时间：2022-04-03 09:26:38
Gwyn Sundhagul, 48, needed some persuasion to come and join Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail as head of its value format and wholesale businesses. He needed convincing that Reliance Retail was a bigger opportunity than Tesco in Thailand, where he worked. But once he agreed he came over with his own team of senior people. While some like former Reliance Retail CEO Raghu Pillai left after Sundhagul came on board with his own people, a few members of the Sundhagul team who came from Tesco, like Howard Bryant, also left a little later. All this happened within a year of Sundhagul taking up his job on December 15, 2009.
Reliance Retail is one of the last companies to look abroad for expertise in value retail. It, however, did have Mark Ashman, a Briton, heading Marks & Spencer Reliance India, a joint venture between the UK retailer and Reliance Retail. Ashman has now moved to K. Raheja Corp. Group’s HyperCITY Retail (India) Ltd. At HyperCITY, Ashman replaced South African Andrew Levermore, who left for a stint with Woolworths in South Africa in 2008 and came back to join Bharti Retail earlier this year.
Expats heading organised retail operations in India are not hard to find. Aditya Birla Retail, for instance, has Russell Berman as CEO of the hypermarket segment. Berman brings in experience from McDonald’s and Carrefour. Tata’s retail firm Trent Ltd, which has a joint venture with Tesco of the UK for a chain of wholesale stores, had Scotsman Gordon Reid heading the hypermarket venture. Earlier this year, Reid was called to head Tesco in China.
Reliance Retail’s Sundhagul had worked for Tesco Lotus in Thailand, and was a member of the board. Having started as a store manager for Barn Furniture Mart in the United States, Sundhagul, a Cornell graduate in Economics with certificates in investment banking and a Wharton school programme for senior executives under his belt, returned to Thailand in 1991.
In May this year, Sundhagul unveiled a five-year business plan for Reliance Retail. It focuses on tempered growth, which is a departure from the breakneck growth strategy with which Reliance Retail was launched. Also, the focus now is sharply on consumer satisfaction, which is reflected in a new slogan,“Aapki khushi, hamaari khushi,”which translates into: Your happiness is our happiness.
The plan comprises a fourpronged strategy for focused and quality growth: strengthening multi-format retail channels; growth through the hypermarkets; leadership in fresh foods; and building world-class quality and infrastructure. The orginal architect of Reliance’s retail strategy, Ambani’s right-hand man Manoj Modi, has already stepped aside to let Sundhagul have a freer run. A sure sign that Sundhagul is on the right path .