So now maximum talking point is happening, how we can really use
the AI, how we can really use the gene AI, how we can adopt
that particular process. So with that, buzz will be
there, but definitely sustainability is one of the
important factors. Hello and welcome to the Retail
podcast. We're going to have a deep dive
with one of the leaders in retail in helping retailers
achieve their outcomes. I'm fortunate enough by to be
joined by Bhavajit Niyogi from TCS who's Vice President for
retail across UK, EMEA and India.
So why don't you tell us, why don't we start with, as always,
tell us what you do, how is your, what your focus area is.
And then right now, because obviously being Vice President,
you must meet so many retailers. What's top of mind for 2025?
Absolutely. Thanks Alex and thanks for
giving me this opportunity to you know participate in your
podcast. I've been in TCS for last 30
years is a quite long journey and spend over you know 15 years
in the States. Then in last 10 years, I am
based out of London, almost last 12 years I have been involving
in the retail in various different roads.
Specifically right now I look up the overall business of the
retail as you said in the UK, Europe and EMEA in that
particular market including the India geography, so which is a
quite diverse geography. And definitely I meet as per my
role various different CXO and I go and attend and meet the
customer. And as you know that shift in
the retail pre pandemic and there's a post pandemic era,
right. So pre pandemic used to be quite
different than what we see in the post pandemic.
But what I am right now, now seeing since, you know, in the
beginning of 2024, probably initially we thought after when
we came out of pandemic that maybe online will take a big
leap in terms of the, you know, retail and the store brick and
mortar format will probably shrink down.
But surprisingly, it actually came back quite heavily.
You know, at the start of 2024, the brick and mortar shopping
again quite heavily. It it came out OK.
And now I'm seeing every retailers, they are spending
huge amount of money in terms of the store transformation.
So there's a huge close transformation is happening
across the board, whether whether mainly in terms of the
pricing, promotions, availability, in terms of
merchandising, putting the right things into the right place and
more importantly, the customer experience, because customer
experience is one of the key important factor.
And it is ever changing because even if I compare myself when I
and my, you know, kids who are going and shopping, whether be
it online or in store, the perspective of that out outlook
of the customer, you know, is quite dramatically changing and
shifting. So I think 2025 every retailer
is having the biggest focus, how they can adopt that change in
nature and how they are in a much more agile in terms of
making those changes. Because you can't have a two
year transformation strategy and by the end of you will see maybe
a year one in your transformation.
Things got changed, right? So we don't have that luxury
anymore that OK, we launch a big transmission programme.
So 2025 and probably beyond the next three years, people are
looking for how we can be much more faster doing these changes,
whether it be it in a supply chain, whether it be it in
merchandising, whether it's pricing, promotion, customer
loyalty, anything that OK, you can name it.
So adopting that change is what is going to drive the strategy.
Yeah. Well, I mean just picking up on
a couple of themes that you've you've spoken about there in
terms of pricing pressure and value driven commerce.
Obviously inflation has a had a massive impact on the consumer
and on retailers. I was just curious if you had
seen examples of how brands are using advanced pricing and agile
supply chains to sort of get the right balance between
competitive pricing and profitability?
Yeah. So if we look at you take the
food, groceries retailers, right, So they operate in very
thin margin, right. So if they are not super
efficient in terms of their supply chain and with the
pressure of all this geopolitical pressure, you have
seen the war situation in the Europe and and and inflation was
quite high even though right now it tapered down.
But last 2-3 years, people really focused in terms of the
improving their operational efficiency to the supply chain,
whether if you have an end to end visibility start right from
you're sourcing to you're putting into the stores, there's
a huge improvement areas are there for for every retailers
matter of fact, right. So every retailers spend right
now quite a bit of money in last 2-3 years and continuously
evolving with the AI, with the different technologies and it
has to be super efficient. And that helps driving their
cost down, which will help them for at least the commodity of
the goods who have a reasonable price for the people and the
consumer. So that's one part, part of the
you know process, which is which, which was you know there
earlier as well. But it is more important right
now that you have to operate into your supply chain process
in a much more efficient manner. The second thing which also and
and you touched upon is the pricing efficiency and the and,
and what level of the right price or the right time that you
can push it to your, your, you know, shelf, right.
