e e hello audio check audio check is the audio clear audio check is the audio clear e e e e hello Mr hi uh M am I a hi hi hi hi uh so I'm Shas I lead technology and support services at crew okay hi so I'll be taking uh the role of host today right and we'll be starting the interaction uh shortly we have three more we just we just sure sure sure I'm ready anytime you all want to connect I'm ready sure sure sure thank you thank you so much I just want to do my screen share so let yeah yeah please please check it once uh can you see SC uh it's loading uh Mr suddenly your voice is a little struck yeah I'm able to see your screen now but your video was struck I think your internet is low or something [Music] uh I think now now your video is back okay yeah your screen is also visible yes okay so this is the screen can you see the screen what I'm presenting yes yes yes okay are the words and the photos visible clearly yes it is clear it is clear okay and will the audience see my face as well should I keep my camera on or switch it off uh we'll just wait for 2 minutes you can keep your camera off and uh I'll just give an introduction and I'll invite you at at 10 I'll just uh shop you just I'm saying through the session should I keep my camera off through the session yes yes please please do keep your camera off on on okay all right all yeah thank you thanks okay I shall e hello students uh a very warm welcome uh congratulations to all of you who have been sh listed for round two of HCL jigsaw 5.0 uh today we have a very special speaker to give a project uh for us so he's going to give us the project lecture following which we will give you instructions on how to go ahead with your project right to to start with uh I'll start with the introduction of Mr sham uh so Mr SRAM is a retailer by profession with over 27 years of experience in retail he has played uh instrumental role in many retail IND Industries uh the Great Indian retail story right and he had deep experience in designing Ling and setting up and maintaining retail outset for many popular brands such as cafe coffee day and Royal Enfield he has signed up over 15 Cafe across the country for Cafe Cafe day when he was working with them and established over 160 dealerships in Royal and field as well his core skills includes understanding of consumer Behavior avor approach and the target segment through Focus marketing and communication uh without further Ado I would like to uh invite uh SRI Ram to take us through this topic and uh following which we will have a question and answer uh students you will have a chat option popping up on your thing so any questions you have please drop it in the chat box we will answer it towards the end of the session uh over to you Mr s uh thank you thank you very much uh for giving me this opportunity to address the student community on a Saturday morning really appreciate hello kids my name is sham as I was introduced and uh it's a pleasure seeing you all today uh on a Saturday morning thank you for joining the session um uh I am going to take up probably about 25 minutes or more if not less uh to take you through the Journey of the Indian retail ecosystem uh um how and what I have seen in the last three decades in terms of the evolution of the retail industry at any point if you all feel I was a little fast or if you want to pause and ask for a clarification please feel free to do so with the moderators um I'm going to now go back uh you know in a time lapse to the '90s um 1997 is when I first started working I used to school po ice creams at one of the most favorite ice cream shops for many of us in the world uh Baskin Robins um I was having evening College where I would go at 4:00 in the college and I was studying computers at niit and during the daytime between 11: and 3 I used to go and scoop ice creams as a part-time uh more for the fun of working in an ice cream shop I felt it was pretty cool and also of course I can eat a lot of chocolate uh ice cream so that was the added um perk I would say but most importantly those those months that I spent working in an ice cream parlor laid the foundation for my interest to grow in the retail industry um many of you uh would have heard and seen about the evolution of supermarkets and department stores and all of these started somewhere around the mid90s uh the the picture that you see on the on the screen is that of food World it does not exist now by the way in 20 years it is gone um food world was one of the first Supermarket chains to to inaugurate in India at a peak they were operating about close to 4550 stores in the cities of Chennai kator Bangalore Hyderabad and coachin uh of course all of that uh got disintegrated over a period of of time but this was also the time when a number of um small uh and as well as um different formats of of retail also started uh Shopper stop which many of you would know started off in 1995 lifestyle uh came up with their first store in India it is part of the Dubai based Landmark group uh they set up their first Outlet in Chennai pantaloon uh which later got named as future group the pantalon group owned by Mr Kishore bani they opened their first large Outlet in Kolkata and alongside we also had the growth of uh the brands like Cafe Coffee Day McDonalds and dominoes now why am I bringing this to your attention at this point is because these are the brands which started with automation of a lot of processes in retail uh India is traditionally a country of shopkeepers what we call as kiranas uh kirana is typically in the Western World what is called as a m pop store it's a family run business and they have a small shop in which they sell various Goods it could be clothes it could be Provisions it could be chai coffee and so on when these uh supermarkets and branded chains started operating they were the first ones to bring in Automation in retail and automation those days was very primitive in a sense that it was largely uh focused on uh on the billing part of it and for billing the automation also need to know what products were already within the system in the physical system so from the physical