eCommerce not only gives us access to world class quality products but is also changing the way we buy, by eliminating a lot of processes and thus reducing the carbon footprint !

Nasreen Ahmad, our next pathbreaker, Operations Head for the eCommerce business at Trident Group (Stockport, UK), focuses on elevating the value of their brands on e-commerce and other platforms.

Nasreen talks to Shyam Krishnamurthy from The Interview Portal about the many nuances of running an eCommerce business with the sole objective of faster delivery times and stock availability.

For students, with digital technologies becoming a part of our daily life, there is a lot of scope for innovative approaches to build an environmentally sustainable as well as profitable business.

Nasreen,  Your background?

My father worked in National Thermal Power Corporation, Farakka, West Bengal. My brother and I were brought up in a multi-cultural township where we shared our neighborhood with families belonging to different parts of the country. Our interaction with them made us develop a very positive outlook towards different languages, culture, decorum, food, background etc. The place had its own charm and challenges, being disconnected from a broader span of development that usually takes place in a Tier 1 or 2 city. Nonetheless, the lack of facilities in some forums helped us develop and ideate ways through any innovative measures possible, which sometimes (or mostly) involved mischievous acts in school and home. 

To keep our energies invested in non-destructive activities, our mother who herself was a lecturer in the neighboring college, made us practice art, swimming, badminton, language learning, music etc. We learnt some and let go of some but have always appreciated their efforts to find and create an environment for learning. These activities after school made me develop a keen interest in sports and art. Knowingly or unknowingly, regular practice honed my skills in both. I was selected in Nationals for sprinting and scored distinction in the state painting exam. 

I had scored good in Xth boards and took science as my subject in +2, though art grew on me as a passion which led me to pursue my career in Textile Design later.

What did you do for graduation/post-graduation?

Though I had a decent rank in NIFT which gave me a wide range of choices to pursue almost all branches in all centers, I chose to study Textile Design owing my gratitude to the counselor and orator who spoke briefly but distinctively on the future of textiles. 

I completed my graduation in Textile Design from NIFT Kolkata. After my graduation, I worked for a year in Kolkata in start-ups and export industries which made me learn a few nuances of a textile business. 

My experiences at NIFT made me crave to learn more. Thus, I started my preparation for my masters while I worked in Kolkata. I got selected in 2 disciplines at NID – Textiles and Lifestyle Design. Though it was a difficult choice, I chose the former.

I got a chance to study Design from some of the finest faculty at NID, Ahmedabad while pursuing my masters. To date, I am amazed thinking not only about the teaching processes at NID, but also the learning environment which would make you think, thrive, experiment, doubt, be miserable, be elated, excited, get frustrated, and sometimes all at once. But in return, the outcome would always be something very inspiring. It has taught me numerous things in life, and I am ever so grateful for the lack of and the abundance of things I received at NID.  

Tell us, how did you end up in such an offbeat, unconventional and cool career?

India, in the 90’s was teeming with countless new technologies. We are the generation, like they say, who saw many technologies appear and disappear in the same decade.

The advent of the internet in a limited capacity also made us be a little aware of the world outside. 

I was majorly influenced by the art and fashion shows I saw on TV.

My brother and I also watched a lot of documentaries on UFOs, Spies, History and formed our own school of thoughts around those stories. 

Our art teacher was a very detailed oriented person along with good storytelling skills, who always gave us constructive feedback to improvise and develop our thoughts on the layers of details rather than just sketching or painting. He taught us details of human expression, layers of water colors, reflections, perspectives and would incentivize it through an interesting Bengali tale. 

Art was given as much importance at home as sports and studies or any other subject we wished to pursue.

Our dining table conversations would often revolve around history, politics, books, humor and movies, it still does… My father always gave a very logical reasoning behind every subject matter which would inculcate a food for thought in us. We tried to give our best shot in everything we did. He also taught us the value of giving, and having a healthy competition, learning, being humble.

