‘Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it’ as reassuring as this statement sounds in the context of the dark times being faced by Harry Potter and company, one could safely say there could have been no other statement which could come close to it. That was my belief too until it was Day 2 of the induction program at JBIMS. It was the to be director addressing our batch, clearly laying out the high level of expectations institute has formed us and giving a short description of how busy our lives were going to be for next 2 years. 10 pre-joining assignments, 17 hours of Day 1 sessions and just 3 hours of sleep later one could already imagine the challenges that lay ahead, on top of that the high-performance expectations and an official mandate on their delivery were not really helping one to feel confident. Believe me when you are sitting amidst those top 0.1 percentile, thinking of your excellent score and stellar past achievements isn’t the best way either to feel confident about yourselves. The sea of feelings in my heart was nothing short of what Harry feels facing those fatal challenges. However, it was that instant, our professor was closing her address, that I found the statement more reassuring than Dumbledore’s. She said and true to her words ‘Honesty is always appreciated at Bajaj’.
Those 6 simple words changed the dynamics for all of us. Nothing could have been a better icebreaker than that. Everything was different after that moment. Our interactions with on-boarding team, with professors and most importantly with each other became more genuine. Suddenly, we weren’t talking about our achievements, trying to outnumber each other’s, rather we were finding out areas of improvement and making plans for peer learning sessions. There was no DCP but rather genuine discussions. Our professors were more than happy to explain concept innumerable times if one didn’t understand it. It facilitated for a more productive and organized peer learning, it enhanced the productivity of academic sessions, ensured a cutthroat but fair competition, a sense of camaraderie and belonging to the institute. In conclusion, it rendered the B School experience ‘done right’. It has been a year since that iconic line and it still casts the same spell on us.
Speaking of iconic lines, do you remember Nick Fury’s first and most iconic line? ‘I am iron man? Think you are the only superhero in the world? Mr Stark you’ve become part of a bigger universe you don’t know it yet’. That’s Fury’s attempt to humble arrogant Stark. I’ve come across that dialogue at JBIMS more times than one comes across somebody saying ‘winter is coming’ in Game of Thrones, just with a lot less drama and lot more of an essence. Every senior student I met would go like ‘Hey, congratulations on making it to JB, be humble and keep learning, all the best’. It was a common theme during induction, lectures, infrastructure and even our dress code exhibited the same. As I progressed through the first year, I found it to be a value absolutely dear to JBites, staff and students alike. This value of humility rightly complements the value of honesty and hence there’s no discrimination, everyone is treated with respect.
These two values create an atmosphere where everyone brings their best to the table without any reluctance, fear or ulterior motive. The atmosphere liberates one to experiment with ideas, discover their weaknesses and work on them, figure out the path they want to take and learn accordingly, work with disagreements and work out a consensus. Being subject to such an aura for 2 years, one graduates with intent to make a difference and a head full of ideas and not just with a high paying job.
Speaking of ideas and intent, I have been following retail industry and digital for past few months. I’ve been fortunate enough to work on a digital banking project during summer internship incidentally developing a ‘digital lens’ of looking at certain things. When I look at the retail industry through that lens, lot of interesting things come up, when I say interesting I’m not (even remotely) referring to the augmented reality mirrors. Thank you very much but that piece of technology isn’t practical in the Indian retail landscape where our aim is to increase store footfall. I’m referring to more core things.
Ok, let’s look at one application from the plethora. Digital can help design loyalty programs in a huge way, evolving from just offering reward points and discounts to providing value in terms of personalization, convenience and exclusivity. It works in a really simple manner. Let’s take an example of a fashion retailer; every frequent shopper gets a membership card or a similar sort of touch point with the retailer. A retailer can record all the shopping activity and engage in a feedback through that touch point. Coupling that data with the feedback on social media a retailer can derive various insights ranging from those related to products to those about the shopping experience. While the insights related to shopping experience will help identify the right mix of channels to cater to customers, those product insights will play a key role in new product introductions. With those insights being derived in real time there could be 8-10 season cycles in a year rather than current 4. Bringing local micro production centres into picture will even enable retailers to make customized collections for premium loyal customers. Thus one can bring in freshness and set trends, 2 must haves of a fashion retailer, that too in a very cost-efficient manner and at a large scale with the help of digital. I know what you are thinking; such scale of variety will lead to a production nightmare. Well with the technologies of Industry 4.0 it won’t be half as challenging.
A lot of such action will take place in the near future and I don’t want to witness it from the sidelines, I want to be in the thick of it. I have more clear intent for being at the forefront of the action than what Thanos had for collecting infinity stones. I find this trait of ideation and experimentation analogous with ABFRL. Retail transformation as mentioned above is already happening in China and certain European countries, and ABFRL is one of the very few Indian corporations who are taking steps towards adoption. This trait stands out clearly when one closely looks at the fashion ecosystem they have been building and refining it with each passing day. This ecosystem which encapsulates majority of fashion segments is result of carefully thought out successful experiments of brand introductions and acquisitions. Speaking of the business intent, they have positioned the ‘Lifestyle’ brand as the one giving unprecedented access to a wide variety of choice to consumers, with ‘Pantaloons’ moving from 2 season cycles to 4 season cycles they clearly intend to bring fashion freshness to consumers and incidentally building a agile design and supply chain, with acquisition of ‘Forever 21’ and introduction of ‘People’ brand, it has rightly poised to tap into the big ticket segments of the future.
With such business outlook and strategy, ABFRL seems to be a place where my ideas would not only be welcome but also nurtured and implemented. At ABFRL, I could experiment and test my ideas with like-intended folks who, having worked in the industry are much more experienced and well versed with subtle nuances of it. Their expertise will further refine the ideas and what will emerge is business growth on a broader level and valuable learning for me. I consider this kind of symbiotic relationship to be of paramount importance at workplace since it appeals to my propensity to bring the best to the table and it seems just that with ABFRL. Thus an opportunity to work at ABFRL stands out form the rest and without a shred of doubt I would fructify it since it’s not a workplace it’s my playground.