Latest news with #Indo-UAEConclave2025
India Today
a day ago
- Business
- India Today
Retail gets personal: How brands are fast learning what you want
Retail is transforming fast with 'phygital' and 'omnichannel' as buzzwords, allowing customers to order online, pick offline and vice versa. The trend was discussed in the panel discussion 'Brick & Mortar in a Digital World: Retail's Road Ahead' at the recent Indo-UAE Conclave 2025 in Dubai, organised by the India Today Group, where speakers analysed the strengths of physical stores and how digital is being used to augment those benefits while bringing in cost and inventory optimisation for Teckchandani, CEO of the UAE-based fashion and retail conglomerate Apparel Group, said each of the retailers today is in the world of omnichannel or what is now called connected Group today has close to 2,400 stores across 14 countries, of which roughly 1,900-plus are within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), besides a large e-commerce business, 'It's no longer digital versus physical, but about how you catch the consumer,' Teckchandani the consumer journey starts with digital. Around 75 per cent of the time, the customer has already done all the research or looked at the product online. And then, the transaction may end up at the retail store—or not. This allows the flexibility to buy online but refund or exchange at the store, or vice versa, he says. Apparel Group has also ventured into quick commerce, wherein they are offering 60-minute delivery and using their network of 1,900 retail stores as fulfilment centres for online Markose, CEO, international business, Titan Company Limited, shared how digital commerce is rising in India but offline had its own critical mass. Sharing an example, he said when they acquired CaratLane in 2016, it was an online company with about Rs 600 crore in revenue, of which 99.5 per cent came from online crossed Rs 4,000 crore last year. And from 99.5 per cent, revenue online has dropped to just 8 per cent, with in-store revenue now contributing 92 per cent. 'Today, the sweet spot is in the middle. You can't just be digital, and you can't just be a traditional physical company—you've got to be in both spaces,' said key thing is that in every category, there's a price point below which people are very comfortable buying online. So in India, for watches, it's about $40—anything below that, people are happy to buy online; anything above that, they prefer to see it in stores. In jewellery, that threshold is around $200. This varies from category to category, he leveraging technologies like AVRs or artificial intelligence, Teckchandani said brands are building 'stores of the future', which offer full experience and digital transformation for customers at the store level. For instance, they have installed smart mirrors at their Tommy Hilfiger store and have a phygital store established in Dubai Hills Mall—the first in the region. This includes mobile point of sale and frictionless checkout. Even the loyalty programme is offered through a mobile app instead of a plastic said Teckchandani, are also being used to improve backend operations. These include a lot of digital tools which are used for store transfer optimisation, markdown optimisation, price optimisation and allocation optimisation. 'All of these ensure the product is where it should be and where the consumer is—creating a positive customer journey by ensuring that you carry the best SKUs (stock keeping units) in the same store.'advertisementMarkose said the India and UAE markets have been closely linked for a long time. Commerce and trade between the Middle East and India began 2,000 to 4,000 years ago with the spice trade between the Arabs and a result, the Middle East was their first preferred destination to take the Tanishq brand outside India, due to the large Indian diaspora. But they had to adapt it to suit the retail market in the Middle East. For instance, the store formats there are much smaller than in India, some of their stores are 30,000 sq ft—that size and scale doesn't work in the UAE. Another aspect was that jewellery sales in the UAE is very transactional. The levels of customer service that Tanishq provides in India were not really the norm here. Even something as simple as seating in the stores was uncommon as consumers usually walk in, do the deal, and walk of the things Markose pointed out was that retail has moved from a time when there were limited choices to now, where there is an overwhelming abundance. 'Consumers sometimes struggle with what to pick. So, the game is shifting toward personalisation,' he said, adding that the question now is: how do I know you as an individual? How do I know what you're interested in, what you've purchased? How do I build a relationship where I can predict what you're likely to be interested in? For instance, in Tanishq, which offers around 60,000 different SKUs, how do we figure out and present the few products that you will actually like?Subscribe to India Today Magazine
India Today
23-05-2025
- Business
- India Today
What makes venture capitalists bet big money on Indian start-ups?
