Taking the organization to newer heights with latest technology

Kushagra Rastogi, partner, Mohan Shyam Kalyandas Jewellers, Lucknow, had joined the organization in 2019. Completing his Masters degree in Business Administration (Marketing) from Christ University, he joined the family-run company to learn the jewellery business. After spending two years in the company, he attended a gemology course at GIA, Mumbai, in 2019. Honing his skills further, he joined a factory in the city to learn jewellery manufacturing for a couple of months and finally returned to his brand at the start of 2020.

Trigger

When I joined the organization, I found that there was no mechanism to evaluate the customer feedback, an important aspect for the growth of the business. Customer feedbacks help us to know more about the customers, their buying behaviour and preferences, which can help a brand to serve them more efficiently. Data is like gold today and only with your data, you can analyze the market and make your plans. Without analyzing data, it’s difficult to survive in the market nowadays.

So, before pandemic struck in 2020, I got in touch with a Mumbai-based service provider whom I met in IIJS to manage the feedback system. The feedback system also helped the brand to store the data of its overall customers in one place, which can be easily accessed.

Implementation

Lockdown happened by the time the system was ready to be integrated, which came as a blessing in disguise for us. After lockdown, it became very important for the brand to store the customer’s details and the feedback system had played that role quite well.

We also integrated new software into the system, which helped us to manage inventories, purchases, orders, billing, etc. Through the software, it became easy to identify the distributors and manufacturers who optimize time and who offer designs that have higher sell-through at retail. Such selection made our jewellery purchase decision easy. We now know who are the high performing manufacturers, what product to purchase and in what quantity.

Before 2020, we were only using sales software, which used to keep records of the sales that happened in one day or a month. With the change in times, I think the introduction of new technologies and software is a must for every jeweller of this industry.

Result

We have seen a positive impact on the business, with the customer also giving positive feedback to the brand.  Previously, we used to face the issue of inventory blocking, which have been addressed now. We have been able to minimize the dead inventory which came down from 30% to 5-10%. We have also been able to optimize our purchasing cost, as now we only deal in bulk orders with vendors assuring fast-moving inventory. As a result, our profits have also increased. Finally, astute knowledge about customer preferences through data analysis has improved our brand’s customer retention capacity.

Written by Shubham Dasgupta