So it has multiple different components in just in a very
high level. Are you pricing at the right
point based on your localization, based on your
availability, based on your market completeness in other
dense region? And that intelligence and the
dynamic pricing, what we call it is, is very, very important.
And that is where a lot of technology, a lot of algorithm,
a lot of innovations are happening to have the you using
your data set, using your, you know, Geo, you know, landscape,
using your customer demographics, using your need of
the supply chain. Can you really have that pricing
at the right price point now? Then the third component is you
may have the price point right. Can I push that price right now
in a much more seamless manner to the to each of the shelf,
right? Earlier in old days used to be
like you do a big thick paper process and then you send it to
the store and they'll go to the level and then they will change
it, right? So right now those things got
completely changed and that is where the digital innovations
are happening with the electronic shopping level or
other things so that you can just push your pricing, you know
then and there. So these are the whole different
areas in in three or four different segments.
That is what is happening. Okay.
I'm just curious in terms of your experience of help trying
to help retailers with that, what what do you think are some
of the what, what good examples have you seen of this?
Are still are people still building it?
Yeah, I should say that, yeah, some retailers already adopted
the process, whoever started this journey probably three to
four years back and some retailers you know in the
process of doing it, OK, So they are a little bit doing a cost
benefit analysis for a very good example.
Like if you go to you know Germany and if you go to the,
you know, biggest retailer there, they have already adopted
the ESL process. OK, So if I exited just in the
Nordics, yes, some retailers already adopted.
If you go to the US also, yeah, probably a lot of retailers
adopted that. So the adoption process, what
you see like it obviously depends on your strategy and the
business strategy and what the ROI that you wanted to make it,
right. And if some retailers, they may
not feel that their price change is so dynamic.
So the things are where the ESL will work.
Just for an example, I'm telling you where you feel that way.
You need to change your price quite frequently so that you can
get advantage of it, right? The competitive advantage.
But in contrary to that where you think that your price is
more or less constant in a week time, OK, and you don't need
that advantage or the price advantage is there, then you may
not implement those, you know, digital shelf level, right?
So these are the different use cases based on which I think, I
think retailers are doing, but finding out the right price and
the price optimization is every retailer they need it, okay.
So it doesn't matter whether it's a small retailer versus
large retailer, whether groceries versus Apple versus
electronics, everyone need that right pricing and the strategy.
I think that is where we are helping as Atcs, we have some
unique, you know, capability in the product, which is working
well and quite a lot of customers are having that
traction in terms of do we have the right, because everyone is
having data, right. So everyone is having lots of
data. Are we using the right data at
the right time to come up with the right price.
So that's where I think the the fun is there that OK, how we can
use technology, how we can use algorithms, how we can use AI
driven, you know, technologies to really come up with those
price intelligent pricing, what we call it.
How are CMOS seeing ROI from influencer LED retail
strategies? I mean, is that something that
you can help or you're observing with the CMO part or the
marketing part of the business? Yeah, absolutely.
I think see there's a traditional term is the retail
media network. I'm sure that, you know, a lot
of people are interested in it. A lot of retailers are using
that Ottoman as one of their, you know kind of strategy and
they can, you know, definitely create a good campaign out of
it. But obviously the Zenzi kind of
category were influenced by as you said rightly, that of the
word influenced by several different of this push and
pricing and, and how how how the sentiment even others, right.
So how you can even look at socially that OK, how it is
happening, right. So connecting those different
bits and pieces, people are trying, but I have not seen
these at the enterprise level in every retailers across the board
by the way. But obviously that is one of the
area which some of the CMOS are thinking.
Some of the large retailers are using it, but it is not in
general that every retailer is having that.
Strategy. Yeah, I yeah, there's a couple
of things obviously from past experience that I see with
demand pricing or, you know, elastic pricing.
How can you deliver on that if you need free prices during the
day, but you don't have electric shelf labels or you're you're
dependent on staff to manually go and reprice things?
But anyway, that's a conversation for another day.
In terms of Omni channel and fulfilment innovation, when we
look at retailers redesigning store layouts to be sort of mini
fulfilment sensors, how is transforming the customer
experience and what role does AI analytics play in fulfilment
sort of seamlessly across digital and physical touch?
