Retail brands will see value in working with SnapBizz: Prem Kumar

No doubt technological advancements have brought back brick-and-mortar retailers into the game. Technology today drives every step of retail experience. Today’s shopping experience has undergone a massive makeover around the clock to navigate a digital world and those tech-savvy consumers.

SnapBizz is a retail-technology company founded in 2013 to transform the small scale retail sector in the country. With its unique android-based cloud-connected business platform the company aims at empowering these SMBs with cutting edge technology.

Talking about the same with Retailer Media, Prem Kumar, Founder & CEO, SnapBizz explains the need of technology assistance and how traditional retailers can take advantage of the power of these services by investing in mobile and end-to-end applications.

Please share your background. Your education and whether entrepreneurship was something you always wanted to do?
I am the CEO and Founder of Snapbizz. I focus on organization-building, enabling the enterprise to scale greater heights through technology, / business model innovations & brand building. I have over 30 years of experience in retail, distribution and brand marketing both in telecom and FMCG segments across geographies. 

How was the idea of your Start-up conceptualized? What is the need you are addressing in the market?
Having worked in India and across the globe extensively in both developed and developing markets, I am strong believer in the strength of traditional Kirana store and their relevance in countries with large populations.

Snapbizz stepped into the market at a point of time when kirana stores were feeling the threat from organized grocery stores and looking to embrace technology platform to transform them into Smart stores. Snapbizz was created to be a proactive felicitator of the retailer who has been the face of Indian retail market for all these years. We believe Snapbizz will reverse marginalization of SMB’s and drive their digital inclusion in the large consumer goods industry.

Share with us the till date journey of SnapBizz
Snapbizz journey started off at gross root level. After the need was identified, we embraced with extensive research in the market.

Interesting part of our journey is that the product has been designed bottom-up. We enrolled retailers to help us design the product. We worked very closely with some brands in the product design. This has been most exciting part of our journey.

Today, we reached 1000 outlets and now ready to scale-up. What’s very hearting is the fact that we have delivered a solution to retailerswhich has increase their sales and profitability. A venture that was started with couple of people at home is now a 100 people company, who are highly passionate, motivated and highly committed.

Is there a story behind the name you have given to your business?
Our vision is to provide quick business growth and competitive edge to SMBs. Our business name (SNAPBIZZ) was derived from our vision where SNAP means quick and BIZZ means business growth. 

Who is your target consumer? Could you please share how you have detailed your consumer?
The retail industry in India is divided into two segments – organized and unorganized. Unorganized retail segment refers to traditional low cost retail shops aka Mom and Pop stores including neighborhood grocery stores (Kirana stores), push carts, small restaurants, etc.  The retail industry in India is predominantly occupied by these unorganized players, accounting for nearly 96% of the $500 Billion Indian retail market (over 10 Million shops). This offers an immense market opportunity for Snapbizz.

You have recently secured funding from Ratan Tata. How do you plan to utilize the raised amount?
We are extremely happy the way we have grown in a short span of time. We believe the biggest validation for our business to get an investor like Mr. Ratan Tata who is one of the stalwart of Corporate India.  

We, at Snapbizz, are committed to deliver value to our customers. We always take extreme steps to create happy customers. The current investment will broadly be utilized in 3 key areas such as building best-in-class customer support, technology and market expansion.

How well is the response from e-commerce?
We are working very closely with key e-commerce players however I can’t disclose the scale of engagements at this stage.

How fast do you see this trend picking up in tier II and III cities of the country?
The retail ecosystem is not limited to urban centers and hence the scope for growth is across the country where there are kirana stores willing to leverage technology to grow their business. In fact the tier-II & tier –III city retailers are very keen to modernize their stores.

What has been your A-ha Moment in the business? (The high point)
Every day at our office is A-ha moment for us. Every day we hear many success stories from our retailers like improvement of their sales by 20 – 30%, their profitability improvement by 30% - 50%. We, as a team, are feeling very proud and happy for creating such huge social impact.

What has been your biggest challenge so far in scaling -up? How are you addressing it?
Building a startup is both challenge and opportunity. Like any other startups, we faced many challenges during the Snapbizz journey. We have addressed these challenges by building the right team with right people to perform right activity at right time.

How do you see growth scenario in this business? What are your future scale-up plans?
We are very optimistic for growth largely driven by the fact that we are delivering measurable value to the retailers in a short period of time. While large companies are strategically engaging with us, medium size companies without large advertising budget also see the value in our solution namely a unique opportunity to engage consumers at point of sale.

Our immediate plan is to reach all tier I & II cities quickly and capture at least 40-50% of consumer off-take. We are hopeful that more brands will see value in working with SnapBizz and come forward to assist kirana stores.