Nakumatt loses top manager in new management structure

Regional retailer Nakumatt Holdings has announced management changes that will see the exit of long-serving  regional operations and strategy director, Mr Thiagarajan Ramamurthy. The retail chain has also introduced new business operations programme to enhance the supermarket’s operations.

Mr Ramamurthy is expected to leave by the end of April and his position will be taken up by The recently  Andrew Dixon, who was appointed Chief Marketing Officer recently, assisted by the regional chief officers who have been created under the new structure.

Ramamurthy returned to Nakumatt after leaving for a few years, in what the company said was early retirement, to work for Simba Colt Corporation. Before his exit in february 2010, he had become the face of Nakumatt as both spokesman and strategist.

On his return, however, he took a low-profile as group managing Director Atul Shah took the steering wheel. TRM has curved a niche as a Brand Positioning strategist and business turnaround architect.

“The departure of Mr Ramamurthy comes at a defining moment in the history of Nakumatt and we sincerely wish to extend our gratitude for his service to this organization,” said Nakumatt Holdings Managing Director Atul Shah.

The new management programme, which will be rolled out in the next few months, will feature enhancements on the firm’s management and regional operations management teams to boost efficiency and accelerate cost cutting efforts.

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Mr Shah said the retail chain had adopted a new performance based management strategy, geared at enhancing corporate governance and customer delivery excellence. The strategy will have a regional management structure featuring chief officers at the Nairobi regional headquarters complemented in country management teams in Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

The new structure was developed by Outram Cullinan & Company (OC&C) Strategy, one of the world’s most respected retail services corporate strategists, which has drafted a ten-year growth plan. Alongside OC&C, Nakumatt, has also retained Information Technology Consulting firm, Zensar, to spearhead its IT re-engineering process.

At Nakumatt, Zensar, has been charged with the responsibility of driving the retailer’s digital transformation including revenue assurance and e-commerce systems.

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The Nakumatt transformation will seek to harness the existing retail market potential in East Africa and beyond. “At less than 18per cent retail penetration in East Africa, the market opportunity is wide open for Nakumatt, to double or even triple its market share with renewed corporate energy and vigour,” he said.

Nakumatt confirmed the appointment of Mr. Srihari Vemula as the Chief Operations Manager. A seasoned International Retail Operations Executive, Vemula recently joined Nakumatt from the Omani based Khimji Ramdas (KR) Group, where he was National Retail Operations Manager for the KR Consumer Products Group. At the group level, Manoj Singh was appointed as the new Group Financial Controller. Mr Singh joins Nakumatt from Melcom Group, a leading West African retail business.

[crp]