India's Biggest Fashion E-commerce Company Reveals its Top Priorities in 2018 The company believes there is enough headroom for everyone to grow

Myntra's journey from 2007 to 2017 is nothing short of exemplary.

In 2018, the Indian fashion e-commerce company headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka is more equipped than ever before.

The change in its fortunes came with its merger with Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart in 2014 and the company further strengthening its position in 2016 by acquiring rival Jabong.com. The fashion arm of Flipkart Group, which functions and operates independently, is now looking only at consumers.

In a chat with BIZ Experiences India, Ananya Tripathi, the Chief Strategy Officer at Myntra and Jabong spoke about the company's top priorities this year and the way forward.

Myntra's Top 5 Strategies in 2018

Tripathi says the company will focus on growing lifestyle categories (personal care, home) this year.

"We are looking to bring a wide assortment of international brands of beauty and personal care to India. We will also be launching our personal care stores such that customers can touch and feel the Myntra offering," said Tripathi.

With focus on omni-channel, Myntra is set to invest in partnering brands to offer seamless access to the brands' inventory, besides pickup and drop for customers across stores. "We will also be launching more of our own stores. We believe this will be a true differentiator for the brands," said Tripathi.

Tripathi earmarks growing the company's in-house brands and brand accelerator partners and helping bring the unorganised segment under the organized umbrella as growth engines for 2018.

Sports Offering

Sports will continue to be the foundational pillar of Myntra and it will look to grow its offering in the coming year said Tripathi.

"In 2018, women are a big focus area, as we believe women in India are under-served, especially in the sports category. We are also looking to offer additional areas such as sports equipment to our customers. Omni-channel partnerships with sports brands are other strategic focus areas for the year," said Tripathi

Challenges for Women on Top

Tripathi believes whether women on are on top or along their career journey, the challenges faced by them are similar.

According to Tripathi, women face three main challenges:-

The first challenge is the high and often unattainable bar that women put on themselves, to be good at everything (e.g. being a mother, at work, within family, at fitness, in running the house). We all need to become more comfortable at letting some balls drop and also feel free to ask for help so that women can have fun while maneuvering the myriad roles played by them.

The second challenge is of women having to balance the sub-conscious biases that exist at the workplace. We are fortunate that in most set-ups today, people are making an attempt to overcome barriers consciously. However, the root of the problem lies in our upbringing across the world (not just in India), which has led to some inherent biases against women. Regular office interactions, such as team feedback, negotiations for roles or pay increases, networking and giving opinions in boardrooms, the perceptions are different when women are involved. Therefore, there is a constant need to balance the way women are treated at work.

Lastly, no one can progress without mentors or a strong peer network, women have a tougher time building some of these informal links because of sometimes the fact that they do not have the leisure to invest in these connections due to family commitments and many times the drinks/ dinners which are critical for these connections are judged especially in a man/ woman setup. The effort needs to made both by men and women at the workplace to make cross-gender networking and relationships commonplace rather than an exception.