Yeah, I think I think differently that is one of the
area a lot of innovation and inventions are going on, right.
So true Omni channel experience every retailer wanted to
implement and in that, yeah, people are buying online, you
know shipping from store or you can buy online, pick up from
store. So all those different
transformation is going on. And, and if you look at at least
even in the UK market, I've seen in the Middle East as well, they
are really changing the store layout.
If you walk in the store and you have to have a seamless
experience, not only just for your shopping experience, but
also your checkout experience. You have seen that, OK, how the
how the checkout is really doing the evolution, right?
So what the traditional, you know, till checkout versus sales
checkout versus walk out, walk in, walk out, those type of
checkouts and, and you can pick up, you know, that particular
part in a seamless manner. I think I think various
different, you know, to do that efficiently.
There are two three again things in you know, why we are helping.
One is obviously you need to have a true Omni channel channel
experience in terms of your order fulfilment, right?
So order it has to be seamless integration between your
whatever back end system that will be used so that the
information are readily available.
And that is where the AI and the data-driven analytics is
helping. And then when you walk in in the
store it also sometimes you know I have seen not probably in the
apparel, but any other sector in the home improvement area.
You may have bought say 5 items you went to the store and you
wanted to pick up explore colleagues also come to you.
By the way you forgot. I know that if you place this
particular order and you may need you these two additional
items for you to probably what you are buying.
OK. So you can even top up your
basket, you can add few items seamlessly and you can give that
particular experience back to the customer.
I think that is really customers is a wow factor that they are
getting it. Now in order to do that you ask
them how the technology is helping.
So that is where I think the technology is helping immensely
and that insight of your actual personal driven experience is
what is the aim. So the personalization is one of
the big factor, you know, in the retail, right.
So can I really go into the personalization when you walk in
the store or even you do online shopping so that you have that
seamless experience, Who am I when I'm doing the shopping,
right. So that is where the lot of
innovation is going on and the technology is really technology
is really helping there. I got a final question.
Sustainability is a competitive advantage obviously in Europe.
Obviously the the US and Europe very different in their approach
to sustainability. And we've just seen from the new
leader what what they're what they're doing over there.
But consumers specifically within this market are demanding
greater sustainability in retail.
How are brands integrating circular circular economy
principles or green logistics or eco friendly products into their
business models? And do you think regulatory
pressure will, will, will will change or speed this up?
Yeah, absolutely. See, if I compare obviously
three different market, I'm seeing it.
Europe is, you know, way ahead right now, right?
So absolutely, you know, they, they adopted the process, their
ESG standard. Some retailers are really proud
about if you go to the Nordics, you know, they have the circle,
you know, whole whole concept. They started 2-3 years back and
they adopted it. And, and in fact, if you look at
it, the Zenzi, you know, category, they are very much,
you know, what we call is a conscious about what they buy,
right. So they are also looking at it,
are these products really, you know, kind of made-up from the
sustainable goods. OK.
Is there is there way that OK that I can contribute also to
that particular cost? So there's a lot of focuses
there in the Europe and obviously there are a lot of
regulations are there OK, which I'm sure that you know, things
as you know, people will fall into the place in UK also
there's a good, you know, kind of measure is there in terms of,
you know, using the sustainable sourcing of the product.
It they declared that part of the sustainable product and
people I'm seeing that people are buying that even if that
increase your price point in overall matter of the game,
right? So it is actually people are
adopting that particular process.
Obviously in other market is little different, as you said,
OK, so we'll we'll we'll watch and see.
But sustainable retailing is one of the big focus is there.
It was actually the boardroom topic last one year.
I have not seen so much in the boardroom topic for the
sustainability in an honest manner, but as because maybe
that they have already adopted the process and it is BAU, right
And or maybe in certain, you know, geography, it may not be
that much pressure from a regulation probably is driving,
right. So now maximum talking point is
happening, how we can really use the AI, how we can really use
the GENII, how we can adopt that particular process.
Probably that buzz will be there, but definitely
sustainability is one of the important factor.
Fantastic Abhijit. Thank you so much for giving up
your time, the side of the world.
I look forward to maybe seeing you at one of the conferences in
the UK or in globally, but thank you.
Thanks, Alex. Thanks.
Thanks for your time as well. Thank you.