In a conversation with Anand Baldawa, CEO, Seeba™ | thinKitchen™ to know the insights of the business
If you had to pen down your top 3 learnings from 2021 then what would that be?
Scaling up with conservative approach, keeping calculative risks in mind.
The need for convenience, personalization, shopping on trend, multi-channel engagement and bias towards healthy living are becoming basic expectations.
Continue building for scalable growth with a focus on expanding omnichannel retail network and introducing newer international brands to the Indian customers.
From your brand’s perspective, what changes did you bring in internally to build a ‘road to recovery last year’?
Customer centricity has been the focus. In creating edu-awareness, we hope to inspire Indians to evolve in taste, aesthetics and lifestyle. We have been emphasizing on building the kitchen category through conscious business model and raising the service bar. We have also focused on building the right roster of brands in the portfolio. Studying consumer trends has helped us stay on top of customers’ mind during the pandemic.
Lastly, we invested heavily in building the right teams and infrastructure to enable scale for the next three years, early on, which supported us through the turbulent times of the pandemic.
What is your vision for 2022 for your brand?
We want to bring the best in the world to India and introduce the ever growing, affluent Indian consumer to some of the best brands from around the world. To aid this vision, we are looking forward to capitalizing on the efforts put in place in the last 2-3 years. We have plans to expand our manufacturing and warehousing facilities in the coming year with our own experience stores starting with Mumbai followed by Delhi. We are also working to increase presence in the HoReCA segment with right partners and serve more customers via omni-channel widening our network across general trade, modern trade and online.
How are you laying the bricks for growth and success in the New Year? Is it going to be an omni channel journey or putting action to digital transformation or accelerating processes with technology or something else? Tell us your thoughts.
Understanding and anticipating customer needs and building a product range that is relevant and innovative will form the foundation of our growth in the new year. We will continue to build customer delight and enable them to make responsible purchase decisions hinged on efficacy, aesthetics and functionality of products.
Furthermore, using technology to bolster our omnichannel network and ensuring that the customer journeys across all channels are as smooth as possible will be yet another contributing factor to our success.
How much has the company grown under your leadership in the pandemic period?
We have a clear defined vision and growth path charted out for the next 5 years. In 2021, we crossed our topline within 9 months of the current year. Additionally, pre-pandemic, we were a family of 100 and now we are at 160 members across all verticals. We have also set up Supervisory board to support and guide the core team as and when needed
Elaborate on the initiatives (marketing and digital) which were a success in this period?
At thinKitchen, we have made strides in both marketing and digital initiatives to grow and expand our presence. Investing in inventory and warehouse management technology has been one of our key successes in the recent years. The technology provides real time view of our inventory across all marketplaces –online and offline, enabling us to anticipate customer demands and purchasing patterns and meet them timely. Our web portal discoverability has increased manifold through focused digital marketing efforts. We are now available on Amazon Flex amongst other marketplaces to provide same day deliveries to our customers. Lastly, we have been able to improve our presence in the HoReCa segment with the right partnerships.
