Suvankar Sen, Managing Director and CEO, Senco Gold, shared the story of his journey at MCCI Retail Conclave on “Reinventing Retail Through Innovation and Technology” organised by Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce & Industry on Saturday, May 6, 2023 at Taj Bengal, Kolkata. Suvankar Sen is a fourth-generation retail icon and scion of Senco Gold & Diamonds. Sen has brought in a culture of strategic and contemporary thinking into the business – the hallmark of every modern, successful business today.
Under his stewardship, Senco Gold & Diamonds embarked on a path-breaking journey, which included setting up a strong identity in new and unexplored shores.
Sen’s journey in the quest for greater success continues unabated, with even more momentum, with his vision firmly set on making Senco Gold & Diamonds in becoming a Rs 4000 crore company.
Most significantly he remarked that data analytics helps retail companies to understand the customers’ buying needs and focus on areas that have high demand. The conclusion derived from data helps the companies to forecast the demand and accordingly manage the inventory. Data helps one to understand and improve business processes so we can reduce wasted money and time. Every company feels the effects of waste. It depletes resources, squanders time, and ultimately impacts the bottom line. Data analytics help retailers in analysing how customers shop and use this data to produce a seamless customer experience. From choosing a product to buying it, data analytics focuses on providing personalized attention to each customer. This experience goes a long way in gaining customer loyalty.
He also added that Microsoft Dynamics 365 provided Senco Gold and Diamonds with a standardized solution that collects data from all customer touchpoints and records it in a centralized system. The end-to-end platform provides both Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management. In 2012, the jewellery retailer had implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, then known as Microsoft Enterprise Resource Planning system. In 2012, the company implemented an on-premise ERP system, becoming one of the early adopters of Microsoft ERP solutions. Later, the company upgraded to Dynamics 365 Commerce on the cloud for an end-to-end solution to its retail needs. Dynamics 365 offered a single, unified offering for retail industry needs and helped the company keep pace with technology advancements while ensuring that they offer the best possible services to their customers.
“While 60% of the jewellery players were in the organised segment, 40% were in the unorganized segment”. GST and other newly formulated auditing conditions were leading the jewellery players to move into the organised segment. The diamond jewellery segment was growing at the rate of 25%, though it would increase exponentially with the lab grade diamonds coming more to use, Sen said adding bridal jewellery, which was 60% of the overall jewellery market has come down to 50% of the jewellery market with lighter jewelleries taking the place, mainly used with western wears and formal dresses.
While all the speakers stressed on the use of technology and adopting the hybrid model to run and grow their businesses, post Covid, stores have started opening up, Sen stressed that to grow in business one should keep a goal. He said that, the beginning of a successful journey always begins with understanding your own self. Hence one must playto his strengths and work on his weaknesses then he can build up a team in areas in which he is weak and learn from them. Throughout the journey, one must try to work out of his comfort zones without being afraid of failure or uncertainties.
“Keep learning, upgrading your knowledge, and looking for new ways to innovate so that old processes and systems can be improved”. He believes that businesses would require to keep an eye on trends, technology and training its team, which should match the vision of the business owner.