system it was automated into technology through technology so if there is a particular product such as a phone or maybe uh a spray only if it was in the system it will appear in the in the building system at the time of billing so these were some of the brands which which started off uh with with this with this entire Journey um while there were lot of restaurants and chai Shops and and other places it was always a handwritten bill which was given but companies like McDonald's Domino cafe coffee day they came up with printed bills now in the year 2024 you might all that this is isn't this the basic isn't this how it should be yes it is now but it was not so the case 25 30 years back so these were the early days of retailing in India and the the word automation was somewhat unheard of it was only the large or the very big companies cashr companies which are fueled by owner driven uh Enterprises they were the ones who had this opportunity then the the period which we call uh 2000 to 2010 this is when uh the um the massive expansion of all forms of retail began uh refund and exchange policies were introduced uh by the shops and shopkeepers uh there was a customer relationship management which was launched Loyalty cards were offered for uh customers who continuously purchase something from the shopkeepers um now refund and exchange you could you could you could say hey isn't that normal today I order something on Amazon or flip cart or ago it comes home if I don't like it I just say uh return and then somebody comes and pick it up yes in 2024 it's a reality but in in the early '90s and 2000s it wasn't um returns as a concept or refund as a concept was absolutely a no in India um of course unless otherwise the the customer knew the shopkeeper they will not even take back a product but starting from 20 uh 2000 to 2010 during that period uh the organized retail industry matured a lot more in the country and during this time a lot of new policies were brought in uh because of a massive expansion of all these large formats uh today we we say that there are about 120 top cities in in India we have four metros and then we have 25 odd top cities and then we have another 100 cities uh which are booming many of you will be from many of these cities I guess I suppose but back then it was restricted to about 10 15 cities in the country where most of the retail action if I can say happened now for for making a refund or an exchange the most fundamental thing was to be able to give uh a receipt so along with the receipt or with the bill the customer could go back to the shop and they could ask the shopkeeper to refund or exchange mostly it was exchange refund was not really the case back then uh even now it isn't normally a very normal thing in the offline retail business of course some e-commerce companies do now but going back to the 2000s it was not a normal thing now how does one track whether this particular product was purchased really in that company really in that shop in that store a lot of automation happened there which means companies had to keep track off to whom it was sold and at what price and at what date and all this data had to go and sit today most of us are are very comfortable in using a Google cloud or a Microsoft cloud or an Apple Cloud but those days it was all in servers you know it's a it's a room in which there will be lot of technological equipments which are kept and then they would be connected to the internet and like how we have a physical hard drive in every laptop there would be a room filled with you know a lot of Hardware where the data would go and sit it it would be virtual of course but you could you could see it in Hardware today everything is pushed to the cloud uh the photos that we take on our on our camera phones today are all pushed to the cloud but those days it had to physically go and sit in a hardware that required a lot of technological Investments to be made and if that investment was not made it was pretty much impossible to figure out which customer purchased when and whether they are within the exchange period normally 30 days was the accepted exchange period of sorts during the 2000s um customer relationship management so every business wanted to know who their customer was how much they were shopping when were the occasions in which they were shopping how much were they shopping for and most importantly are they coming back the repeat purchases that was very important so uh what was happening in these days to ensure that customers came regularly again and again to that particular shop uh companies like shoer stop created the First Citizens club which is a loyalty program similarly other other businesses had one too and by giving this loyalty card businesses ensured that their customers were coming back to to shop from them and therefore the number of repeat purchases began uh We call we call this as a 8020 syndrome 80% of revenues are driven by 20% of customers may not be exactly 20% maybe 22 24% but 80 20 is always the rule 20% of your results are achieved by 80% of your effort and 80% of your results are achieved by merely 20% of your of your of your efforts so similarly in business as well 20% of customers were driving 80% of the business almost so loyalty became a very important thing every shopkeeper wanted their customers to come back to them and for issuing a loyalty card and managing the Loyalty a lot of automation was also required and this obviously led to repeat purchases by the customers also from 2000 to 2010 we saw a massive Mall Revolution as I would like to call in India uh the first three malls came up almost next to each other uh the Spencer Plaza in Chennai Crossroads Mall in Mumbai and anel Plaza in Delhi this was between late '90s to early 2000s I would say by 2004 we had large malls coming up in across the country Forum mall for some of you who would know in Bangalore the inorbit mall in Hyderabad uh South City Mall came up in in Kolkata uh Phoenix Mall came up in Puna around the end of 2009 2010 so even smaller towns back then like Pune Hyderabad Etc were getting malls now why is this very important every