VISHAL SHARMA

Max Fashion is the largest value fashion brand from Middle East, with a legacy of 20 years, headquartered in Dubai, currently present in 22 countries and expanding. With stores size ranging from 1000 sq m to 3000 sq m, Max sells its own private label range in Apparel (Men, Women & Children) and Non-Apparel (Footwear, Accessories, Toys, Luggage & Home). In SEA region, Max is currently represented with 34 stores across Malaysia and Indonesia.

As a Business Head, I am responsible for managing, planning and driving Max for continuous growth in SEA region, leading Business teams in both Malaysia & Indonesia. We are strategically expanding in this region; will be 50+ stores within next 3 years.

Key Responsibilities:

• Drive and own the overall business strategy for Max in SEA with supporting functional strategies across Buying, Merchandising, Store Operations, Marketing, E-commerce, to achieve planned growths across channels.

• Own business P&L including Intake Margins, Gross Margins, Staff Costs, Retail Overheads and Business Expansion.

• Leading a team of Product Managers to plan and develop merchandise in line with local market trends.

• Leading Sourcing team to drive and expand the ambit of local sourcing across all Apparel categories.

• Leading Planning to ensure timely product availability, right working capital utilization, planned markdowns & forward covers.

• Working closely with leasing team for planned expansions; coordinate with Concept office in Dubai for feasibility approvals.

• Increasing the E-commerce penetration through right product availability, participating in mega events in marketplaces and driving traffic through digital marketing.

• Retail and Commercial: Responsible for driving sales, reinforcing operations and staff development as well as overall customer experience and brand integrity for the region, prepare retail operating plan and ensure effective implementation, pricing strategy in line to our positioning and benchmarking competition offerings.

• Customer Focus: Creating the culture of customer centricity by setting expectations and building teams around it, lead the teams for effective store navigations to improvise footfall conversions, leading Marketing team in creating marketing strategies and event calendars to attract customer feet, driving effective Visual Merchandising in stores.

• Process Enhancements: Drive operational excellence and brand consistency by floor visits and monitoring performance, ensuring all stores are compliant to the safety, security, cash control, and health.

• People Management: Building teams, people profiling, building a high-performance culture, driving people productivity through skill development, coaching and trainings.

Heading business for Max in Oman, a key market for the brand in GCC. Responsible for over retail business (Stores and E-com.

• Responsible for delivering Territory Sales targets, Gross and Net Profit, and all Retail KPIs.

• Plan and implement multi-channel concept retail strategy in the territory; increase E-com channel business contribution.

• Responsible for category management in the territory; ensure right product mix per store in the territory.

• Understanding of pricing, promotions and manage markdowns for the territory and take necessary actions to deliver targets.

• Regularly connect with the concept planning teams to manage allocations as per business requirements.

• Plan and implementation the VM and marketing guidelines as per concept requirements.

• Regularly look for opportunities to improve, innovate and optimize store operations.

• Ensure Store management team and staff are trained to provide excellent customer experience.

• Ensure stores layout and merchandize meet concept standards and provide right customer experience.

• Monitor NPS & MS scores and have plans to improvise and meet concept benchmarks.

• Coach and support Area Managers/Store Managers to perform and grow in the organization.

• Engage and motivate the team in stores across the territory; conduct townhalls & listen to feedback.

• Proactively engage and retain high potential talent.

• Plan and implement localization agenda as per local regulations.

In this role, I headed Regional Operations for Lifestyle (Large format MBOs) and Splash (Fast Fashion EBOs), for Rest of North Region in India. Being a part of key leadership team, I worked extensively on CX strategies – creating seamless shopping experience for customers, through planning and execution of Omni-channel initiatives and in-store digitization.

• Sales and Commercial performance of stores in the region - formulating and implementing region-level and store-level strategies to maximize sales and profitability.

• Study Competition, identify Market Share in the region, and develop plans to increase the same.

• Ensure best retail standards in the stores; conduct periodic floor and process audits to evaluate operational efficiency, adherence to SOPs and planograms/layouts.

• Monitor high levels of service standards – NPS, Mystery Shopping reports analysis, & Surprise visits.

• Analyze Inventory Health Report, and take corrective actions at stores, to minimize Shrinkage and Damages.

• Identify new sites in existing and new markets for expansion; lead renovation exercises for stores.

• Monitor and effectively deploy staffing levels for all stores and make a bench plan.

• Ensure all People development programs are implemented; impact high People Engagement.

HyperCITY is a premium hypermarket chain with focus on Value Fashion, Food and Home. In my stint with the Company, I headed retail operations for North region and spearheaded Company's foray into Delhi NCR market.

Heading Pan India Operations for India's leading Eyewear Retail Company (74 Company Owned and Operated stores across 28 cities of India).

Launched and headed operations for a 82500 sq ft Departmental store of 'Bridge to Luxury' format, and later also for the flagship store of Eastern region.

Launched the first store of Upper North region (Ambala), and managed operations for the same. Later, was given the responsibility of opening and managing operations for GIP Noida, India’s largest volume hypermarket.

Manage and expand Dealers & Franchisees network; achieve Primary & Tertiary sales targets.