The company has integrated online and offline channels seamlessly, allowing an integrated customer experience
MEHRIAR PATEL
AGC NETWORKS & THE MOBILE STORE ESSAR RETAIL
One of the big things we have arranged and developed is that we have looked at new product development. I think today a lot of businesses are earning on product development. Over the last one year, we have developed some niche products which have helped us get 30 per cent of the revenue. We have created a system internally which gives a two-hour delivery commitment to the users. The mode can be from anywhere, the customer gets the promise of delivery within two hours to wherever he orders from. And that particular things is working well.
AGC Networks and The Mobile Store, both Essar Enterprise group companies, have been enabling digital technologies both internally as well as externally as part of its IT transformational roadmap in the last two years.
Mehriar Patel, CIO at Essar Retail, The Mobile Store & AGC Networks has been looking closely at how the company does business, how is the business run and how the company can take the help of new-age digital touchpoints to integrate the entire architecture within the organisation.
“We run the CRM as it is a big thing for us because in AGC, we cater to lot of SIs, partnerships across global geographies and in The Mobile Store, it is the e-commerce plus the offline store operations that we run today and we have integrated APIs connect for all e-commerce portals. In terms of being a digitally forward company, we specifically look at the areas which are the main drivers today,” explains Patel.
Giving an example, he adds, “We have a company which has a mobile wallet. It is integrated completely into core Essar financial working so every employee today has a mobile wallet installed on his android / iOS phone. It necessarily does lot of transactions on this mobile wallet platform. All are internal usage as well as external. So I think the digital proliferation what we do is we drive first internally for our users, same platform is available to the external users also.”
Patel is also working on a complete grounds up refresh of the company's e-commerce portal. “We are taking it from the perspective of customer usage,” Patel opines, adding, “When a customer visits a store, he walks in with a vision in mind so the delivery journey and the workflow we have developed for the customer is aligned. Here we know what the customer wants to buy, attachments are clear in the cart, that kind of single window concept has been taken and offered to the customer, whether he goes online or to the store, the complete concept is One Customer.”
Supply chain is completely integrated, even for third party deliveries. Pickups with the choice for the customer are: if he chooses to get the shipment delivered, the company does it; if he chooses to have a pickup from a store, it is available and if he chooses to have the delivery done in or after three days, he will get it delivered after three days then.
In the long run, Patel wants to adopt new-age AI-based digital platforms. “I think there is a lot of learning which is happening. Some might work, some might fail. How these failures are passed and how long does it take to overcome them is needed to be seen. The only thing which is different is now you cannot gauge your customers. So one needs to be consciously evolving, need to be looking at technologies which should be forward-looking. One should work on gut feeling and get the people engaged. I think no five year roadmap or six year roadmap is going to work nowadays. Technologies are evolving at a much faster rate than ever before,” Patel says.
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