Mall had between 200 to 300 shops some even uh 450 uh 400 OD shops within a single mall now every shop had to be automated in a sense that they had to be uh living up to the expectations of the customers who came to the larger mall and this Evolution happened during 2011 to 2020 at a peak of 2014 there were 450 plus malls in the country 450 and each Mall had 200 to 400 shops every shop was required to give a printed invo to the customer it also led to the growth of branded shops and this was also the time when the customer could buy a a dress or a shirt or a denims or a or any product for that matter at one particular shop in one particular City in one particular mall and then go and get it exchanged in some other City because everything could be automated in the back end the customer had a bill and in many cases even if the customer did not have a bill just by giving an input of their mobile number the the the shopkeeper on the back end could see uh when was this when was this particular product purchased so all this development happened between 2011 to 2020 uh along with the growth of branded shops the customer relationship management softwares extensively grew because in one single Mall there were 300 shops the customer had limited money in their pockets you see so how is it that every shop or every brand will attract their customers to come back to them and not go to somebody else this was largely possible through an extensive customer uh uh relationship Management program or what we call as a loyalty program so every brand was reaching out regularly to their customers giving them points loyalty points for shopping and these loyalty points in turn could be redeemed when they when they come and purchase something the next time and that is how a lot more automation happen not just uh uh doing a billing for the customer but also understanding the customers's needs and requirements on a continuous basis and also this was the time between 2014 and 2020 when when when people stopped buying for occasion uh 30 years back when I was much before when I was a kid like you all studying in in class n uh we would we would buy clothes maybe three times a year at best four times so one was for birthday one was for Diwali one was the New Year the the the Hindu new year as we call not the January 1 New Year and the fourth one was typically uh for a wedding in the family or for an occasion in the family Etc so the shopping was just restricted to three to four times a year uh all of this changed between 2014 to 2020 when people were shopping at the drop of a hats oh I have a party this weekend so I had to go and buy something I have to uh I have my cousin's cousins uh uh third cousin's marriage happening so I had to buy something uh and then there were occasions where people were buying for no reason at all and then there was end of shopping season sale EOS as we call 30% off 40% off 70% off something is available at such less prices so let's go and buy all of this happened during this period that is 2014 to 2020 all also about 60% of these 400 plus malls had a multiplex now why am I saying this is back then I think even even until about early 2000s if you go to a cinema theater a standalone cinema theater they would give you a ticket which is a small print kind of a thing it was not automated it didn't have much of an in uh information it was yellow in color or pink in color something like that um this period of 2014 to 2020 because there was a multiplex in every Mall every Multiplex was required to give a printed Bill and that Bill had a lot more information to be captured uh it had the of course the seat numbers were there but it also had probably the names of the of the of the of the customer or the or the cinema viewer because they were also shopping for these tickets through platforms like book my show so book my show and other platforms could actually see what is the kind of movies one was watching was it crime was it Thriller was it dramedy and so on and so forth so printed tickets were issued all through this period they saw the phenomenal growth of chains like PVR Ino syap pois and many other chains and overall watching a movie uh was more of an experience again a lot of automation was going back in because if if it was a movie of a big film star like like Salman Khan or Amir Khan or Shah ruk Khan or any of those uh pan India actors or other language uh Superstars uh a lot of people were expected to come and when they come they would consume coffee snacks Coke Pepsi and popcorn and whatnot accordingly a lot of backend work was required to be done so quite a bit of uh uh uh time uh was spent in understanding the the behavior and also because customers came to the malls to watch a movie at a multiplex before or after watching a movie in in I mean in in in every other case they were consuming something or the other at the food Cod so food courts became very large they were also centralized in terms of billing you have to go to one particular place you have to buy a coupon or you have to buy a card and then you have to go to every other shop in the food code and redeem what you have actually paid for so all this involved quite a lot of automation that happened at the back end also multiplexes were fueling people to come to the malls so when there was a Blockbuster movie it was pretty sure that lot of people will come to the mall and shopping also went up during this period of time so 60% of of the malls having a multiplex was seen as a very big Advantage because a lot of a lot of people who came to the to watch the movie were also shopping and dining between 2011 to 20 something very very important happened you uh kids are the digital age kids and this was also the time India saw the birth and growth of e-commerce so Flipkart which began his journey sometime in 2007 or8 serving selling books in a in a small uh house that they had rented in Bangalore started growing because of Investments and in 2011 uh Amazon entered India 20112 was when they they set up their large uh warehouses in India and then started selling stuff online many Indian online uh many Indian retailers