How can we think beyond the "standard"?

I had the opportunity to work with MMCube which is a design company and a manufacturer that would be able to make anything that I imagined to create a concept that would increase the visibility of products and tackle the problem of space utilization in supermarkets.

The market for store racks in India has been standardized to such an extent that neither the supplier nor the customer wants to look beyond the normal. But we were determined to change that. We came up with a truly optimum design that would disrupt the market and improve the overall shopping experience for customers.

Pitching our design to the biggest supermarket chain in the state was a nerve-wracking experience, but lucky for us, they had a high-end store coming up that was still under planning. Although we faced some obstacles due to the unique design and the costs not being in line with what the store normally paid for their racking systems, our design, and idea pushed through.

This experience made me realize that the end customer always wants a shelf to display their products at the lowest cost possible. An innovative product like ours in the Indian market would only sell as a one-off, so disrupting a market like this would have to be done keeping the cost element in mind.

Overall, it was an amazing experience to work on this project and be a part of a team that was able to create a solution to a market problem in India. It was a challenging and rewarding experience that taught me the importance of keeping the end customer's needs and costs in mind when creating a disruptive product in a market.

Projects designed & worked on:

1. Magsons, North & South Goa

"A key lesson I learnt from this experience was never to deviate from the plan in the fear of meeting a timeline."