The next phase of tech will have data at its core: Satish Panchapakesan, Arvind Fashions

Satish Panchapakesan, Senior Vice-President & CIO at Arvind Fashions Ltd., speaks about the technology transformation at the company, his tech mantra and future focus

Satish Panchapakesan brings in over 25 years of service delivery and end-user leadership experience. He is an expert with core consumer business knowledge in retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) value chains.

As Senior Vice-President & CIO at Arvind Fashions Ltd., Panchapakesan’s key mandate is to deliver newer operating models across the product and retail value chain, while modernising SAP apps and infrastructure for scale (order to cash, fashion/core replenishment), stability (platform integrations) and security (Data fidelity and GRC—governance, risk, and compliance).

He oversees the integration of bespoke processes with the right level of standardisation, followed by automation. The veteran IT professional is known for his global outlook having worked in consulting and service delivery across the US, Europe and Asia Pacific markets, leading heavy-duty transformations for technology portfolios from ‘concept to delivery’.

In the past, as a middle manager at an operational level, he has contributed to industry-leading growth in the portfolios (size ~USD 270 million.), while infusing best practices, building and mentoring highly motivated cross-functional teams and building multi-year sustainable relationships with clients.

He is also a crossword enthusiast, a patron of traditional Carnatic music, a decade-long and committed student of Vedas and a long-distance runner, having completed several full marathons.

In an exclusive interaction with IndiaRetailing, Panchapakesan, speaks about the role of technology in helping the company adapt, evolve and innovate to successfully grow in the market. Edited excerpts…

How do you see this change in roles from being associated with tech service companies to a retail portfolio?

All through the years, domain and innovation have been at the heart of my approach. And I have never drifted away from it—in that sense, it was not a big change. It was possible to keep the focus intact because in consulting services, my customers were always from retail and CPG and that was a conscious choice. Having the consumer domain as the common factor and viewing technology as a driver of innovation helped me adapt to the changing roles.

What were the challenges you faced over the years?

The challenges are plenty, and each one gives an opportunity to shine the stone. Being a consulting leader is intense and requires disciplined delivery. Being a tech leader in business can give you a 360-degree view of the business, which helps make critical decisions and cope with constant change that can be unsettling at times. These challenges require a change in mindset and, in some sense, help bring the man out of the boy.

What has been the focus area for technology at Arvind Fashions?
The focus has been on modernizing systems, helping grow businesses to newer channels in a highly interconnected data ecosystem and getting meaningful data-driven insights for multiple levels of decision-making. While we do this, it is important to keep scale, resilience, and cost efficiency in consideration.

We have built on legacy architectures, which have been further layered with modern data consumption capabilities on the cloud to provide speed to decision-making using elastic data models and services.

Automation of the stack is at the core of driving these changes which drives speed and agility in business.

Arvind Fashions has a huge brand portfolio. How has the tech been implemented across brands?

Each brand at Arvind Fashions is unique and at different points in its journey, so while the core of the system caters to shared needs—product design, sourcing, supply chain and customer experience (CX) have to cater to unique propositions.

We reach our customers directly through USPoloassn.in, we have a significant product design focus for the new Flying Machine, and admired brands like Arrow need a strong product mix and supply chain focus. It is an eclectic mix!

What role has technology played in enabling the success at Arvind under your leadership?

In today’s digital economy, my focus is on building the right framework for securing a collaborative environment, supported with data that helps UIPath, bespoke omnichannel platforms and a host of CX technologies.

How do you see Artificial Intelligence (AI) /Machine Learning (ML)? How have they helped in improving customer experience?

As we move into concurrent, overlapping and intermingling customer journeys, driven by social, D2C, online and offline channels, the experience can be normalized and elevated at every step. Active listening, both from the customer as well as the ecosystem that includes competition, partners, and employees is critical to understanding trends and making proactive decisions, be it in product design, pricing or placement.

ML is a key enabler of this in processing both structured and user-generated unstructured information. The realms of Open AI, CV and Generative AI tech have further opened up the possibilities to translate these learnings into product design and supply chain… the possibilities are endless and we are all on the learning curve towards this adoption.

What will be the next phase of tech implementation at Arvind Fashions?

Building a connected network of processes and systems with microservices supported by a headless architecture is fundamental to bringing velocity and adaptability to our business. Businesses that best adapt to changing digital disruptions would succeed and grow faster, and every element of our tech stack should resonate with this vision.

The next phase of implementation would have data at its core and every other transaction element built around it. Automation and low code / no code will play key roles in achieving
this.

Where are you in terms of omnichannel capabilities?

We have multiple channels on digital platforms for customers to experience our products. Each of these is fulfilled through our stores or warehouses.
Our various storefronts, including marketplaces, D2C and captive commerce platforms have tight integration with our inventory and order management systems.

Do you use technology to improve productivity? If yes, elaborate.

We have done a detailed analysis and developed a pipeline of repeatable manual processes which can be onboarded into an RPA (robotic process automation) platform. We use UIPath extensively to drive productivity for these processes across business functions.

Please elaborate on the kind of platforms you are investing in.

We have a prudent mix of buy versus build, framework-driven integration capability across platforms. Automation of data engineering and consumption are the key pivots to our platforms. The engineering platforms and Dev Ops are fortified putting the right tools and constantly expanding the footprint of cloud infrastructure to provide elasticity.