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74465_AWS_EL Retail Edition_Transcript_12 Infosys Aldin Alwin_V1

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Page 1 Transcript GFX: [AWS LOGO] EXECLEADERS ARVIND MATHUR: Welcome to ExecLeaders. I'm Arvind Mathur, Director of Enterprise Strategy with Amazon Web Services. GFX: ARVIND MATHUR, DIRECTOR, ENTERPRISE STRATEGY, AWS ARVIND MATHUR: And I'm here with Andal Alwin, who leads the Consumer Goods, Retail and Logistics business for Infosys in Asia Pacific. GFX: ANDAL ALWIN VP & HEAD OF APAC, CONSUMER, RETAIL LOGISTIC, INFOSYS ARVIND MATHUR: Welcome Andal. You speak with a lot of consumer goods, retail logistics CXOs ah to help them navigate this very fast moving industry. Tell us about some trends that you're noticing? ANDAL ALWIN: Lots happening as you said Arvind. I'd broadly categorise them into two areas. The first one is all around the consumer. The second one is about the environment in which we all operate. Consumer is what he is buying is evolving. How he buys is also evolving. Let's take the example of the fashion industry. While we see customers gravitating towards buying preloved clothes, they're environmentally conscious, but there are a lot of them also buying fast-fashion. People are moving towards very health conscious diets, exercises, and sporting goods. There's a lot happening in what they buy. How they buy is also evolving. For example, people engage across multiple channels. They buy across multiple channels. The service standards are transported from one industry to another. For example, if I engage with a travel aggregator I look for the same experience when I engage with an airline. So I think this is a very happening place. Looking at the environmental conditions, again I would say economic which is largely inflationary pressures which is telling on all of us. And then geopolitical shifts which again puts a huge challenge around uncertainty on the organisations. So that's the environment today. ARVIND MATHUR: Considering that retail has always been very consumer focused. How is that shifting? What's becoming sharper among those trends? ANDAL ALWIN: The first one that impacts brands is the opportunity for niche players to come and present their offerings. We call that as incumbents versus insurgents. I was reading a big study which talked about insurgents being able to gain more ground when the market has dominated the online channels in countries like Singapore or South Korea. Whereas in traditional markets you know the incumbents are willing, are able to hold the ground. Second one is the increase of the share of revenue of home brands for retailers. That means retailers are becoming brands themselves. And the brands have to then learn to work with the retailers on how they cater to that or survive with their own brands. If you look at the stats of Coles, Woollies, you know Metcash across Australia, the China retailers, India, the traditional regulars, all of them will be reporting in their annual reports huge increase in home brands. Another one is when consumers buy anywhere and everywhere. How do you predict where they buy and how do you make stocks available. Another impact I would say is how do you change your nodes in the supply chain, as well as continuously shift the source of supply, to cater to these challenges. Cost pressures, inflation pressures means your costs of operations are going up, sourcing is going up. So a lot of impact to the players in the consumer industry. ARVIND MATHUR: Yeah you're right. And I've seen this just through the organisations that I've been part of, and your insight is very true, that in markets where there's a strong online channel the barrier to entry for new insurgents is much lower. So you see these dynamic new insurgents coming in and taking small niches which creates pressures for the existing players. ANDAL ALWIN: Absolutely. ARVIND MATHUR: It also revitalises the retail environment. So, there's a lot of interesting activity because of that. A lot of funds are investing in this Transcript How business leaders are leveraging emerging trends in the retail and CPG landscape I N D U S T R Y E D I T I O N

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