like Shopper stop uh pantalons to some extent many of these companies also attempted to sell their products on the internet through e-commerce but they were not able to match the scale or the processes of automation that companies like Amazon were building some of you may know many of you may know the founders of flip cart used to earlier work in Amazon so they also knew how the processes of Automation in retail was in Amazon and they tried to somewhat mimic the same thing at flip cart whereas the professionals who were working in large Indian companies in the retail industry Shopper stop future group cafe coffee day any of these large companies they were not as much exposed to e-commerce or for technology and because of that uh the Indian companies the retail the offline retail companies as we call had a huge uh challenge in terms of going online even today even today the the largest retail company in India which is which is reliance with a annual turnover of one lakh crores does not have a very uh fruitful e-commerce platform uh when it is when it is to do with with with shopping online the first blink is always at Amazon or at Flipkart right um so 2011 to 20 also saw the growth of e-commerce in India along with shopping travel movie and other entertainment ticketing also went online through websites and through apps which later on came such as make my TR book my show and many others this was also the time that the kirana shops the corner M and pop shops they had to upgrade their uh themselves they had to their upgrade their shop in terms of how they looked like they had to upgrade the the infrastructure in their shops they had to put a fan they had to put a AC bright lighting Etc from a counter sales in the sense that you know you go to a shop and then you ask for a particular pack of biscuit or juice the shopkeeper would pick it up from the shelf and give from that to a uh a circulation model which means that the customer can walk around the shop all these kinds of upgrades in smaller and midsize shops happen during 2011 to 2020 it's it's a decade right so a lot of lot of things also happened during that time uh one of the most important things that happened during this period the later part of the de is what I call as fital retail which is an amalgam of physical and digital so Ikea or Ika as they call in Europe uh when they set up their first store in Hyderabad uh this was one of the first companies to do a a fital retail model where one could shop at the store and request for a delivery be delivery to be made to their house or they can shop online and then physically go to the store inspect it and get it delivered so the the the chain like the chains like ikia were offering uh the the best of both so it was called as fetal retail Shoppers stop uh they also offered something very similar to that minra was doing something very similar way back in 2017 or 18 they had a model where you could try and buy which means you could you could order one two three four five clothes all the five will come to your house somebody will bring you can go and take a trial whichever you likeed you can keep that and pay for it and the balance you could return so a lot of innovation such as this happen during this period which is what we call as Omni Channel retail which is a multi- channel retail or fital retail this is also the time when a number of Brands like Levis for example you could go to the store you you see a particular color of denim you like the fit you like the size you everything is comfortable but you wanted a different color or you wanted one one size bigger or one side smaller you could place the request for that in the in the shop itself and then it will be shift directly to your house or it could come to the store and then one could um uh pay once again take a trial and then you could uh you could finalize your purchase so all this happened during 2020 then March 27th 2020 happened which is when the whole country of India went into a shutdown mode the first ever lockdown that probably five generations of people in India had not seen happened uh everything was closed for 3 weeks starting from 27th of March until 14th of April and due during this period of 2020 to 2021 there was a tectonic shift as reality hit this is a photo of canot place in New Delhi many of you would have been there for shopping or sightseeing and this photo was taken on the morning of 27th of March when the whole parking area uh was filled with pigeons and there was absolutely zero human scene on that particular day this was one of the iconic photograph which was clicked by by a news reporter um small shops had to upgrade themselves small shops here included Kiran grocery clothing store uh jewelry store uh it could be also electronic store so the smaller guys had to upgrade themselves and get bigger while the already big retailers had to shrink because they were too big uh people were not coming enough uh to to shop for the spread of uh the the virus people were not going to theaters some of you would would remember I remember that two tickets uh two two chairs would be given and then two chairs would be empty and then two chairs would be given and so on when we all were traveling by flight the middle row was was always knocked off it was only the window seat and the aisle seat in a in a in an aircraft a lot of changes happened during this period 2020 to 2021 and this is when something called quick commerce was launched Q Commerce as you as you understand today quick commerce was launched where you could you could order for a product and and it could get delivered to you within a few minutes or within a few hours uh so big basket uh the company now owned by the T group was one of the first ones to launch quick Commerce with big basket uh format of delivering in 2 hours uh a lot of kirana shops also upgrade themselves um they they they got in a lot of Technology very small kiranas were able to build a native app uh put in about thousand odd products and then could give it to their their customers the regular customers who could then order online and then the delivery would be um made or or