Group CEO Vipul Chawla is guiding Singapore’s largest supermarket chain through a period of rapid change. Founded in 1973 to help keep daily essentials within reach, FairPrice Group today serves millions of Singaporeans across grocery, food service, and loyalty businesses.
In this episode of Brilliant Moves: Coffee with CEOs, McKinsey Senior Partner and Asia Chair Gautam Kumra sits down with Chawla to discuss AI-powered shopping experiences that increased basket size by 70 percent; how his stores managed to keep chicken on shelves during a supply shock without raising prices; and the belief that ambition should always be greater than resources.
The conversation took place inside one of FairPrice’s newest stores in Singapore. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Bringing AI into the store
Gautam Kumra: Tell us about this store, what you’re trying to create here, and where we are sitting at the moment.
Vipul Chawla: We were trying to build what we were calling a store of tomorrow. Where we are sitting is a grocer bar. And this brings together the concept of what we call a “grocerant.” It’s a restaurant in the middle of a grocery store. And that in some ways completes the shopping journey in terms of “share of stomach” and makes the shopping journey exciting.
We try to put ourselves in the shoes of the customer to understand their friction points as we design the technology behind the store.
We try to put ourselves in the shoes of the customer to understand their friction points as we design the technology behind the store.
The first friction point is trying to remember the shopping list. In this store, when you come in and scan your phone at your smart shopping cart, we have a shopping assistant which generates a shopping list for you.
Let’s say what comes up in that shopping list is a tray of eggs. You press eggs. A map guides you to where the eggs are in the store so you can easily find the product. When you’ve got your eggs, you put the eggs in the shopping cart. Your shopping journey is done. You do not need to then wait at checkout.
From the time we introduced that shopping cart, the purchase basket went up by 70 percent. A $25 basket has now become $42.
Gautam Kumra: Very unusual.
Vipul Chawla: We tested this in another store. It’s been running for almost 12 months and in this store for almost six months. So, there’s some consistency in that pattern, which tells me that there is something around engagement.
That’s the point of friction that we were trying to solve from a customer angle.
Now, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of Sarah, who’s our store manager here. What are the things she’s worried about? She wants to know what’s happening in this whole store. So, she’s got on her phone something called a Grocer Genie.
The Grocer Genie is telling her in real time what’s happening in the store all the time, not just sales. Are customers struggling with something? Has something spilled on the floor?
And we have something else to help her, called Vision AI. Behind the cameras, we’ve got an AI-powered engine which tells her: Are we running out of stock? Is there an issue in terms of staffing?
All of that is the technology that we put inside this store to create the store-of-tomorrow experience for our customers and for our staff. The power of that, combined with the power of human intuition, I think could be a huge unlock over the next decade.
Making availability and affordability non-negotiable
Gautam Kumra: I know you have a deep sense of social purpose. Tell us a bit about what this group stands for.
Vipul Chawla: One of the things that we remind ourselves is that when Singaporeans go to sleep at night, they want to wake up the next morning not worrying about daily essentials.
In the early ‘70s, there was turmoil across the world. The organization was formed to help moderate the cost of living in Singapore for daily essentials.
We wanted to honor the past. Equally, we wanted to reimagine the future, and we wanted to coauthor it together with the leadership team. That purpose and that spirit have continued.
Why we exist is to make every day a little better—for our customers, for our people. And that explains our purpose. That guides our thinking.
When Singaporeans go to sleep at night, they want to wake up the next morning not worrying about daily essentials.
Gautam Kumra: How has it been to lead the organization’s mission while dealing with supply-chain shocks?
Vipul Chawla: Our job is to make sure that the shelves are stocked, and that they are stocked in a tone and manner that’s available as well as affordable.
Sometime in 2022, during a chicken availability shock that we had, the supply of fresh chicken suddenly ran out in Singapore. And for anybody who lives in Singapore, chicken rice is really precious to us.
What we did was make sure that chicken was available on our shelves. And we did not change the pricing despite the fact that the commercial availability model changed.
