Vinay Bansal
Managing Director
With more than 15 years of professional experience,Vinay is known for establishing innovative and revolutionary business strategies. In an exclusive interaction with CEO Insights, Vinay spoke about his professional journey so far.
What are the important lessons you acquired in your career? How do you apply them in your current role? What has been your go-to motto during the highs and lows of your career?
The most important lesson I have learned in my career is ‘Customer is the Master of any Firm’. We must analyze how effectively we can serve our consumers since, in the end, customer satisfaction is essential in developing a strong brand image and achieving operational excellence. Before creating any product or service, the primary concern should be on how we can provide it to the consumers, or how the customers will accept them.
Furthermore,highs and lows are fundamental parts of everyone's professional journey; it's only that every one of us will have a unique perspective on how to deal with such phases. And, regardless of the setting, it's all about learning for me. Whether I'm in a high or low phase, the important thing I think about is what I learned from that experience and how I'm going to emerge out of it. This enables me to include new insights and evolve better for the next challenges; as a result, I treasure the lessons I've gained from every event.
How would you define BIRKENSTOCK as an organization? How has the brand been maintaining its mark in the industry?
The brand BIRKENSTOCK is a sixth generation family run firm that employs over 5,500 individuals orldwide and which roots can be traced back as far as 1774. It is also one of the largest employers in the German foot wear sector.
Since 2021, the firm has been majority owned by L Catterton, the world's largest consumer goods growth investor, and Financière Agache, a holding company controlled by Agache, the Arnault family's holding company. We can scale up our international presence due to our strategic partnership with L Catterton. BIRKENSTOCK expanded its worldwide reach to India in December 2019, and since then, we have launched 12 mono-brand retail stores in prime malls and destinations throughout the country's leading cities.
BIRKENSTOCK is a global lifestyle brand with a heritage in iconic footwear, rooted in the creation of the famous BIRKENSTOCK footbed. Since master cobbler Konrad Birkenstock began creating molded insoles, BIRKENSTOCK has been a leader in the industry and is guided by the notion of quality and function in all its actions and across all categories until today. Nowadays, the concept of all-round well being is developed not only into footwear, but also into sleeping systems and natural cosmetics, increasingly translating the lifestyle vision of the brand heritage. All of our sandals are handcrafted in Germany under the finest conditions for our brand in our manufacturing facilities, using a large amount of handwork. It takes well over 100 highly skilled hand movements to make our finished closed-toe models.
How are you keeping up with the trends and technology advancements in the industry?
We are quite proud of our digital presence and are very passionate about it at Birkenstock. Through our website, we deliver the finest brand experience to clients who utilize our products and services, as wellas privileges with excellent USPs.
The brand BIRKENSTOCK is a sixth generation family run firm that employs over 5,500 individuals orldwide and which roots can be traced back as far as 1774. It is also one of the largest employers in the German foot wear sector.
Whether I'm in a high or low phase,the important thing I think about is what I learned from that experience and how I'm going to emerge out of it
Since 2021, the firm has been majority owned by L Catterton, the world's largest consumer goods growth investor, and Financière Agache, a holding company controlled by Agache, the Arnault family's holding company. We can scale up our international presence due to our strategic partnership with L Catterton. BIRKENSTOCK expanded its worldwide reach to India in December 2019, and since then, we have launched 12 mono-brand retail stores in prime malls and destinations throughout the country's leading cities.
BIRKENSTOCK is a global lifestyle brand with a heritage in iconic footwear, rooted in the creation of the famous BIRKENSTOCK footbed. Since master cobbler Konrad Birkenstock began creating molded insoles, BIRKENSTOCK has been a leader in the industry and is guided by the notion of quality and function in all its actions and across all categories until today. Nowadays, the concept of all-round well being is developed not only into footwear, but also into sleeping systems and natural cosmetics, increasingly translating the lifestyle vision of the brand heritage. All of our sandals are handcrafted in Germany under the finest conditions for our brand in our manufacturing facilities, using a large amount of handwork. It takes well over 100 highly skilled hand movements to make our finished closed-toe models.
How are you keeping up with the trends and technology advancements in the industry?
We are quite proud of our digital presence and are very passionate about it at Birkenstock. Through our website, we deliver the finest brand experience to clients who utilize our products and services, as wellas privileges with excellent USPs.
Endeavouring to provide the best products and services to our clients in the most efficient manner possible is our mission. And, to further upgrade our technological platform, we engage in a variety of enhancement activities, such as in-house collaboration with various third parties to generate new content and introduce new methods of conducting business to our clients. In order to constantly improve our consumer experience, we are always developing innovative technological breakthroughs and adapting every solution required. For example, during the pandemic time, there was a significant shift for digital transactions, and even then, we provided services that met the needs of the customer and were delivered on time.
What is your view on the future market changes and opportunities? What would be your advice to the future generation striving to set benchmarks in their career in this industry?
As we all know, digitization is the talk of the town these days. In my opinion, both the digital and retail industries in India must work together to produce a better ecosystem for customers. Then, many new technologies should be launched into the market, with the ultimate objective of serving the customers in picking better products that are more tailored to their needs.
Customers now want solutions that will last a long time, hence future generation leaders should emphasize creating products and services with a longer lifespan. In addition, upcoming leaders must be prepared to deal with any circumstance; for example, when the Covid was hit, it came as a surprise to all of us. There fore, be future-ready from now on, and continue to adopt new technologies as they emerge.
Vinay Bansal, Managing Director, BIRKENSTOCK DIGITAL GMBH
Being a Chartered Accountant by profession, Vinay completed his Executive Program from IIM Calcutta. In his professional journey, Vinay has been part of various companies like Vodafone Essar, Aircel, Crocs India Private limited and in 2016 he moved to Dubai as Commercial Director Middle East & Africa for Crocs, Inc. Later,in 2018 Vinay joined Birkenstock and moved back to India to launch their subdivision in the country.
Location:Gurgaon
What is your view on the future market changes and opportunities? What would be your advice to the future generation striving to set benchmarks in their career in this industry?
As we all know, digitization is the talk of the town these days. In my opinion, both the digital and retail industries in India must work together to produce a better ecosystem for customers. Then, many new technologies should be launched into the market, with the ultimate objective of serving the customers in picking better products that are more tailored to their needs.
Customers now want solutions that will last a long time, hence future generation leaders should emphasize creating products and services with a longer lifespan. In addition, upcoming leaders must be prepared to deal with any circumstance; for example, when the Covid was hit, it came as a surprise to all of us. There fore, be future-ready from now on, and continue to adopt new technologies as they emerge.
Vinay Bansal, Managing Director, BIRKENSTOCK DIGITAL GMBH
Being a Chartered Accountant by profession, Vinay completed his Executive Program from IIM Calcutta. In his professional journey, Vinay has been part of various companies like Vodafone Essar, Aircel, Crocs India Private limited and in 2016 he moved to Dubai as Commercial Director Middle East & Africa for Crocs, Inc. Later,in 2018 Vinay joined Birkenstock and moved back to India to launch their subdivision in the country.
Location:Gurgaon