attempted within 2 three hours while all this was happening the large retail stores across the country somewhat missed the bus uh they did not live up to this the time pressure that existed which means that um they were not able to be agile to the larger environment because of which some of the large retail companies had to literally shut down big Bazar was one one of the largest and the earliest large format retailer which adopted huge amounts of Automation and Retail was one of the first to be shut down during the covid period hundreds of shops across the country also shut down while we had the demonetization of the currencies of of 1,500 rupees way back in 2017 and 18 the digital payments were slowly growing people were still hesitant to pay through uh their mobile phone and they were still comfortable paying through cash but during 2020 and 21 because the currency nodes could carry back Bia through saliva um a lot of payments mov digital and thereafter has remained since that today you could buy a cup of chai or a coffee for 10 or 15 rupees uh through through your UPI payment uh apps like a Google pay or a phone pay um you go to a large shop and you buy uh some clothes or some Electronics you could pay it online just by scanning a um a QR code uh a lot of this happened during 2022 2021 2022 till now also uh I I I have been in retail for the last three decades and I think the current period the present continuous as I like to call is probably the most exciting part of my own retail career uh this is where I the world has seen and India especially has seen a huge boom in quick Commerce quick Commerce is considered to be a delivery not in one day but probably faster than that in 2021 uh there was this company called zepto which came up in Mumbai and then quickly spread their platforms across the country they said we will deliver in 10 minutes time 10 which means you order a product you keep the phone down you have a glass of water you turn around somebody is there for delivery how cool is that today zepto is the largest operator in terms of quick Commerce um swig's internal S as you know is the S and zatoo are the food delivery Partners but they also developed uh quick Commerce capabilities so instamart was s's back end which swiy created all by themselves whereas there was a company called Growers uh which became blinket and then blinket was acquired by zomato so today it is figgy versus zato that is instamart versus blinket versus zepto and two weeks back Flipkart has launched uh a service called minutes only in the city of Bangalore and within Bangalore very few PIN codes where you can order whatever you want and you can get that delivered in 10 minutes behold yesterday there was a person who had posted on Twitter which is now known as X the platform that he was sitting at a the Starbucks cafe and he was browsing the flip cart app under the minutes he found a particular gaming laptop which cost between 90,000 to about one and a half lakhs or so he was very curious that you know how fast it could be delivered and he has posted it yesterday on LinkedIn that a laptop was delivered while he was sitting at the uh at the Starbucks cafe in 13 minutes 13 that's it and he has also posted a video of the delivery boy keeping the laptop on his shoulders and bringing it all the way to the Starbucks cafe where he was seated of course it was not an impulsive purchase nobody buys a a laptop for a laak rupees instantly it is usually a juice or a food or or maybe a de spray but uh one lakh rupee laptop is not usual and normal however the gentleman also say that he has been searching for this laptop with this configuration for quite a while and he found it on flip cart and flip cart said they could deliver it in 10 minutes or 13 minutes in in real and then it got delivered now this is creating a lot of pressure and heat for large format retailers last week there was a huge sale that was going on so I bought this little noise um uh Ear Pod there you go this costed about 5,000 rupees but it was at a 70% discount 70 I said okay let me try I already have one I actually didn't want another but then I said okay it's not bad to have one more as a spare if this runs out of battery I could have one more or I can keep one in the office and one in the car uh it actually got every word in 10 minutes I was pleasantly surprised shocked amazed and I'm wondering as you kids grow up in the next 10 15 years what kind of automation will happen um in in in in many countries globally the Apple wallet through the Apple phone and the Google Wallet through the Google phone is already on now maybe maybe in the next couple of years uh in India uh because of rbi's Licensing issues we don't have that in in India at the moment I'm sure we are going to we're going to cross that bridge very soon um Android watches are connected to Android devices and apple watches are connected to Apple devices so maybe in the next 2 three years or maybe five years if I if if if things don't happen that fast when you go to a when you go to a Kira shop like the one you see on the photograph or you go to a chroma or you go to a mall you don't even have to carry your credit card or your debit card or your Google pay or your phone on you don't have to probably carry anything just a watch is enough you go to the shop do like that at that particular uh QR code which is placed there and boom the payment is made right now where are we headed in terms of retail automation uh in 2024 and Beyond I think that's a very big uh question to uh to answer I for one do not know the answers I think yall are going to be given a project uh which may involve this and many other such uh futuristic things that are going to happen um so I think I will I will meet some of you who make up to the finals after two or three weeks that is what I have been informed by the organizers and last but not the least there has also been casualities in the Q Commerce space dunzo uh dunzo was a company which uh which sprang into uh action I think in 2018 or or yeah 2018 or 19 uh Google made the first investment in India on this company called dunzo they invested $50 