Meet the TRI Q&A: ShiSh Shridhar

Get to know RETHINK Retail’s Leading Retail Influencers by way of the “Meet the TRI” Q&A series! Dive in to understand about a member of the imagined chief neighborhood and follow their perform and insights throughout our content material and their social channels.

Hello, I’m ShiSh Shridhar, International Retail Startups Guide at Microsoft Corp.

Join with me on LinkedIn!

“Tell us about your background”

ShiSh has labored with the Retail Market for two decades and engaged with some of the leading suppliers and brands in the world supporting with their electronic transformation journeys. ShiSh has been with Microsoft for 25 yrs and is deeply passionate about fixing company issues applying Knowledge & AI as a competitive asset. He has a combine of a technological and enterprise background getting labored as a developer & developer evangelist in the 90s and then relocating on to more of an advisory position helping stores with their electronic transformation journeys.

“Brief description of your latest role and your place in the field.”

ShiSh is at the moment the World wide Direct for Retail with Microsoft for Startups and manages a portfolio of disruptive startups with cutting edge improvements to accelerate the digital transformation of the Retail Marketplace. ShiSh helps a pick curated team of Startups scale and go to market place by means of the assets & means accessible by Microsoft such as engineering, gross sales and study. He is also actively performing with stores to assist them hook up to the most innovative startups and aid handle some of their critical small business problems. The purpose needs him to interact with stores on a regular basis to superior recognize the rising worries, recognize the critical developments, scout startups in those areas, make certain that they are validated by Microsoft and make them readily available for pilots with suppliers.

“What issues/chances are at the moment experiencing vendors?”

Labor scarcity is one of the issues that is impacting retail and I feel there are several inventive means that retailers can get over. Small pay back is certainly the variety 1 result in for the fantastic attrition but for companies truly unable to increase wages, improving the employee expertise goes a extensive way towards rising retention. This consists of remedies for better scheduling, empowering staff, and automating some of the repetitive duties. 

“What very hot subjects or traits have you been viewing in the retail place?”

Automation has been a single of the hot matters in retail, mainly to deal with the need to have that was created through the pandemic for contactless procuring combined with the lack of labor. This has spanned throughout automation of repetitive duties in keep, warehouse automation and delivery.

“How do you help these warm matters?”

As the Retail Startups Direct at Microsoft, I aid detect the key tendencies in retail via engagement with shops. This prospects to figuring out, curating and recruiting Startups that assist fix the issues that stores are seeking to fix with revolutionary answers. I engage with shops to discover their company challenges and assist match startups that have been validated for enterprise readiness.

“Do you have any interesting assignments coming up?”

The Metaverse has been getting considerable desire among the merchants and makes. Its been an area that I have been approached by providers in search of startups to get the job done with. As of suitable now, the metaverse does not exist, but it is producing. However, it is essential for Shops and Manufacturers to make incremental measures ahead in capabilities that the Metaverse will be enabling. This involves changing all of their 2D merchandise imagery to 3D, enabling social media integration, introducing AR/VR capabilities, integrating NFT and additional. I am at present working a on phased method that will enable vendors choose measured ways in turning on the some of the abilities that will make the leap to the metaverse simpler when it will become a reality.

“Which resources do you use to hold up with field information?”

I do comply with retail hashtags on linkedin and twitter to preserve up with what is trending. In addition, pursuing the TRI community has actually aided since its a very lively group on social media channels.

“How do you continue on to mature and create as an influencer of the retail industry?”

I am actively keeping up to day with developments in the sector as a result of information feeds but also function with a group of vendors to periodically share details about the emerging startups and find out from them their critical pain factors. I consider to participate in considered management panels, podcasts and market events as a speaker in addition to running a blog about matters I am passionate about.