Reading Time: 4 minutes On the 28th of May, 2022, we hosted Rebuild ‘22 in Chennai. Rebuild is an initiative to bring together industry Trailblazers and Change-makers to form a community to lead the AI-Native movement.
Vue.ai is leading the charge to define the future of enterprises with AI through a series of experiential events, the first of which saw immense value-adds from thought leaders in the industry.
We had the pleasure of hosting Pratik Pal, CEO, Sauvik Banerjjee, Founding CTO, and Sid Kargupta, Chief Data Officer, all from Tata Digital. Joining them were Anjana Reddy, CEO, USPL, and Con Conlon, CEO and MD, Merit Group.
Here are the top 5 takeaways from REBUILD ‘22 Chennai:
- Data Data Data
If there’s one thing every single panelist spoke about, it’s data. Each one had a unique take on how to use data, but they all seemed to agree on one thing, the importance of good data. We loved hearing these data stories from trailblazers across industries.
Here is our favorite quote about data from REBUILD ‘22 Chennai.
“Data, when done well and used well, data enables good decision-making and is impactful. We like data that enables impact.”
– Con Conlon, MD, Merit Group
- Data Transformation
We also learned a lot about how to use this data. While collecting and cleaning up data is important, data by itself is useless. It needs to be understood, processed, organized, and contextualized to be used to make decisions. AI-powered data organization and transformation can help enterprises make sense of data and use this to make the right decisions.
We really couldn’t just pick just one quote on this. Here are our top quotes.
“If you can’t transform that data into understandable journeys, it can’t be useful in the end. Transformation of data is the middle ground.”
– Anand Chandrasekaran, CTO, Mad Street Den
“If the context of the data changes, so should the action taken based on the context.”
– Sid Kargupta, CTO, Tata Digital
- Privacy & Security
Data is the new oil. This is a phrase we all have heard so many times over the years. With all this data readily available, it is great to see the Tata Group taking privacy and security very seriously. Their commitment to ethics, transparency, and reliability has been at the very core of the group’s 150+ year success story in India.
“Every Tata company is built on trust, respect, and experience We want to harmonize data into one place keeping security and privacy in mind.”
– Pratik Pal, CEO, Tata Digital
“Because of the volume of data. we need to be very careful about privacy and security.”
– Sid Kargupta, Chief Data Officer, Tata Digital
- The Tata Neu story
The best part about this whole event was hearing the story behind India’s first super-app, Tata Neu, right from the leaders who envisioned and built it. We have incredible quotes from Pratik Pal, the CEO of Tata Digital which gives us a peek behind the scenes.
Here’s Pratik Pal talking about how they came up with the idea for a super-app.
“Penetration of digital market – current 4%, 15% in next 5 years. It is Unorganised now but will be organized in the future. These opportunities are ripe for digital development. We Studied multiple areas – found an opportunity in commerce, F&B, & retail. We have 150 million consumers across all consumer brands and 4800 physical touchpoints across India. The rising consumer consumption market made us feel it’s the right time to harness the power of the 150 million consumers and 4800 touch points.”
It takes a lot to build a superapp that compiles all this data across so many different physical and digital platforms over the years. Here’s what Pratik Pal had to say about the app itself.
“We will be omnichannel because there’s no one who does online-offline better in India.”
“What is the objective of Tata Neu?
A. Convenience – It will be the app for a lot of Indian households that are Doing a lot of things. From booking apps to getting insurance. We want to simplify the lives of Indian consumers.
B. From Tata’s side, of the 150 million consumer base, the overlap between consumers that buy from the same two brands is 5%. Eg: jewelry from titan, but not electronics from Croma. How do we get consumers to buy more of Tata? One way to do it is to merchandise the app, the second way is a more scientific approach – understand what they are buying And cross-sell something else based on what they’re buying there.
We want to be the destination for every Indian consumer We have to ensure that we have everything that the Indian consumer needs. What is important is that consumers return and use it at least 4-5 times a month, if not every day. We need to have a combination of frequency drivers, monetization drivers, and scale drivers.”
Whew! That was intense. There’s so much to learn just from this one session. We were so busy taking notes that we hardly saw the snacks being passed around towards the end of the session!
- Personalizing Customer Experiences at scale
What makes a one-time shopper a loyal customer? It’s all about building a great customer experience that helps shoppers find the right products faster. It’s about getting to know the shopper and offering an experience that is tailored to their individual needs.
“As a fashion brand, data helped us stand out because we got to understand our consumers on a deeper level beyond just the basic metrics – we understood what our customers wanted from Sleeve lengths to colors”
– Anjana Reddy, CEO, USPL
Mr. Pratik Pal, CEO, Tata Digital had this to say about building a great customer experience.
“We will build this whole app on experience and while everyone says cloud-first, we said experience first to be able to deliver the premium experience that Tata is known for with Properties like Taj and westside.”
“Any digital that we do – the biggest experience comes with fulfillment. Bigbasket has one of the biggest supply chains in the country today. “We will build India’s largest supply chain infrastructure which will fulfill goods in an unprecedented manner.“
“One of the principles – we will not do something that the consumer only sees in Tata Neu but not in Bigbasket. Wherever you shop, whatever you do, at any touchpoint, you can reap the rewards”. The whole ecosystem has to get uplifted first.”
Mr. Sauvik Banerjjee, CTO, Tata Digital had this to say about personalizing customer experiences.
“The future of personalization is not to personalize but to build machines that behave like humans. An engine that looks at what you’re doing and learns to behave like you, essentially mimicking you.”
When a conglomerate as big as the Tata Group takes customer experience so seriously and puts it at the forefront of their newest venture, you know how important it is.
Conclusion
The conversations that came out of the first edition of REBUILD’22 re-emphasized the importance of data and highlighted the constructive advantages that enterprises could gain from being AI-Native. As heard from one of the world’s biggest conglomerates to fast-growing start-ups, AI is a force that builds rocket ships. Stay tuned for more interesting stories from team Vue.ai. REBUILD will return soon with more transformative conversations.