million right back then uh it was about 300 OD crores that went into dunzo and what was dunzo doing dunzo was doing intas City Courier you know they could pick it up pick up The Courier from one particular town uh one particular pin code in the town and delivered to another particular uh area now they also pioneered and pivoted in the retail space During the covid period and subsequently because of their popularity uh dunzo almost became um a common name like how we say let's take a Xerox it's not Xerox Xerox is the name of the company yes let's take a photocopy but photocopy became zerox so similarly uh sending something sending a file or many many people have said that they forgot their laptop chargers at home and somebody could just dunzo it as they call uh now unfortunately danzo has run out of money in the last six months and danzo is on the world of shutting down now as I always say the Pioneer company or the Pioneer startup in in any space especially in retail may not may not be the winner and danzo is one of those examples so danzo has shut down although they were the Pioneers in Q Commerce and delivery and Beyond I think in the last 30 35 minutes I have taken through a sort of a a journey that I have seen in the last 30 odd years uh across the country I've had the privilege to travel to almost every state in India and three of the states in in the Northeast uh so I think very little I have I am yet to see but of course what I have seen is very very small this country is a very large country by geography so I have tried to capsule whatever I have learned with all of you in the last 30 35 minutes and with this I'm going to um I'm going to put this up uh for a question answer session uh this is this is something that has happened very recently uh the minister uh uh the union Minister Mr peush goyel uh two days back has also condemned that uh e-commerce is hurting offline retail in India because offline retail um uh companies and shops and shopkeepers are are quite badly affected by the deep discounts which are being given by the e-commerce companies uh with this I would like to take a pause and I would uh probably open it up for Q&A so please feel free to ask your questions thank you uh thank you thank you Mr sham uh I mean that was almost like a journey of the past 30 years right so starting from the Ice Cream Shop to uh coming to what is happening at today's scenario um so we have a lot of questions which are already coming up right so to start off with uh I think as you said the Minister's uh Minister statement recent statement right so one child has also asked uh won't end to end Automation in the retail sector change the uh very nature of the sector would it have more disadvantages than Advantage this is a question by a child very nice uh yes uh any any change is is usually uncomfortable uh we all many cases is as we grow older we all like status quo we don't want things to change we want things to remain as they are but that's not the nature uh of the world you know things keep evolving things keep changing so as me as we uh get to um innovate and and automate a lot of things um many things worldwide will become simpler as well so I think that is is is is a very important thing that needs to be looked looked into uh will it change the fabric may not be because it only is change is usually for the better right uh change or Improvement or disruption whichever way we want to call is usually in always for the betterment it it a change never generally takes you back change always takes you in the front so I I I mean I'm not very sure if um a positive change is going to set us behind or set us back but uh I think it probably also so changes from time to time situation to situation uh yeah that's a very good perspective to look at it and uh the next uh question is more on the economics of it right so we see a lot of these e-commerce uh companies are disrupting the market with lot of offers and things do they actually make profits no Amazon does not make profits Amazon has not declared its profits or loss more than once in the last 26 years in the year 1998 Amazon declared a profit on their e-commerce operations after that on only their e-commerce business Amazon has never declared or shared their results now if Amazon has not made money in e-commerce who is going to make money in e-commerce um I I have been tutored I have been lucky and fortunate enough to work with a legend like Mr Kish bani and his brother Mr raakesh bani when I used to work for the future group so I was taught a very fundamental tenet of of trading of shop of retailing when you make a transaction there are three things which are involved there's a buyer and there's a seller and there is a uh a transaction fee or there is a cost of transaction now the cost of transaction has to translate to a profit to the seller in no case it can be at a loss so these are this is some of the fundamental tenet that I was taught when when I joined the retail industry many years back so if you don't make a profit in a transaction that Pro that transaction will not uh live for too long therefore um many of these companies e-commerce companies especially uh they have been running into crores and millions and billions of losses look at flipart flip cart was acquired by Walmart about 8 nine years back uh they pumped in $4 billion to acquire flip card in the last nine years they have not made profits before that they did not make profits they're valued the valuation is significant but valuation will not buy you a cup of coffee you need real money you need real profits in your in your account in the long term yes in the short term valuations do help valuations help raise further Investments but it is still on paper to pay salaries to pay for a cup of coffee you need real cash in the bank which none of these companies currently have many of them are moving towards profitability no doubt swiy and zomato for example we subsidizing every delivery for subsidizing every order however uh by by increasing the platform fees a little bit by increasing the menu pricing a little bit by giving add-ons a little bit they are also