2020 has been a year of sweeping change. In what felt like an overnight shift ushered in on the back of a near-unprecedented event, the way that businesses traditionally interacted with their customers stopped, changed or morphed. Now, as life starts to return to a semblance of normalcy, a lot of uncertainty still exists around the health of the retail industry. Questions still abound. For how long will customer capacity be capped? Will customers return to stores, and shop as they used to? Will stores be allowed to open at all? And, what if a massive outbreak forces all stores to shutter again in public interest?
These questions, and more, were pondered at an exclusive roundtable presented by The Economic Times & Microsoft, with the focus squarely on reimagining retail in a post-Covid world.
Setting the tone, Pinakiranjan Mishra, Partner and National Leader, Consumer Products and Retail, EY, opined that retail hasn’t undergone a change as much as it has to undergo a change, saying, “What has changed is the entire environment around retail, starting from consumers, their requirements, the channels through which consumers want to shop, the way that you must produce and deliver. I think everything has changed.”
So how do we address these changes in the much talked about “New Normal”? Aneesh Reddy, Co-founder & CEO, Capillary Technologies, highlighted this big shift in consumer behavior, saying, “Before the pandemic, roughly about 20% of online consumers used to also visit and make purchases at the offline stores of the brand or retailer. In the month of November, that number was actually 46%. That’s a massive shift. It probably took 5 years to get to 20%, and to more than double that, it’s taken barely any time. Retailers have responded to this, and are now moving ahead, and it will be interesting to see how the next 6-9 months play out.”
Offering insight into consumer mindsets, Bhavana Yerrumreddy, Country Leader, Retail & Growth at Microsoft India, stated, “Nothing frustrates customers more than unavailability of expected products, disorganized store operations and inconsistent experience across the channels of interactions with the brand. The need of the hour is all about Intelligent and Connected Retail and retailers focus is all about their knowing customers, empowering employees and accelerating growth through data.”
Shibashis Sen, Head of Cloud Strategy, Tally, further unraveled consumer mindsets and shifts in behavior, adding, “There was a time not too far back in our memory when people were really afraid of doing even bank transactions on the internet. For most people, all the way to the bottom of the pyramid, people have gotten supremely adjusted to that concept. I would say that cloud has experienced that journey over the last 5 years, and there is a huge runway ahead of us.”
A well-thought-out digital presence has emerged as an important strategic aspect as most people turned to online shopping. Anil Menon, CIO, Tata Starbucks highlighted culture as a key driver of change, noting, “One of the biggest driving forces I have seen for this generation is the culture; culture has changed in organizations for the better. You need a culture driven to adjust to a digitized world, and improve the customer experience, and Covid has expedited this change. The connect between the back-end and front-end is now faster and more seamless.”
Digital transformation is driving growth across unforeseen areas, eschewing the reliance on a singular channel of interaction. There will still be moments of truth to content with, as Neil Barman, Chief Growth Officer, Bitonic (Yellow Messenger), commented. “We are seeing retailer giving equal importance to a tier or tier 3 city. We are seeing this nature of being shoppable anywhere has enabled these multiple channels to be friendlier for retailers. Things are moving deeper into digital; are you putting a conversational layer as middleware into your retail landscape, and are you connecting your enterprise applications with this conversational platform? Doing so will ensure you get an actionable data bank.”
As India’s transition to digital accelerates exponentially on the back of the events of 2020, trust comes to the fore as a key factor that brands can scarcely ignore. Satya Prabhakar, CEO, Migiliore, gave his view on this. “In the service sector, we have a unique problem of someone having to lend credibility, and that’s where platforms come into the picture. This allows one to choose and evaluate the credibility of the service. This allows consumers to put their trust because they believe the platform has done its due diligence of ensuring that there are quality service providers on offer.”
The COVID-19 era has introduced an opportunity for retailers to rethink how they do business, gain new revenue, engage with existing revenue, and create efficiencies. It is one that savvy brands have grabbed with both hands, and one we can all learn lessons from.
