Inspired by Indian innovation, says senior Amazon executive Dave Clark | Business Standard News

Dave Clark, the chief executive officer for worldwide consumer at e-commerce giant Amazon, is one of the most influential people in corporate America. He is regarded as the brains behind Amazon’s coronavirus response that included making changes in the supply-chain network and warehouse safety policies.

Clark, a top lieutenant of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, said that he is inspired by Indian innovation. “India is the second-largest technology hub for Amazon globally with some of the most talented people,” said Clark, during a conversation with Amit Agarwal, senior vice president for India and emerging markets, Amazon, at the company’s flagship annual Smbhav 2022.

For instance, an Amazon teams has built a cloud-based warehouse management system to help sellers streamline their warehouse operations and ship orders to customers fast and reliably. “While this service launched in India first, it’s now being used by sellers worldwide to serve millions of customers,” said Clark. Another team developed a vision-based information extraction capability used to automate identity verification, helping streamline new seller onboarding experience worldwide. “And one of our AI teams is using computer vision and deep learning technologies to grade products for customers,” he said.

Amazon also introduced several programmes specifically for millions of neighbourhood stores that benefit from technology in e-commerce. For example, ‘I Have Space’ where local stores work with the firm for last-mile delivery or Amazon Easy which acts as assisted shopping points for new E-commerce customers and provides local stores incremental growth opportunities. “What I find exciting is how much room it is for businesses to grow by embracing technology,” he said.

Clark said the second Covid wave in India was quite severe and it was inspiring to see how the Amazon’s workforce in India and across the world, rallied together and leveraged the global logistics infrastructure to bring critical medical supplies to people who needed them most. “We’d spent Amazon’s first 25 years building a very large fulfillment network and then had to double it, just in the last 24 months to meet customer demand,” said Clark. “That was no small task for teams around the world. And I’m incredibly proud of the work they’ve done.”

“I am super excited about the opportunities here in India,” said Clark. “India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and is so important to Amazon.”

Clark said India seeks to become a $1 trillion digital economy, aiming to use its rates of internet adoption and a young demographic. The entrepreneurial spirit of Indian businesses and the growth mindset Indians possess as they work towards developing the digital economy will hold them in good stead. “I think these are perhaps some of the reasons why Jeff (Bezos) made that prediction at this very event in 2020, that the 21st century will be an Indian century,” he said.

Amazon has digitized more than 4 million small businesses, enabled experts worth nearly 5 billion, and helped create over a million jobs in India. The firm recently doubled its commitments to boost exports from India to 20 billion by 2025. This would enable hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs here to build global businesses and strong brands. Amazon also recently announced 37 new renewable energy projects around the world, including two new rooftop solar projects in India.

“We’re incredibly motivated by the momentum in India serving millions of customers, sellers, and other partners,” said Clark. “We think it’s still very early days and we remain committed to being a long-term partner in India’s economic progress in the years to come.”