Companies need to experiment out of comfort zones: D. Shivakumar

New Delhi: Aditya Birla Group president, corporate strategy and business development, D Shivakumar said companies need to change and adopt attitude to risk, experiment outside comfort zones, partnerships and be willing to let go of hackneyed formulas.
Speaking at industry body FICCI’s retail, FMCG and e-commerce conference, he said massive businesses which have emerged as a result of e-commerce include privacy, consumer databases, data centres, last mile delivery, packaging and design.

Shivakumar, who quit beverages and snacks maker PepsiCo as chairman two years back, said: “For winning, e-commerce requirements include subscription, categories with low levels of distribution, increased women working population and a constant ability to rework the value of offering.”

The conference also had chief economic advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian urging the industry to capitalise on measures announced by the government and RBI and start making the investments required to boost growth. “Industry should take the lead in making investments to put growth back on the 7% plus track,” he said.

Shivakumar said global FMCG e-commerce sales are 6-7%, with the India number expected to double from 2% in 2018, to 4% in 2022.

He called out to India as a digital racehorse, with 650 million people on the internet and 500 million on their smartphones.

A joint report by FICCI and Deloitte released at the event estimated the Indian retail market to reach US $1200 billion by 2021. HUL chairman Sanjiv Mehta said those who can re-imagine and impact the value chain would be the real gainers. Walmart president Krish Iyer said Indian retail is one of the fastest growing industries across the globe and is expected to cross US $1 trillion by 2021.