moving towards quite a bit of profitability great uh next is a bit of interesting question on Innovation he said like during Co there is a lot of innovation that happened in the retail sector uh many survived and some of them did not according to you what do you think is the best Innovation that came during covid thank you for asking I missed the slide because of was Shing running L of time WhatsApp commerce was the biggest Innovation that came out of of Co WhatsApp Commerce many of your parents would probably been doing that during Co many may still be doing it even now my family does that quite often we have our local fruits and vegetables vendor uh so those days the vendor would say write down what do you want take a picture and send it on WhatsApp along with your address and I will get that delivered Z Zer technology zero investment how beautifully the kirana shops and the the small and marginalized shops how beautifully they they leveraged on a platform like WhatsApp Commerce looking at how the small shops were doing a lot of big businesses started doing WhatsApp Commerce today hundred hundreds of brands are operating on WhatsApp through WhatsApp Commerce uh and it is one of the biggest out comes as I would call uh on the positive side of covid uh so if there was something called covid positive I think it is this that's a new definition for covid positive as well thanks uh uh so again uh there are more questions uh as well but considering time I'll probably choose some of it uh sorry oh uh so you spoke a lot about uh different sectors of uh retail uh that you have come across right uh so when we look at automation do you think automation is required from all these sectors of retail or uh it it requires only at a large scale uh Enterprise now what is what is automation right uh using technology if we can make a physical process move towards a technology driven process that is automation right now look at look at cities like NOA good Bangalore Pune uh where where there are a number of malls behind which there are apartments right hundreds of families today on a Saturday morning at 10:00 woke up and did not make a coffee or breakfast they just ordered it online in my view that is automation on a Saturday morning there are four five members or six members in the family each one wants a different breakfast because today is a holiday it's the beginning of a weekend and mommy or grandma or the or the cook has to take that pressure of doing various things for various people now look at a scenario where you open an app like swiggy or the equalent tuck tuck tuck tuck tuck you put in five things that the whole family requires brush your teeth come sit down watch TV watch music your breakfast has arrived this is true automation this is the automation of the customer Journey instead of going to the kitchen and somebody having to prepare chai coffee breakfast bread and so on you're sitting in your couch and getting that done as I always say automation or technology gives us both a boon and a bane I for one have always fought including my own family my own kids using technology are we getting smarter or are we getting lazier for example if my Kido wants to know which is the which city is the capital of Poland which city is the capital of Ukraine two cities where our honorable prime minister visited last week in the last two three days two countries good old days when I was a kid if I did not know which was the capital of Poland or or Ukraine I would open an atlas I would open a notebook or or or a textbook or my geography book and I would search for the answers today probably many kids I don't know how many in India maybe six out of 10 four out of 10 n out of 10 who just turn their head and say Alexa which which is the capital of Poland boom comes an answer are we smarter in using our time or are we getting lazier I think it is to each their own by not having to refer a book I'm saving quite a lot of time and still getting my answer from an Alexa device however if I had opened the geography book and looked up which was the capital for Poland there is a high chance that I would also know which are the capital of the countries neighboring Poland so there is no real right answer of how automation is going to do good or automation is not so going to do good there is no clear answer I think it is to each their own uh we have today automated cars uh uh we have today self-driving cars uh today we have cars that come with a facility called Adas which is automatic detection uh uh in case there is a collision Etc does it mean that I can sit behind the wheels and keep looking at my iPad or I can see keep reading something on my magazine or I can keep watching a YouTube video perhaps not it is it is a technology solution which is given to make our lives better similarly automation especially in the retail space is is something which is made to ensure that um the user takes advantage of it look look at these little QR codes which are kept at the kirana shops there was a time when when this digital uh Embrace was beginning the shopkeeper had to every time take up their phones and see whether the money was credited and PM came with a very simple solution they kept a speaker box which announced that the shopkeeper has received that money so he or she does not have to open their device and check whether the money is actually come because somebody else was simply announcing it now I call this as positive automation a process has now moved online or has become a simplified technology driven upgrade and I think that is only there to make our lives better does it answer your question or maybe you want to do a followup yes I I I think that definitely answers the question in detail thank you so much for that uh I'll just take one last question from a student uh so here the question is what do you think are the challenges that retailers face in integrating automation with their existing systems I think this is one of the toughest uh things to accomplish because in India uh we have technology which is made at a very Nimble very young very low cost all the way going up to to very Advanced algorithms