The environment built around us and my interest in art was an impetus that lent a creative process to everything I did later. I started making hand made gifts for my friends in school; whether they liked it or not was not my problem. I also made drawings for friends in exchange for chocolates. My brother also made me do drawings for his science project to save time and also because they were monotonous. 

I guess I was destined to study a creative course, and in conversations with my friends and family, I was very vocal that I wish to pursue it. More guidance and help arrived from friends and family as I was nearing my entrance exams.

I can’t really name a big incident that made me choose my career. Like many others, I was also confused about which career to choose and gave all exams like everyone else. It’s not really in our hands to choose a career if you don’t get a seat in the college. But our interest does speak sooner or later in life and in our career. I have always believed in observing and imbibing information through an open mind which helps me form a wholesome picture and connect dots to an incident or occurrence. 

I got through architecture as well, but was more inclined towards pursuing fashion or textiles. Even though a creative career was a big risk to take, my elder brother supported me with a logical explanation to pursue NIFT. 

NIFT opened up a larger canvas of opportunities and a creative outlook which helped me shape my interests and taste in design. Daily interaction with friends, seniors, faculty have been very insightful in one form or the other, especially since I was an introvert. I realized much later how important it is to put across your opinions and participate in discussions while being respectful of others’ opinions as well.

Tell us about your career path

My first ever project outside of college was a group  project in Bengal for 2 weeks, where we had to learn and document a local craft. Each group was formed as per the project’s need and not by students’ choice. Each group had to have male and female members, someone knowing the local language and so on..

It taught me a great deal about team coordination and intricate thoughts that go behind designing a project. These projects also make one humble and start shaping our design approaches. 

After this project, the internships were in smaller groups.. I went to Naroda, Ahmedabad to do an industrial internship for a month in Reliance, with two other friends. 

As it was one our first industrial documentation projects and involved an external jury as well, we had prepared it well.

It was one of the first recognitions I received from the external faculty where he told me something on the lines of what I have always believed, ‘Keep your curiosity alive. Always..

After these college internships and projects, my first individual internship was with Weaver’s Studio in Kolkata. It was an incredible experience to have learnt from some of the finest women in the field of design ..Ms. Darshan Shah, Ms. Ushma Savla and Ms. Monika Savla who were my mentors during my internship. They were not only helpful but super inspiring even in their casual conversations. Their passion was not restricted to textiles alone, but to music, paintings and all forms of arts..

I had the honor to present my work during these 6 months of internship at one of Weavers Studio’s art exhibitions which was inaugurated by eminent director Rituparno Ghosh. Such kind of environments and aura don’t come very often and I have always been thankful to the almighty for these opportunities.

After my graduation, I seized some opportunities to work in the city and explore different avenues, attended exhibitions, beautiful architecture, fairs, libraries, botanical gardens etc. Calcutta has a rich culture of discussion over cups of chai. Every day after work, I would be part of such conversations with colleagues belonging to different departments, and learning and unlearning.

Some of these conversations led me to explore more than Kolkata. I started preparing for NID and had a back up plan to work in Mumbai. Fortunately, I got through both, but I chose the latter.

NID is a dream come true for many. The entrance as well as the interview process was very intriguing.

For me, it was learning and imbibing one thing at a time. Multiple forums would lure you to invest your time and energies into them, and so having a focused mind was difficult at times. Few assignments would compel you to think out of the box and some would make you feel nothing more than a useless box, these experiences taught me more than just academics. 

During my tenure at NID, all four of us in my family were in different states or countries managing things on our own, and that continued for quite some years. It also made us aware of challenges one might face while living alone or doing everything on their own. 

Probably this is one of the reasons it never occurred to me to be fully dependent.

