Reena leads Merchandising, Marketing, and Supply Chain functions at Lowe’s India, where she has played a key role in building and scaling core business capabilities since 2019. With over 20 years of retail and technology experience, she has held leadership roles at JC Penney, Target, Reliance Retail, and HP.
In a thought-provoking interaction with Women Entrepreneurs Review Magazine. Reena shares her insights on how global retailers are adapting merchandising strategies to balance personalization, sustainability, and profitability. Drawing examples from Lowe’s India’s approach to modernizing tech and enhancing customer experiences, she talks about integrating digital transformation, AI, and data-driven supply chains for future success.
With evolving consumer behavior and digital acceleration, how are global retailers rethinking merchandising strategies to balance personalization, sustainability, and profitability?
As an omnichannel retailer, delivering a seamless and cohesive experience across all customer touchpoints is paramount. From product discovery and in-store visits to personalized recommendations, from customer support interactions to online purchasing, and post-purchase services such as installation-every stage of the customer journey must be integrated and interconnected.
At Lowe’s India, we place this integration at the core of our operations. We are driving transformation by modernizing technology and optimizing business processes to enhance the customer experience. Utilizing data and AI-integrated solutions, we achieve personalization and localization at scale while maintaining cost efficiency.
Our commitment to sustainability is evident in our merchandising team’s efforts to ensure our private brand packaging is recyclable, reusable, or compostable. By adopting technological innovations, upholding sustainable practices, and maintaining agile operations, we navigate the complexities of today’s market, earn customer trust, and secure long-term success.
How can organizations build future-ready capability centers that integrate digital transformation, merchandising intelligence, and AI-driven insights without compromising agility and cost efficiency?
At Lowe’s India, we invest significantly in innovation, developing homegrown platforms for key functions such as search, recommendation, forecasting, and pricing. Our India center is dedicated to delivering meaningful business impact. The Merchandising team in India manages over 80% of key merchandising processes, including Floor Plan development, Planogram execution, Packaging Design production, and Item and Vendor Management, essential for executing our merchandising strategies and delivering a superior customer experience.
Powering these efforts are data-based insights, the Data Analytics team enables data-backed decision-making, ensuring we leverage emerging AI solutions to solve business challenges effectively.
The foundation of a future-ready capability center lies in balanced representation across Business, Data Analytics and Technology, accelerated by cross-functional collaboration. Teams quickly iterate and adapt solutions based on real-time insights, ensuring agility and responsiveness to changing market conditions. For instance, we optimize our store space by refining our SKUs and inventory depth through category knowledge, extensive data, insights, and advanced technology, maximizing sales per square foot in every store across the United States.
Retail supply chains are becoming increasingly data-driven. How should organizations reshape demand forecasting models to anticipate shifts in consumer trends before they even emerge?
In today’s data-driven retail landscape, staying ahead of emerging consumer trends and aligning with market dynamics is imperative. The unprecedented demand during the pandemic prompted us to reevaluate our historical practices and incorporate evolving macro and micro trends that could influence demand. As a result, we have achieved better in-stock rates, faster fulfillment, and more predictable deliveries.
Our demand forecasting tool was developed in-house using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to ensure accurate forecasting and demand planning across our entire assortment. By leveraging comprehensive customer data, including emerging trends, this tool has empowered our demand planners with enhanced control over SKU-level accuracy across both our stores and online channels. While AI has simplified processing large datasets, integrating human expertise remains invaluable for managing complex consumer and market dynamics. This integration enables us to adopt agile forecasting practices that remain responsive to emerging trends.
As digital-first retail gains momentum how can businesses embed a culture of continuous capability development to ensure their workforce evolves alongside technological advancements?
Customer journeys in home improvement retail are complex, requiring a thoughtful, project-based approach to purchasing. While digital continues to grow, customers navigate multiple touchpoints, from research to in-store visits to installation, making omnichannel the preferred way to shop.Focusing on our customers and continuous learning are integral parts of our core behavior and culture. To continue growing, our associates are encouraged to maintain curiosity and seek to understand new and emerging trends. We invest in continuous learning, upskilling, and fostering a growth mindset towards technology, leading our teams to be early adopters and active contributors to technological advancements. Our Learning & Development team takes a strategic approach to learning requirements and provides curated offerings to ensure our associates are upskilled through various mediums. This approach has enabled us to keep pace with evolving technology.
As digital tools become more integrated into merchandising, what role do you think emotional intelligence and leadership presence play in driving adoption and overcoming resistance to change?
Empathetic leaders who communicate clearly, navigate resistance with understanding, and inspire confidence fostering an environment where change is welcomed, not feared.
These qualities foster a positive and collaborative atmosphere, ensuring that employees feel supported and motivated throughout the transformation process. Leading by example is key to driving adoption across the team.
Demonstrating the value of digital tools helps build credibility and generate excitement about the change. By involving teams early, providing ongoing training, addressing concerns with empathy, and celebrating progress, leaders can cultivate a culture that embraces change and positions the team for long-term success. Ultimately, a well-executed digital transformation improves operational efficiency and empowers employees to work more effectively and collaboratively.
Looking at the current retail market challenges, what innovative solutions have helped optimize the supply chain and improve the customer experience while maintaining operational efficiency?
Our supply chain operates at an immense scale with 130+ facilities and over 65 million square feet of space. Driving innovation at this level requires significant transformation. We have evolved from merely replenishing stores to enabling seamless omnichannel fulfillment. This multi-year transformation has enhanced our network capacity, improved our ability to deliver large and bulky items, and optimized the flow of products from our distribution centers to our stores. As a result, we have improved in-stock levels, enhanced the customer shopping experience, and strengthened our capacity to meet the growing demand for fast and flexible delivery options.
With the rollout of our market delivery model for big and bulky products, we have doubled the number of next-day deliveries and achieved a 20-percentage point increase in customer satisfaction. Additionally, the development of our AI-integrated demand forecasting tool has enabled us to improve forecast accuracy and boost inventory productivity.
