Meet the TRI Q&A: ShiSh Shridhar
Get to know RETHINK Retail’s Leading Retail Influencers through the “Meet the TRI” Q&A series! Dive in to study about a member of the thought leader neighborhood and adhere to their perform and insights across our articles and their social channels.
Hello, I’m ShiSh Shridhar, World-wide Retail Startups Guide at Microsoft Corp.
Link with me on LinkedIn!
“Tell us about your background”
ShiSh has worked with the Retail Sector for two many years and engaged with some of the best stores and manufacturers in the planet assisting with their digital transformation journeys. ShiSh has been with Microsoft for 25 many years and is deeply passionate about solving business enterprise challenges working with Details & AI as a competitive asset. He has a combine of a technological and business background obtaining worked as a developer & developer evangelist in the 90s and then relocating on to far more of an advisory position supporting vendors with their digital transformation journeys.
“Brief description of your current job and your area in the industry.”
ShiSh is currently the Global Lead for Retail with Microsoft for Startups and manages a portfolio of disruptive startups with cutting edge innovations to speed up the electronic transformation of the Retail Sector. ShiSh allows a choose curated team of Startups scale and go to marketplace by means of the assets & resources offered via Microsoft such as engineering, income and investigate. He is also actively operating with vendors to assist them link to the most modern startups and support handle some of their vital company worries. The purpose demands him to interact with retailers on a regular basis to greater realize the emerging difficulties, discover the essential traits, scout startups in all those places, assure that they are validated by Microsoft and make them obtainable for pilots with merchants.
“What challenges/alternatives are at this time struggling with vendors?”
Labor shortage is a single of the issues that is impacting retail and I assume there are a variety of artistic approaches that shops can overcome. Small fork out is undoubtedly the amount one bring about for the terrific attrition but for corporations really not able to increase wages, improving upon the staff working experience goes a prolonged way toward escalating retention. This involves remedies for improved scheduling, empowering workforce, and automating some of the repetitive duties.
“What incredibly hot subjects or developments have you been looking at in the retail space?”
Automation has been one particular of the very hot subjects in retail, mainly to address the need to have that was produced through the pandemic for contactless buying merged with the lack of labor. This has spanned across automation of repetitive tasks in shop, warehouse automation and shipping and delivery.
“How do you assist these very hot subject areas?”
As the Retail Startups Guide at Microsoft, I aid determine the critical trends in retail by means of engagement with shops. This potential customers to pinpointing, curating and recruiting Startups that assist resolve the problems that retailers are attempting to clear up with impressive options. I interact with retailers to detect their business problems and support match startups that have been validated for organization readiness.
“Do you have any attention-grabbing tasks coming up?”
The Metaverse has been getting substantial desire amongst shops and models. Its been an location that I have been approached by corporations trying to get startups to operate with. As of proper now, the metaverse does not exist, but it is acquiring. On the other hand, it is important for Merchants and Brand names to make incremental measures forward in capabilities that the Metaverse will be enabling. This involves changing all of their 2D solution imagery to 3D, enabling social media integration, introducing AR/VR abilities, integrating NFT and additional. I am at the moment operating a on phased tactic that will assistance retailers consider measured methods in turning on the some of the capabilities that will make the leap to the metaverse much easier when it gets a actuality.
“Which assets do you use to hold up with field information?”
I do abide by retail hashtags on linkedin and twitter to maintain up with what is trending. In addition, subsequent the TRI network has actually assisted due to the fact its a incredibly lively team on social media channels.
“How do you carry on to improve and acquire as an influencer of the retail market?”
I am actively keeping up to date with developments in the market via information feeds but also function with a group of vendors to periodically share data about the emerging startups and study from them their key agony details. I consider to participate in thought leadership panels, podcasts and marketplace occasions as a speaker in addition to blogging about subject areas I am passionate about.