I did several projects at NID with cross-functional course mates. I also had a chance to pursue an exchange program but opted out because I wanted to do another one here which had my interest, which was in ‘Space Design’. There were many indecisive and frustrating moments academically, so one has to stay strong through all of them. Overall, NID was an eye opener towards a new world of design and taught me to keep myself updated. It didn’t occur to constrain myself to a singular thought process, on the contrary, my mind always wandered to ingest more.

Looking back at my last year at NID, I now realize that I had made up my mind to move fast, because one cannot possibly strive for perfection in everything when you have hundreds of things to manage and seek your goals..

After my final internship, in order to gain more experience and financial independence, I worked in a media house in the mornings, did my freelance work in the evenings and would work on my graduation project documentation during late evenings. Occasionally, I would do some part- time graphic work or participate in some competition. Those months were a rat race to improve and hone my skills , do more before my jury exam at NID. My Jury went great with an overwhelming response from the faculty and I could also bag 3 jobs through placement, before my convocation. Those were some relaxing times and felt like my work had finally paid off. I spent some time in Kolkata with my parents before moving to Punjab to join Trident Group as a designer.

I was 25 at that time, and had travelled to quite a few places in India. I was pretty confident of myself to prepare good travel itineraries which would keep me safe and entertained.

To date, I can’t claim myself to be overtly extroverted, though  I plan well to ensure I run into minimum troubles, which runs in my working style too, which is to be cautious while being a risk taker, prepare well and double check.

If bad things are to happen, it will happen anyway. But I believe that the impact can be minimized if planned well.

How did you get your first break?

I joined the Trident Group in Punjab in 2014 after my post- graduation from NID. It’s a family owned business built with pure commitment and hard work. They are very well exposed to a lot of things and their thought processes are based on everything they are exposed to. If the company’s vision says something, it ought to have a logical futuristic reason. I have always tried to give my 100% with whatever knowledge I had.

Trident was known to be a manufacturing company of Yarn, Paper and Home Textiles, but our chairman and their family had a vision of making it a brand, which I believe was a very futuristic idea to transform a manufacturing facility into a brand. A brand not only caters directly to the customer but also offers services we could provide to our B2B business patrons through consultancy, business alliances, designs, product innovations, packaging innovations and so on. Thanks to my background in textile design, I was part of such initiatives for designing and branding products for exhibitions like Heimtextil Germany and in Russia in my first year. 

I was then given portfolios of bigger clients like Target, Sam’s, Walmart, Ralph Lauren to make sure a seamless design process is followed through. The SOP was not exactly set for textile designers in a manufacturing set up but we kept on improvising in coordination with the production team to ramp up our services for our business patrons. 

I was looking after these US client profiles for over 5 years and was part of many initiatives including R&D for product innovation, and have been recognized for my contributions internally and externally.

When Covid struck, some things in the company had to be changed overnight. That was a period when I had to  keep my courage and perseverance amidst many personal losses.

I was given the opportunity to form and head an eCommerce department and run it remotely. I feel this opportunity of digital transformation made way for a new world of opportunity and exploration for me, and I must say the journey has become more and more interesting day by day since then. The confidence in our cross functional team pushed us to have our own D2C platform in India to push the brand value through digital media.

What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you address them?

Challenge 1: 

Working in any job during covid was a challenge in itself. Although it is said that Covid brought digitization with a new wave, it also handicapped and delayed our capabilities in production, logistics, supply chain and so on.

We could not visit our clients for new businesses for over 2 years and no one can calculate the tangible and intangible losses it might have incurred.

Challenge 2: Coordinating remotely amongst teams was the next challenge, so was making sure your team is mentally and physically all right during the pandemic. 

There were many nuances of running an ecommerce business. UI, UX defines a holistic system that runs in the back end of a website that includes product listing, sales, advertising, inventory management, competition numbers. So, everyday was a new learning as well as a new challenge. Moreover, ecommerce means faster delivery times and quick decisions. To keep pace with it is difficult.

