms in India.

The paper makes an attempt to measure the relative Technical Efficiency (TE) of twelve multi-brand retail firms in India, using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). An input oriented DEA under the assumption of Variable Returns to Scale (VRS) has been proposed for the study and analysis has been conducted for the period 2012-13. The study has relied on secondary source for data on the input and output variables. Based on the method and the choice variables, it has measured technical efficiencies and identified the efficient and relatively less efficient firms in the group.DEA revealed that five multi-brand retail firms, Out of the twelve, Are on the efficiency frontier and the remaining seven were found to be below it. For the relatively less efficient firms, the input slacks have been calculated which has important managerial implications for efficient resource utilization through better management practices. It was also found that among the twelve brands, Brand house Retails Ltd. and GIVO Ltd. are the most efficient multi-brand retail firms in the group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]