In the near term, that’s not a commercially wise decision, but we were not conflicted, because we knew that was the right thing to do.
Every crisis, as we have learned, is a little different. And if we have to make a commercial adjustment to our near-term profits in the interest of serving customers, we will do that.
When ambition exceeds resources
Gautam Kumra: Look back at your career. What has gotten you this far, into this position to lead this institution?
Vipul Chawla: I’ll be honest, I stumbled into the roles I got. It seems like it was really well orchestrated, but you can only join the dots looking back. There was no master plan.
Gautam Kumra: What are the two or three leadership lessons that you hold close to your heart?
Vipul Chawla: “Seek first to understand, seek then to be understood” is something that I have found particularly helpful over the years.
As we get more senior in our professional roles, the perception we create for ourselves—and that’s created for us—is that everything we say makes a lot of sense. Which is not always entirely true.
If we practice “seek first to understand, seek then to be understood,” we can all become better leaders.
The importance of humility is another lesson. All of this is great, but it is at a moment in time. Staying grounded and humble is important.
And another lesson, which I’ve been reflecting on over the last few years, is the importance of agility. When you combine humility with agility, I think that can be a very potent combination.
Growing up in India, we got so used to being resource starved that it taught us a sense of resilience and trying to get the most out of our resources.
But the unlock for me was a conversation I had with one of my coaches, who wrote an equation on a board saying: Is A greater than R?
Gautam Kumra: Ambition greater than resources.
Vipul Chawla: And the thought really was, as long as ambition is greater than resources, chances are you’ll be creative in trying to find solutions.
As long as the ambition is greater than the resource, chances are you’ll be creative in trying to find solutions.
Gautam Kumra: I have always been of the view that leadership is very context specific. To advise someone, you must first understand the context. Part of the reason I’m curious is because I deeply want to engage and understand the context and ideally get into not only your head but into your heart and see what I would be thinking about if I were in your shoes.
Vipul Chawla: It’s more than empathy. It’s about understanding what our challenges are and sometimes the ability to struggle together on common issues. I think that’s very refreshing.
For you to be inspiring, you must be inspired
Gautam Kumra: I was reflecting on a conversation I had with a coach of mine. He said, “For you to be inspiring, you must be inspired.” What is inspiring you these days?
Vipul Chawla: What’s inspiring me certainly is the opportunity to serve the community on the island that we now call home. And the fact that what we do meaningfully impacts our community every day—availability and affordability of daily essentials. What inspires you?
Gautam Kumra: I think the opportunity to connect and help senior leaders get more impact and fulfillment in their lives. I’ve come to the view that an individual—or even a small group of people—can make a significant impact on the world. And if we can help them become more purposeful in what they’re doing and get more joy and fulfillment from their lives, I think I would have lived a good life.
Lightning round
Gautam Kumra: When you want a drink, coffee or tea?
Vipul Chawla: Tea.
Gautam Kumra: I know how intense the job is. How do you keep your energy going?
Vipul Chawla: The first is: Am I coming to work with a spring in my step? And the day I lose the spring in the step, I know I need to ask myself why I’m doing this.
Now, I’m going to ask you a couple of questions. What’s in your shopping cart?
Gautam Kumra: Greek yogurt.
Vipul Chawla: With or without protein?
Gautam Kumra: High protein.
Vipul Chawla: That’s a good answer.
Gautam Kumra: Avocado.
Vipul Chawla: The thing about avocado is that the avocado decides when it’s going to be ready. It’s very hard to time the supply chain on avocado.
Gautam Kumra: Since both of us now have grown-up children, what is the one trick you have learned about how to connect with them?
Vipul Chawla: Don’t try too hard. Let it naturally flow.
Gautam Kumra: One that I learned recently is: Ask them for advice rather than give them advice.
Vipul Chawla: I found a new hack for that. I start off by saying, “I want to pick your brains.” And that’s when it translates into “let’s have lunch.”