Challenge 3: Return of investments in digital media requires the physical medium too. We had to be very calculative and judicious in our asks from the management as the dynamics of an ecommerce business change very frequently.

Challenges are meant to open new doors of business. Today our ecommerce business is seen as a ray of hope for establishing and testing a product before a big launch; and in my opinion it is a very sustainable model to run a business.

Where do you work now? What problems do you solve?

I work as Operations Head for the eCommerce business at Trident Group in Stockport, UK.

Trident is one of the largest manufacturer of Home Textile products such as Terry Towels and Bed linens. 

We supply to many brands ( Walmart, Target, Ralph Lauren to name a few) across more than 100 countries in the world. 

Trident also launched its own brand few years ago and it’s labelled as myTrident now. 

The vision is to get the brand through e-commerce and other mediums, into every household of as many regions in the world as possible and I feel elated to be a part of the process. 

My focus is also to elevate the brand value of our patrons and provide them services related to enhancing their eCommerce presence in their D2C platforms. 

The ask from ecommerce business may change from time to time. The goal is the same which is to run a profitable business. The inventory should never be out of stock and we should be aware of any missed way before it happens. Not to mention, trend forecasting and grabbing any opportunity customers give us .

What skills are needed for your role? How did you acquire the skills?

I still don’t think I have enough skills to say this is all that is needed. As a team, we manage our product management cycle on ecommerce portals such as Amazon, and we aspire to take our products on many other portals.

Digitization is adapting itself to different norms everyday. I am learning something everyday whether it is from the internet, from my teammates, from the agencies we partner with, from cross functional teams, friends who are in IT firms, from several portal managers and making sure that we have a vision to hold on to.

What’s a typical day like?

In India, it was quite different from how it is in the UK.

I wake up early here, have my breakfast and start at the office by 8:30 AM.

The US is our biggest market right now, so it is a round the clock monitoring on devices, which is being done in close coordination between us and our ad agency. I being in the UK have a time advantage coordinating with India and the US.

The day goes in meetings, strategizing numbers, working on competition analysis, designing outlooks and customer experience, visual merchandising, cataloging, looking into new opportunities, demand for home textiles and trying to resolve internal matters on delays with product managers, design and category managers, logistics and other teams.

In the evenings, I go for a walk in nearby parks for unwinding and finding inspiration. 

What is it you love about this job? 

That it is challenging, that it requires me to learn everyday, that it’s not boring and the results are just in front of us as quickly as we put our efforts in planning and execution.

How does your work benefit society? 

Apart from giving world class quality products which are made in certified environmentally clean conditions, eCommerce businesses actually help reduce carbon footprints through a lot of processes, starting from digital display as against physical display, storage in a warehouse in compact conditions. We are even incorporating packaging solutions to cut down on energy costs. Even disposal or liquidation of products in ecommerce vis-à-vis a physical retail is more systemized.

In totality, eCommerce or any digital forum gives more visibility towards building a sustainable environment and also enabling the world for the future.  

Tell us an example of a specific memorable work you did that is very close to you!

The launch of our D2C platform was a very memorable event for us. There have been 100s of hours spent consciously and subconsciously over the website, and the expectation was set very high to give an A-Class user experience. It was built in a record time of 8 months during covid with remote working conditions and in coordination with colleagues sitting across different countries and time zones. 

The launch was a success and it is running with improvised ROI each and every month. 

Your advice to students based on your experience?

Always be up for new challenges. Accept them gracefully, as we are not the masters of all subject matters, so seek out for help and collaborations.

Be curious and always try to see a positive side of the information or task you receive.

Take inspiration from other industries and always appreciate the goodness surrounding you. 

Lastly, try and enjoy what you do.

Future Plans?

I am now residing in the UK and my motive is to promote the home brand in the country, and supply to nearby regions. It would also include anything that is possible to do in the retail stores to grow our business.

Digital being my forte now, I would also like to see where I can contribute to make physical experiences more fruitful combined with digital ones.