Way Ahead - the Four-pillar Approach

Rishi Vasudev CEO, Lifestyle, who took over the reins from Vasanth Kumar, interpreted the FFA approach in the light of the pandemic and arrived at a fourpronged approach to ensure that Lifestyle is able to reach its potential and soar even higher

the pandemic catapulted the company on to a learning track to understand the emerging normal, and devise operating ways which would make Lifestyle and Home Centre continue to retain past glory.

More InnovatIon: need of the hour

What was arrived at as a possible action plan was defined in four pillars. The first pillar was to be Innovation. The unprecedented health crisis shook the world and business houses across the globe, and created what is referred to as the ‘new normal’.

So the need of the hour was that employees were required to go beyond what they had been doing and define new ways of doing things: operating more efficiently; looking at newer categories, brands, formats; and evolving fresh digital ways of connecting with consumers. Consumer behaviour was changing and new retail cost structures were emerging.

In such a scenario, it was critical that innovation come into sharp focus and be top priority. An Innovation Cell was started keeping this in view. This pushed employees to look at alternate sales channels. All the employees were given the opportunity to try new things with room for failure, should there be any.

Greater Speed: to Grab eMerGInG opportunIty

The second pillar was Speed. It was felt that much energy and time was being consumed in doing a few things – too many checks and balances had emerged. Post the pandemic, no company had the luxury of time. Things had to move fast, lost ground had to be acquired and the business taken forward. Also, to be able to innovate, speed was of the essence. In order to grab emerging opportunities in the market, the company needed to be on fast track.

eMphaSIS on dIGItal: IMpact acroSS functIonS

It was felt that emphasis on digital capabilities – a part of the FFA approach - to harness Omni channel capabilities should be the third pillar of action. How the digital world was emerging and the business responses needed to adapt was a learning relevant for everyone in the company.

Product development, for instance, would need to take into account the online customer as well as the traditional offline consumer; pricing too had to be arrived at keeping both channels in view. Even the warehouse person was no longer largely handling shipments to the store – he was handling bulk shipments to the consumer directly. This, in turn affected the warehouse design approach – it did not suffice to think of large warehouses in big cities. The answer it was felt, may lie in designing smaller warehouses across many cities.

Getting back...

The Five Focus Area approach galvanised the company into a new mode and upped profits. The unexpected event of the pandemic threw up the need to evolve means to get back on track and put the company on the trajectory to success.

develop partnerShIpS: to do More WIth leSS

The fourth pillar that was arrived at was the greater need for partnerships. The emphasis was on doing more with less. Across the world, large ecosystems were being created, retailers were collaborating with other retailers. Lifestyle needed to gear up to find partners to leverage each other’s strength. Strong tie-ups would mean the company would no longer need to always hire people to build capabilities but could lean on partners for the same.

These four areas were seen as the immediate focus areas. However, things were fluid, and Lifestyle had to work through the post-pandemic scenario to arrive at a clearer approach keeping the learnings of the FFA in the background.

coNcEPT, coNTENT & STRaTEgY Shveta Sahu, Manjira Dutta

DESIgN & aRT DIREcTIoN Vipin gupta

EDIToRIaL Poonam Kashib, Kedar Kaushik

PRINTERS Vishwakala Printers, No 28, 2nd Stage, Industrial Suburb, Yeshwantpur, Bangalore