and advanced systems so in many case integrating a technology with another technology is always a challenge I think this is probably the biggest challenge that we are trying to uh address in the last 10 15 years I remember uh when Erp enterprise resource planning came first into uh the retail space one of the largest global companies to sort of put this into into into a full form was sap Labs Germany based sap Labs thereafter a number of companies came into creating Erp modules enterprise resource planning modules it all started on the shop floor in a factory and all the more all and over a period of time moved to the shop floor in a retail C in a retail ecosystem what is produced can be very quickly and easily measured because there is a system of measuring but what is kept in this particular retail shop that you see in the photograph on your screen is very difficult to be measured because this shopkeeper does not have a standard uh point of sale system the point of sale Billing System even if he does the solution that we are trying to give to automate for example Hindustan unver might have a different software that they use versus Colgate palal versus darber versus Himalaya or pangali so when there are four or five different companies come with a different automation module one shopkeeper will find it extremely difficult to put this all together so there are no clear answers for this but this is continuing to be not just a challenge it is also becoming a headache thank you thank you so much uh sham thank you so much for your time and all the wonderful insights that you throw upon all the students uh thanks for your time I think with that uh I would like to formally say thank you to you you can sign off if need be I'm just going to give some basic instructions on how they have to do their uh project for the students that's it thank you so much thank you everyone and uh it was a pleasure meeting you all wish you good luck for your uh uh sessions uh to come see you bye-bye and have a great day thank you uh can you stop sharing screen so that I yes thank you thank you all right see you then bye-bye see you thank you bye-bye students please stay back for two more minutes I'll quickly share an instructions video which will help you navigate through the platform and uh it'll give you some instruction on what needs to be done for the next uh two days right so please stay back just a second students I think uh I think the audio is not clear for you just give me a second in this video we are going to see some important instructions on how do you access your worksheets and quiz for the next two days so on your profile page if you scroll down you will be able to see your project name and click view details under that so right now you're attending the project lecture so once the lecture is over the next step will be to interact with your project guide and get to know your team you'll be able to see your teammates in the bottom right corner the next step is worksheet one interact with project guide session once you click on that as soon as the timing is open from 11:00 a.m. today you will be able to connect to your project guide through the that option and then from the same time onwards your worksheet one will also be open and you will be able to access your worksheet here so everything that you need to access will be available on the left hand side panel please remember the deadlines for your submissions it is there on your profile page itself so worksheet one submission deadline is 10 p.m. today and worksheet 2 and three and your quiz submission deadline is 700 p.m. tomorrow remember it is a group worksheet you can collaborate with your teammates and complete the worksheet even if you are filling the same answers we require each student to fill the worksheet individually unless you fill your worksheet your submission will not be counted for the selection for the next round so each one of you should fill the worksheet individually even if you're discussing and entering the same answer in case if your teammate is not available then you can go ahead and fill the worksheet by yourself when your teammate logs in he will be able to add his inputs to the worksheet whichever is the best submissions will be taken into consideration for evaluation so you need not worry about it there might be questions that I have completed my worksheet should I wait till my teammate joins it is not necessary once you complete your worksheet you can log off but probably you can leave a message to your teammate in the group chat asking uh him to toing you once he is back right so and evening you can come back uh before the deadline and you can check back if he's available online he or she and you can interact with them and make modifications to the worksheets if need be you can update uh the worksheets I mean after submission if you want to make Corrections and submit it again that can still be done in the same worksheet so these are some important instructions please remember these and from 11:00 a.m. on Words you will be able to interact with your project by by clicking on the worksheet one project guide session so today's deadline is 10 p.m. and for tomorrow the deadline is 700 p.m. for worksheet 2 3 and the quiz so tomorrow you will be able to attend the quiz only after you complete all your three worksheets unless you submit all three worksheets you will not be able to take the quiz this will be a quick uh 10 minute quiz with 15 questions and it'll be a simple quiz so please complete it within 10 minutes and uh after 10 minutes the quiz will automatically [Music] close all the best thank you so thank you students uh your project guides will be available from 11:00 a.m. so you can click on interact with project guide to go and connect with them before that you can check your team uh mate names right you will be having uh interact with Pier option at the bottom of your screen so you can just click on that screen to leave a chat message to your uh teammates you can get yourself introduced and you can also interact with your project guide yeah all the best uh for your worksheets see you again bye