Raising investment money is a theme that keeps entrepreneurs awake at night—a central point of discussion during the session 'Seeding Tomorrow: Big Ideas, Smart Capital' at the recent Indo-UAE Conclave 2025 organised by the India Today Group in Kumar, chairman of BharatPe and former chairman of the State Bank of India, highlighted how 'international capital, in particular, doesn't go anywhere for the love of that country'. 'It goes where it can earn a decent return—or rather, the best return—compared to any other opportunity,' he unpacked the term 'smart capital' as capital that not only spots opportunities and takes risks (as venture capitalists are known to do) but also blends entrepreneurship and young energy with seasoned experience. 'People with grey hair—or no hair,' he quipped, are essential to this mix. 'If you have a blend of experience, youthful energy, and fresh ideas—especially those solving real problems—then there are good returns to be made.'Kumar stressed that each venture capital (VC) fund has its own investment philosophy, which influences the sectors it focuses on. Some venture capitalists take a long-term view, examining governance structures, founders and institutional history before making bets. Others chase quick returns, looking for short-term gains. He elaborated on the key factors venture capitalists consider before investing in a start-up: the probability of the venture and how the company will be run and governed. Here, he noted, experienced leadership plays a crucial role in preventing governance pitfalls—something that has plagued a few Indian start-ups in recent there is a different type of capital on the demand side and a different type of company on the supply side. You have to match your investment philosophy with the opportunities available,' he Balachandran, executive chairman and CEO of Buimerc Corporation, shared his own philosophy of 'permanence', wherein he looks for democratic markets and institutions that reflect those values. His first investment in India was in the Bombay Stock Exchange, which grew from a market cap of Rs 2,000 crore to over Rs 1 trillion in just 15 also addressed the idea of risk, calling it 'a clichd and often misunderstood concept'. According to him, India's true potential isn't defined by currency values but by the scale and energy of its 1.4-plus billion identified banks and financial institutions as key sectors for both revenue generation and long-term wealth creation. He described them as a 'multi-tiered growth opportunity'—not limited to new-age or nationalised banks but spread across the entire sector. 'Every institution in that space is an explosion of wealth waiting to happen,' he said.'I've started accruing [investments] in this space, and my accrual process takes a few years. But I've begun—with SBI as my first, and LIC (Life Insurance Corporation of India) as my second. These are the kind of big opportunities I'm looking at.'advertisementSubscribe to India Today MagazineMust Watch
India Today
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
Huma Qureshi: The ‘Maharani' of reinvention
Huma Qureshi has had a lot brewing lately. As if her acting duties weren't enough, she has donned the cape of a producer, written a novel that she hopes to adapt into a feature, and is developing a sari also the passion project of celebrating the 50th anniversary of Saleem's, her father's famous restaurant in New Delhi. At India Today's Indo-UAE Conclave 2025 in Dubai recently, Qureshi said she's enjoying her current state of 'exploration'. It has seen her as the face of one of streaming's popular and longest-running series in Maharani (on SonyLIV) and amassing quite an upcoming roster with a new season of Delhi Crime, a new edition of the Jolly LLB franchise, and being part of the highly-anticipated Yash-starrer two kids who came from Delhi not knowing a single person in Mumbai to have reached this far has been nothing short of magical,' said Qureshi of her and brother Saqib Saleem's journey in the Hindi film industry. 'Despite all claims of the industry being so closed, it still opened its arms to both of us and gave a lot of opportunities.'Qureshi has been riding the streaming wave successfully, having been part of Leila and Mithya as well as the beloved Netflix film Monica, O My Darling, where her titular act of a femme fatale, unlike one she's done before, won her much appreciation. 'I just like to have fun with my characters. The only rule I have is that I will never repeat myself,' said Qureshi. Her stubbornness, she noted, came in handy as she has worked towards picking parts that break stereotypes. 'I guess anytime someone said you can't, mustn't and shouldn't do this, I have always questioned 'Why not?' That's the key defining factor for me as an artiste and an individual,' she mentality took her far and helped cope with challenges. There have been doubts, mistakes committed and comparisons made, but what's worked is that she decided 'to be true to yourself'. Qureshi won't let industry expectations of appearance weigh her down or determine her choices.'Why am I expected to always try and look younger than who I am? If a great script comes my way, I should say no to it because I am afraid of portraying someone who is a few years older than me?' Instead, Qureshi, 38, takes control of her own narrative, be it being one of the first to ride the OTT wave to leave a distinct mark on all her characters. Her only grouse—she wants more dancing parts. 'I am such a good dancer,' she said. 'It's such an unfortunate thing. Can we start a petition?'HUMA UNCUT@INDO-UAE CONCLAVE* 'Every time someone tries to put me in a box, I am like 'No, give me a reason why?''* 'There are parts I can do but I don't get the calls. So what do I do? Sit at home and cry ki mujhe mauka nahin mil raha hai? I am not going to lament. I am going to go out there, take control of my own narrative and choose the stories I want to tell and the filmmakers I want to work with.'advertisement* 'I feel like now we are in the 2.0 era of the OTT revolution where we need to rethink what kind of stories we are putting out there and who we want to reach.'* 'For sure female-led shows and films are doing extremely well. But I will give you something to chew on. I am part of one of the most-watched-and-loved show Maharani, but am I getting paid as much as the male counterparts who are doing shows? Far from it.'* 'I just like to have fun with my characters. The only rule I have is that I will never repeat myself.'Subscribe to India Today Magazine
India Today
15-05-2025
- Business
- India Today
Supreme Court criticises BJP's Vijay Shah over remarks on Colonel Sofiya Qureshi
7:49 The Indo-UAE Conclave 2025 commenced with an inspiring inaugural address by Aroon Purie, Editor-in-Chief of the India Today Group. In his remarks, Purie praised the UAE's remarkable transformation, calling its progress nothing short of a miracle. He described the country as one of the most advanced and cosmopolitan regions in the world.
