25 Reasons to celebrate - Flipbook_1

CHAIRMAN S STATEMENT
The retail industry is changing at an ever increasing speed.
Changing demographics, growing disposable income, deeper
digital penetration, competitive intensity, and war on talent,
requires the industry to quickly adopt new models and processes
to continue to be relevant for the customers.
Your Company has continued to make strategic investments, to
meet with the new challenges. Your Company has launched
8 Shoppers Stop departmental stores in the financial year and has
embarked on an ambitious project which will see your Company
become possibly the first omni-channel retailer in the country
in the year 2017. Your Company has embarked upon a project
christened Mission 2020 . The objective of the project is to create
the next Generation Shoppers Stop that can successfully navigate
across channels & establish us as our customers most preferred
brand & retail destination. The project focuses on areas of
assortment, customer loyalty, store footprint, private brands,
positioning & omni-channel strategy. We have embarked on this
journey a year back & we are glad to inform that we have made
good progress to establish your Company as our customers most
preferred omni-channel destination.
The Company has embarked on its omni-channel journey to tap
into the exponential e-commerce growth in India. Omni-channel
initiatives of the Company will continue to be a key pillar of its
growth strategy. The Company has plans for focused investments
in technology & operations over the next two years to provide a
seamless shopping experiences online & in-store for our customers
and drive profitable revenue growth through digital advancements
and initiatives. As part of the Year 1 phase, the Company has
re-launched its website and introduced brand new mobile apps
in both Android Play Store & iOS App Store based on the SAP
Hybris platform. This year, the Company will be investing in a
CRM (Microsoft Dynamics) and WMS (JDA) to build on crosschannel
customer service, supply chain & operations capabilities
enabling customer journeys such as Click N Collect, Endless Aisle
& Ship from Store. E-commerce is an emerging sales channel and
your Company strongly believes that it is an opportunity to expand
its sales and customer base. The Company believes more
consumers across the country will embrace Shoppers Stop through
its digital shopping channels due to the convenience of shopping
and full assortment at best prices across various channels viz. stores,
mobile, website with the added advantage of being able to return,
exchange anytime, anywhere.
Further, the Company continued to expand its membership base
by adding new members to the First Citizen Loyalty Programme.
The programme now has a total First Citizen base of over
41.26 lac members, and today it is one of the largest loyalty
programmes across sectors which has contributed to 72% of your
Company s sales. The Company continues to believe that its
loyalty programme is not only a source of substantial competitive
advantage, but also a very strong strategic tool. Your Company
believes that its First Citizens will continue to drive its growth by
increased average expenditure in our stores, aided by targeted
promotional activities. It is very important for a retail company like
yours to remain in touch with customers at all times and social
media is an important avenue to remain in constant touch with
customers. Our fan base on social media is growing with more than
8 million fans on our Facebook page. We see significant
opportunities on these platforms for engaging with our customers.
For the year under review, your Company received a number of
awards. These have been featured on page no. 40 of this Annual
Report.
At Shoppers Stop, we felt the need to reinvent and redefine our
goals, if we have to remain relevant. Towards this, we unveiled our
Redefined Values & Vision with a clear rationale for the change in
our Vision statement as well.
I wish to sincerely thank the Board of Directors, entire
management, the shareholders and other Stakeholders for their
contribution and support over the years. It promises to be an
exciting journey going ahead and I look forward to the cooperation
of all our stakeholders to take our Company to new levels.
CHANDRU L. RAHEJA
Chairman
During the year under review, the Company reported an annual
turnover of `3,717 crore as compared to `3,370 crore in previous
year, a rise of 10.3%.
Annual Report 2015-16 28