Logical thinking is the key to success

Arun Gupta believes that the awareness of interdependencies is important. This creates the transparency required to ensure that everyone contributes to the ultimate success of projects. By Nivedan Prakash

Arun Gupta

As the Customer Care Associate and Group CTO at Shoppers Stop, and also the Group CIO at K Raheja Corp, Arun Gupta’s career has largely been a step-by-step approach towards continued learning and contributions across diverse industries.

“The key learning for me from an old colleague in my early days and my bosses has been that IT is not an island; any technology without the support of the business is like a car without petrol. So put business first and then explore the technology solutions that are possible,” said Gupta.

During his early college days, a friend advised him to take up IT, as he believed that Gupta’s thinking process was logical beyond the norm. After completing his graduation, he decided to seek opportunities in the field of computers and enrolled into a three-month residential program at NIIT. Gupta’s first manager was supportive of his inquisitive nature and helped him with the right advice to gain additional qualifications from NCST. The rest, as they say, is history.

Career path

After completing a short term course from NIIT, Gupta started his career in 1984 with NELCO as a Customer Engineer, providing field support. In July 1985, he joined OMC Computers, again as a Customer Engineer. OMC was a company that was focused on CAD and banking. After getting four promotions in about five years, he was heading Customer Services for the region and also supporting strategic accounts with IT adoption. He also contributed towards pre-sales, post-sales support and R&D. Moreover, as the in-house UNIX expert, he was involved in many crisis situations helping avert data loss.

Gupta then decided to shift gears and, in April 1991, he joined The Great Eastern Company as System Administrator. By 1993, after automating the business; he took charge of the EDP department.

The lure of being a Vice President took him to DSP Merrill Lynch in July 1996 where he contributed towards the creation of technology solutions across business units using a mix of local and global solutions.

In May 1999, he joined DHL Worldwide Express as the National IT Manager, wherein his key contributions included Y2K preparedness, data center consolidation and a logistics model for e-commerce players focused on the B2C business. In March 2001, he joined Hughes Telecom India (HTIL), as Vice President - IT. His contributions here included operating and turning around the ISP business and helping create a focus on the service provider’s data business.

In August 2002, he joined Pfizer India as Senior Director - Business Technology and helped the business redevelop and deploy a field force automation solution. Seeking new opportunities and learning, he joined Philips Electronics India in February 2006 as Director - PGIS for the Indian subcontinent. Here, he helped formulate a strategy to migrate from the legacy system to SAP. This roll out was executed in phases across business units.

The desire to work in retail brought him to the Shoppers Stop Group in March 2007 as the Customer Care Associate and Group CTO. In November 2008, he took on the additional responsibility of the Food & Beverage business, which was subsequently franchised to Café Coffee Day in June 2009. In September 2009, he was also given the responsibility of being the Group CIO for K Raheja Corp.

Stint at Shoppers Stop

In his current role, Gupta is responsible for IT at K Raheja Corp across diverse business activities that include construction, shopping malls, gaming arcades, department stores, bookstores, hypermarkets, hotels, business parks, etc. He is supported by the CIOs of the individual businesses and technology specialists along with multiple outsourced partners.

“We have used innovative and conventional technologies towards supply chain efficiencies, mobile computing, customer segmentation and targeting, merchandising support, visual merchandising, etc. Amongst the key implementations have been SAS Business Analytics, Netezza data warehouse, PeopleSoft HRMS, Ramco payroll, a Microsoft SharePoint-based B2B portal, a B2C portal for online shopping, innovative SMS solutions for internal users and customers, in-store Wi-Fi solutions, and employee self service options including workflows,” highlighted Gupta.

He added, “Data center consolidation is another notable project with over 70% virtualization that has contributed to server efficiency and utilization apart from savings on power and management overhead. Our SAN revamp along with deduplication technologies has also helped us do more with the same. The launch of the e-commerce shopping portal, www.shoppersstop.com, was a collaborative effort with the business and, in coming months, we will also be launching www.crossword.in for books and other merchandise.”

“We will be launching Gift Cards in the next quarter as an alternative to the paper-based Gift Vouchers, which should offer our customers benefits while reducing the overhead of managing paper-based vouchers and associated pains internally,” asserted Gupta.

Gupta’s mantra for success has been to empower his teams while helping them with the right balance of coaching, mentoring and direct support as the case may be. With business users, it has been about engagement on their terms to understand how IT-enabled solutions help them win over customers. Each team member is encouraged to learn about how the business operates. Risk taking is not frowned upon and the team accepts that all initiatives may not deliver.

Technologies to watch

Gupta is keeping a close eye on Cloud Computing and how he can leverage the various services and solutions that are emerging. “The potential is limitless. However, current offerings have challenges that are yet to find solutions. We engage with such vendors to understand the opportunity and assess the same with respect to our current IT landscape. Another technology that has been much talked about in retail is RFID. Global retailers have struggled to find effective use within stores and warehouses. Mass deployment is still a long way off,” he said.

2010 and beyond should be a high growth phase for the industry. For the folks in the retail industry, this is the best time to be in it in order to gain experience.

Apart from looking at technological advances, Gupta intends to invest in upgrades and enhancements of core technologies across the group, which will keep the company ahead of the pack in IT lead efficiencies and customer engagement.

Going forward, Gupta’s key priorities for the next two-three years include supply chain improvements, customer engagement and revenue enhancement and scaling up operations with a mix of in-house and outsourced talent.

nivedan.prakash@expressindia.com