A CTO who jumped from the grocery business to high fashion reveals how tech leaders can push a data-driven agenda to achieve big changes in any industry
- In his new role as chief technology officer of Moda Operandi, Arpan Nanavati is hoping to use consumer data to solve one of the industry's core problems: understanding fashion taste.
- The role requires Nanavati to figure out how to better personalize recommendations for customers and deliver products more quickly, both of which are underscored by advanced technology like machine learning.
- Nanavati pushes a culture of "extreme ownership" under which employees feel empowered to make decisions without explicit approval from management.
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At face value, it may seem that groceries and luxury fashion have nothing in common. But for Arpan Nanavati, the opportunity to take the digital skills he honed at Walmart to try to disrupt the fashion industry at Moda Operandi was a no brainer.
While they are ultimately peddling different products, the job of executives in both sectors is anticipating and managing customer expectations. More commonly, those two tasks are achieved through technology like machine learning or artificial intelligence. So when Nanavati came on as chief technology officer at Moda, he knew a key step to solving a pressing problem in the fashion industry was harnessing consumer information.
"Tech is driving that strategy to optimize and monetize the data," he told Business Insider. The core problems
"which have not been solved before is how we can leverage data and tech to understand fashion taste."
Nanavati previously served as director of engineering at Walmart Labs, where he managed the company's online grocery platform. Now at Moda, he plans to use the customer-centric mindset honed at the retail behemoth's technology arm to create personalized shopping experiences. He'll focus on tackling two key challenges in his new role: how to better match customers with fashion recommendations and deliver that product in the quickest way. Underscoring both of these areas is technology, which makes the role of CTO even more critical.
Moda allows consumers to purchase clothes shown in runway shows directly from the designers, a shift from the historic paradigm when major retailers like Barney's would decide what items to put on the store floor.
In his first interview since joining, Nanavati shared what he believes are the top tasks of the chief technology officers and why a culture of "extreme ownership" is critical to achieving them.
Hire the right people and localize decision-making
Increasingly, technology is becoming a more central part of the organization as industries like financial services and retail pursue digital overhauls. But making it a priority comes with its own challenges, particularly for industries that traditionally viewed IT as an outpost to solve issues like computer problems.
"Tech-driven strategy is very common when it's a tech company," Nanavati said. That's different than at consumer-focused companies like retailers when tech goes from being an "institutional arm to being a strategy arm."
To help navigate that shift, Nanavati tries to instill a culture of "extreme ownership" in his team. That means thinking about problems and solutions from the lens of the business owner and, in Moda's case, taking an approach that many software engineers and other tech workers may not be used to.
"In our case, [the job] is truly cross-functional because you have to be able to understand the fashion designers, your merchandising team, and not just have an engineering mindset," he said. "You have to think like an owner and you have to be able to connect the dots from the consumer perspective and the business owner perspective."
Marrying engineering prowess with customer insights
An increasing barrier to digital transformation efforts is teaching employees with a traditional tech background to use what is often anecdotal evidence - like a desire among customers for quicker shipping - from other business units to develop solutions.
And the impediment can spell doom for digital efforts. A recent survey of companies that pursued major tech initiatives found that just 14 percent resulted in sustained performance improvement. Culture remains a key reason for the struggle.
To try to overcome those issues, Moda localizes decision-making. The company forms what it calls "squads," or small teams that include representatives from different parts of the business, including sales and IT. Those groups physically sit together in the office and are empowered to make decisions and act on them without explicit buy-in from the top brass.
Companies will take different approaches to changing the culture to one focused on big data and advanced tech. Ultimately, however, executives need to find ways to marry the expertise of the engineering team with customer insight that is often siloed in other parts of the business to craft solutions that actually improve the consumer experience.