Nisreen Shocair exudes confidence when she discusses her extremely ambitious strategy for Virgin in the region, set to incorporate brand new concepts and innovations, redesigns and the brand's biggest store worldwide.
On discovery of the extent to which she has streamlined the company's mammoth operation resulting in significant growths this year, while overseeing the management of 600 members of staff and soon-to-be 13 stores in five countries, her vision appears very attainable.
"We have streamlined the operation, centralised a lot of the disciplines such as marketing and purchasing, looked at our flows of traffic and how we allocate employees, and we have made the system more flexible and fluid," she says.
"Cross learning" has been central to change over the past 18 months, she says, which has involved re-evaluating suppliers.
"We've cancelled about 80% of them and re-engaged other partners. That has made our suppliers more competitive, and made them work better for us.
"With the creative look of the stores, everyone is now working 200% better and harder. It was a business that relied a lot more on the boom then it did internally on the operation and that was reflected in the bottom line, but today that is in a position that is very healthy."
Shocair describes joining Virgin and its family-owned franchise owner, Azadea Group, as "a perfect completion and transition" after positions with media companies Viacom, Sony, Bertelsmann, and Hearst.
Referring to the airport as her treadmill, Shocair explains that the brand must be quite autonomous with teams for buying, operations and logistics due to the complexity of the business.
"At any point in time, we're dealing with 100,000 SKUs upwards so it's quite a detailed business. On the outside to our customers we try to convey a very fun, light image. But in terms of the operational side, due to the number of product lines, all we do is take care of every kind of detail. Retail is detail, and this applies with Virgin."
Virgin Kids, a new environment to be launched within stores, will feature toys, activities and a reading corner. Shocair is adamant, however, that test control models are used for any new concepts, such as the recent addition of Virgin Boutique.
"Today we can afford to do that. I can see potential for a Virgin Digital shop, everything related to digital platforms in one store targeting a very particular customer."
The UAE, Qatar and Kuwait boast the most positive demographics for Virgin Boutique and Virgin Kids, and she comments that females are "quite strong as consumers in these markets as they drive a lot of purchases for big-ticket items."
One example of how Shocair has taken advantage of stores as test beds for new products was changes carried out at its Qatar store, such as bringing books to the front.
"They tend to be female-friendly without isolating males, and the content is quite varied, from cooking and design to fiction and non-fiction. If I was to estimate I would say 30% more women are visiting the stores this year compared to last year.
"I don't think Virgin's colours will turn to pink any time soon, but it will definitely have some curves," she says.
The company has just launched Virgin Boutique, and the concept was first rolled out in its new Qatar store, "a very interesting market for us as we've been doing a lot of testing there. Once an idea succeeds, we launch on a bigger scale." Shocair says the Qatari market has been "quite susceptible to new things."
"We're going after new formats. If you see the layout of the stores, the first thing you see is a lot of phones and ‘boy toys.' I wonder, psychologically speaking, how much of that is driven by the fact that the management was male-oriented?"
Girl power will certainly be required for Shocair's opening of the largest Virgin Megastore at Mall of Arabia, scheduled for 2010. When asked about her expectations for the venture, she says the prevailing concern that has arisen is cannibalisation.
The concept for the 75,000ft² shop will be "very different," she reveals, compared to the chain's two biggest stores today at Dubai's Mall of the Emirates and in Qatar.
"Mall of Arabia is going to be something very unique for Dubai and the region. Cannibalisation is a factor that all retailers have to take into account, as we don't feel it now that we're in a boom. We were never afraid that would cannibalise our business. We are more ready than the consumer is at this point, and that's a good place to be." she comments.
"Even though there's customer growth and an influx of tourists, we will go for bth smaller and big format shops, as the former does not necessarily mean less money."
Shocair uses Dubai's Burjuman Centre mall as a case study, where its small store generates high conversion, high traffic and includes all the products. She says: "It's extremely efficient, despite working with very limited space."
"That is a target mall; we know that the demographic is mostly high spending females. If we have female artists that we know will do better there then we allocate it there for higher sales instead of a black iPod or Sony Playstation."
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