IndiaRetailing brings you a series in which we highlight the brand icons in India’s thriving fashion and lifestyle industry. Today, the spotlight is on Venu Nair
Mumbai: No business can survive for long without a vision; even if it does, it would be susceptible to every disruption and upheaval that generally comes in its business cycle. It needs a leader who has the capacity to translate, create that vision, or make it clearer and turn it into reality. The very essence of leadership is having a vision in the first place. Moreover, as you can’t blow an uncertain trumpet, it should be clearly articulated so that they can manage and lead people. A team led by a visionary leader with a clear direction knows what it can achieve and how far it can go.
In this special feature, IndiaRetailing highlights the brand icons in India’s thriving fashion and lifestyle industry. Today, the spotlight is on…
Venu Nair
Customer Care Associate, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Shoppers Stop Ltd.
Education
B.Tech (Hon) from NIT, Calicut
MBA from S.P. Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai
Career history and experience
A seasoned professional with almost three decades, Venu joined Shoppers Stop in 2020, and is leading the transformation of the company to an omnichannel retailer. Building on the strong brand name of Shoppers Stop, he is responsible for the growth of the company across apparels, beauty, watches, footwear and home categories, evolving the retail format with the changing times. Prior to Shoppers Stop, he worked at Trent where his last role was CEO (Westside). He was responsible for the growth of the brand across the country for over 3 years. Before Trent, he worked with Marks & Spencer for 14 years in various roles across India and United Kingdom. His last role from 2012 to 2017 was as Managing Director – Marks & Spencer Reliance Pvt. Ltd. While working for M&S in London, he took the opportunity to convince the M&S plc board to venture into India, and thus brought the M&S brand into India.
Role and responsibilities
Reporting to the board and leading the team in formulating and executing the strategy for the company.
Strengths & weaknesses
Retail business understanding, building teams and humility. Weaknesses are many…impatience is the most obvious of them.
Aspirations you want to fulfill
Travel the world at leisure with no meetings to attend.
Game changing retail technologies
- Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality – Improved integration between offline and online shopping.
- Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality will form the backbone of this digital transformation.
- Radio-Frequency IDentification – RFID in retail simplifies the typical retail inventory process which is very manual, time-consuming, and only done at predetermined intervals. RFID in retail can be used for muliple areas and will become the norm in a few years.
- Analytics & Machine Learning – There is enormous scope for utilization of data. a) Using customer data for hyper-personalization by predicting customer needs, interactive purchase experience and fulfilling them without any friction. b) Data sets further help with forecasting trends and making strategic decisions based on market analysis
Skills that helped you succeed in this industry
Listening, learning and adapting.
Lessons learned over the years
Every day is a new day
Your take on the future of industry
Increased customer expectations, substantial technical advancements, and the rise of omnichannel commerce are just a few of the elements influencing the retail landscape. The personal touch will continue to be a differentiator. In the future, customers will want integrated offline and online. The components driving the fast development of the offline retail industry include customized experience, integrated supply chain, and reduced waiting time along with seamless experience acting as the backbone of the O+O framework. The retail industry has generated a big potential for the country to capitalize on over the next ten years, which will have an inȷ uence on the retail sector’s development and improve job opportunities in both the organized and unorganized sectors.
Any role model in the industry
Steve Jobs.
If you had to pen down your top 3 learnings from your career
- Change is constant and adapting is the key.
- Never can we have enough of knowledge, hence the quest to learn should always drive us forward.
- A revolution can come from anywhere, hence one should always keep their ears open and listen.
Life mantra
Everyday is day 1.
This article first appeared in IMAGES Group’s Business of Fashion Magazine March 2023 issue.
