Pandemic helped increase the number of customers buying through online retailing: Panelist at Retail Summit by BIMTECH

Greater Noida, 12th Dec: On Friday, Retail Management Program, BIMTECH, Greater Noida organized its Annual Retail Summit that facilitates discussion across the ecosystem including ways to innovate, embrace digital, build an agile retail organization, and thrive in this environment. 

The summit kick-started at 10.30 am with an inaugural ceremony in which Dr. Harivansh Chaturvedi, Director, BIMTECH talked about the adaptation of the effects of Covid-19 in the market conditions especially in the way how retailers adopted and embraced the latest technology to facilitate the expectations and needs of customers.

This was followed by the Keynote speech of Dr. Raj Sethuraman, Editor-in-Chief: Journal of Retailing, Professor at Southern Methodist University, Texas, USA, Harold Simmons Chair in Marketing. He addressed the audience starting by talking about his experience in the retail industry. Then he talked about “Raj’s Law on Doubling Retail Technology” which was inspired by “Moore’s Law” in which he explained how with each passing set of 2 decades the count of technology to be invented and used in the retail industry is going to be doubled. Many insightful thoughts were being shared by him about various technologies like Swipe Technology, Chip Technology, etc, and Post Covid-19 scenarios in market conditions.

The Keynote speech was followed by Panel Discussion-I. The topic for the panel discussion was Implementing Technological Interventions in Retail: Challenges and Opportunities. 

The members for Panel Discussion were: 

1. Prasenjit Ghosh, VP-Retail IT, Reliance Retail 

2. Harshendra Maheshwari, Vice President – Max India, National Head – Retail Experience & Visual Merchandising, Max Fashion

3. Shishir Gupta, Head–Omnichannel, Arvind Fashions

4. Dharmendra Khanna, AVP Digital Transformation, SSIPL.

Moderator: Ajay Aggarwal – Global Retail Head – Nihilent.

The members of the panel discussion started with how each of the member’s companies changed and adapted itself due to the restrictions caused due to Covid -19. The discussion mainly focused on how technology was used in many sectors from online selling, supply chain & its components, warehouse management, etc. They also discussed how Demonetization helped revolutionize the digital transaction mediums; Pandemic has brought in digital revolution increasing the share of customers buying through online retailing which the majority of retailers were striving to do for many years and the pandemic helped in a way to scale it. 

The panel discussion-I was followed by Inter B-School Quiz Competition MindFizz. The quiz was held in two stages. 519 Students from various colleges participated in Round 1 of the quiz competition held on 8th December 2020. Of this 165 qualified for the final round. The final was conducted during the summit. 

Panel Discussion-II was then conducted after the quiz competition. The topic for the panel discussion was ‘The growing importance of E-commerce in Post Covid Era’. The members for Panel Discussion were: 

1. L Sundarraj, CMO, New Commerce, Reliance Retail
2.  Vishal Aggarwal, National Business Head, Big Basket

Moderator: Mr. Siju Narayan, GM- APAC & ME, Loyalty Juggernaut Inc.

The members of the panel discussion discussed and spoke about how Covid has accelerated the growth of e-commerce. They shared some insightful thoughts on customer experience, value creation, and about B2B segment. The members also discussed how technology has been updating with each passing day and how businesses adapt themselves, update themselves in accordance with the technologies as well as with changing expectations and needs of customers.

The retail summit concluded at 3.30 pm with a vote of thanks by Dr. Pankaj Priya, Area Head – Marketing & Retail, Professor of Marketing, BIMTECH, and the announcement of the MindFizz quiz Competition result. Following are the winners of the quiz.