The 11th edition of Retail Leadership summit kicked started in Mumbai on Tuesday. Day one saw the presence of industry stakeholders, brand custodians and key management professionals from across all categories who exchanged ideas and business insights while deliberating on various aspects of retail. B S Nagesh, Chairman, RAI gave the opening, He was also the moderator for the first panel discussion ‘Customer Centricity: Redefining Values and Valuations’ attended by the likes of Harish Bhatt, Brand Custodian, Tata Sons, Kishore Biyani, Group CEO, Future Group, Ramanathan Hariharan, Group Director and Board Member, Landmark Group and V Subramaniam, Managing Director, Reliance Retail. V Subramaniam also gave a special address.
In his opening address, Nagesh said the event is aimed at providing great experience to consumers with the help of best practices adopted by stakeholders. This can be possible by holding knowledge sharing programs such as Retail Leadership Summit. He appreciated the state and central governments for their contributions towards the growth of the industry.
V Subramaniam in his special address thanked Nagesh and Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, RAI, for taking the initiative which brings all stakeholders and academia under one platform. He stressed on the need of taking a holistic approach for consumer satisfaction, be it product quality, service or entire value chain. He said, customer centricity is not a one-time act but an ongoing process and it helps in building a relationship between brand and its consumers. He also talked about omni-channel retail and its impact on the industry.
The panel discussion revolved around customer centricity and redefining retail. Kishore Biyani observed, India has a huge population and it will be an advantage if industry stakeholders know well how to make people spend money. Others speakers also shared their experiences and stressed on the need of having a consumer-centric approach for long term growth.
Various panel discussions on different aspects on retail took place through the day. These were: Innovations to Create the Customer Relevance, Keeping Retail Relevant: Evolving with the Consumer, Customer-Experience driven Transformation: Why retailers are changing their Customers, ‘How Digital will Power the Store of the Future etc.
