Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Nagpur had the privilege of hosting Mr. Amitesh Tyagi- Director, Nielsen, for a guest lecture on October 3, 2020. Mr. Tyagi is an experienced professional and is currently working in the field of Retail and Marketing Research. He delivered an insightful lecture on the topic ‘Market Research And MarTech In Retail’

The following is an excerpt from the interview with him-

 Q1) Having experience of over 9 years of in Retail and market research, can you throw some light on the importance of retail tech in today’s world when compared to the past?

Ans. In Retail technology, there is evolution around the corner. Firstly, the advancements in e-commerce, which are currently slow and stagnant, tend to grow. Secondly, the retail apocalypse is happening in large-scale organized chain stores in the western world where many stores have been shut down, whereas India is more of a consolidation where a large player like Reliance is trying to consolidate the market. It is trying to unite the digital and brick-and-mortar stores. Lastly, digitization of the local player or the mom and pop stores is a theme that accelerated with the COVID-19 situation. They had to shift since it was a decision to either perish or survive. These three are the evolving themes and the winner for sure is the consumer.

Q2) Of all the domains that you've worked in, which domain did you find the most challenging? How has your experience from these diverse fields aided your entrepreneurship journey?

Ans. All domains are different and it is challenging to say which domain is better than the other. The one that is enjoyable the most is the retail sector. This is because the sector is undergoing a lot of transformation but the one that has a lot of impact in the future is the financial services. I want to re-enter the financial sector because we are at a tipping point in the financial inclusion space. Though the sector is not booming at this point, it is an opportunity that is waiting to be harnessed and there are a good amount of activities that are happening.

Q3) Due to the pandemic, the logistics department was the most hit which in turn was affecting every other business. What should the functional changes retail marketing introduces to overcome or avoid these situations in the future?

Ans. Retail Marketing is the starting and the endpoint of any supply chain. Producers are the point of origin and logistics work as an enabler for the supply chain. It has to be in much more synergy with logistics in a way that we can build up trust and a much more reliable supply chain so that we can cope up with blockchains. The future is in blockchain technology and the supply chain has to evolve to adopt blockchain. Logistics will be the enabler and retail marketing would be the one that will efficiently tell the area which would be most advantageous.

Q4) With the future group being acquired by Mukesh Ambani, how do you view the future of retail business and shopping malls?

Ans. Let's just shift the focus from the companies to the consumers. How consumer behavior will change and its dynamics operate on Darwin's principle –‘the survival of the fittest’. The Future Group could not remain the fittest so it had to suffer, if Reliance doesn't stay the fittest it may have to suffer, and so on. There are multiple factors that these organizations have to take care of from compliances and financials to asset value and so on. But who understands the consumer the best, is the one who is the overall winner in the world, which at the moment is Amazon. If one reads their annual report, one can notice that it majorly talks about consumers. The difference is the focus on the consumer is what you have in Amazon versus what you have in a future group.

Q5) Since everything these days has moved online, so have our seminars. So how was your experience of briefing the student managers at the Institute of Management Technology, Nagpur?

Ans. It was fantastic. Right from the beginning one of the student managers approached me randomly and from that day onwards she had been very professional, very knowledgeable, and understanding. The kind of quality questions that came up was very intelligent and inquisitive. Lastly, the whole execution was very nicely done and I wish luck to all of you for your future endeavors and I’m sure that you will thrive wherever you go.