Virtuous Realty is combining physical retail experience with virtual reality to get insights about customers without forcing them to give out their details
CHIRAG BOONLIA
VIRTUOUS RETAIL
With regards to digital transformation, I think it is more of a cultural mindset and the initiative has to come from within. An apt example for that would be what we are trying to achieve that is absolutely unique in the country.
One might always argue that what role can technology play in a company that manages commercial real estate, especially malls. However, Chirag Boonlia, CIO of real estate management firm, Virtuous Retail, feels digital transformation is more of a cultural mindset and that needs to come from within.
adding Virtuous Retail, a part of investment firm Xander Group, he says the company is trying to use analytics, loyalty programmes and customer profiling by a self-learning algorithm.
But the interesting part is that the company does not ask the customers to provide any data but collect it through multiple ways. Virtuous Retail has its own cash card-based food court system where it collects the mobile numbers for disseminating information like whether the food is ready, or you can do a top-up and all.
If a consumer is walking inside the centre then Virtuous Realty assesses on the parameters such as if he or she is using a data pack, or the free wi-fi system. “We then identify that this device has gone on these many locations and then this information is collaborated with our food court system or our hotel, database or we have a plug-n-play office, we again use these data elements and bring a customer profiling without even the consumer telling us about it,” Boonlia says. He puts in, adding the company does not misuse consumer data but analyse it as to what is the heat map of the centre, where is the dead spot, where is it that we need to improvise?
“So, this is one example where we make a lot of effort in new technologies and bringing all of it together,” says Boonlia, responsible in transforming the business digitally. He adds that VR is the first mall management company in the country to launch EVR Bengaluru which is like a virtual mall and is rapidly moving from offline to online. “Now, how do we do that it's like we onboard all the stakeholders in our system, we showcase our products, we have tied up with the third party systems where they provide payments and delivery as well,” he said.
For VR, it is the first-of-its-kind initiative, says Boonlia, adding it takes time to for people to understand and make use of it.
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