Guess what? CEO's role just got real
Gone are the days when CEOs stretched their legs in raised armchairs lapping up AC comfort in box-like offices. India Inc's hotshots | In pics: World news & trends
By Sachin Dave, TNN |
MUMBAI: There���s a good reason for the chief executive to be dubbed the chief eyeing officer. Gone are the days when CEOs stretched their legs in raised armchairs lapping up AC comfort in box-like offices.
Gone are the days when they rattled off vague numbers from market reports claiming them to be realistic. Increasingly, CEOs are donning the guise of common customer to visit their company���s showrooms and retail outlets. They are interacting with their employees, consumers and only then taking decisions based on sheer experience. Here���s why the CEO just got real.
Enter Spykar Jeans CEO Prasad Pabrekar. When he stepped into Spykar Style Labs in suburban Mumbai for a haircut a couple of months back, the boys working there would not have even imagined ���he��� meant business. ���I went for a haircut but frankly, I was not satisfied with the services,��� says Pabrekar. Spykar Style Lab was Pabrekar���s brainchild and he had planned a chain of such stores throughout India.
Gone are the days when they rattled off vague numbers from market reports claiming them to be realistic. Increasingly, CEOs are donning the guise of common customer to visit their company���s showrooms and retail outlets. They are interacting with their employees, consumers and only then taking decisions based on sheer experience. Here���s why the CEO just got real.
Enter Spykar Jeans CEO Prasad Pabrekar. When he stepped into Spykar Style Labs in suburban Mumbai for a haircut a couple of months back, the boys working there would not have even imagined ���he��� meant business. ���I went for a haircut but frankly, I was not satisfied with the services,��� says Pabrekar. Spykar Style Lab was Pabrekar���s brainchild and he had planned a chain of such stores throughout India.
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���I observed that the people were disinterested, they did not even use a proper pair of scissors, which was really unprofessional . It was hard but I took a decision to drop the plan to expand the Spykar Style Labs. I realised it was not feasible,��� says Pabrekar. Today, Spykar Style Labs is frills-free , that is, minus the saloon.
Now CEOs are not just relying on their market research department for feedback. ���I have gone to many Provogue stores and posed as a customer, and it���s good that seldom would I be recognised by my staff. I make it a point to visit our stores whenever I go to a new city,��� says Provogue���s CEO Bipin Gurnani.
The CEOs claim that it���s not about policing the employees but it���s certainly an effective tool to get feedback. That perhaps explains why Gurnani knows exactly which shirt design is most desired in which part of country.
���I keep visiting our outlets as a common customer and this is really a useful exercise to get fresh reactions of customers,��� says Spinach Retail���s CEO Pushpamitra Das. They even purchase goods to look genuine. ���Not only do I visit our outlets but also our competitor���s mobile stores and compare the positive and negatives,��� says The Mobile Store CEO & director Rajiv Agrawal.
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