Lowe's Inc - Product Management/Development Executive of the Year

Company: Lowe's Inc, Mooresville, NC
Company Description: Lowe's Companies, Inc. is an American retail company specializing in home improvement. Headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina, the company operates a chain of retail stores in the United States and Canada. As of February 2021 , Lowe's and its related businesses operates 2,197 home improvement and hardware stores in North America. Link to the ecommerce site - https://www.lowes.com/
Nomination Category: Product Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Product Management/Development Executive of the Year

Nomination Title: Shyamala Soundari Kuppsamy, Senior Director of Ecommerce Product Management at Lowe's Inc.

Shyamala is a dynamic Product Management Leader at Lowe’s Ecommerce who owns the Lowes.com experiences for Product Selection, Pricing and Promotions, Inventory availability, Cart, Checkout, Payments, Credit and Installation Services. Prior to Lowe’s, Shyamala has led transformational initiatives in multiple organizations such as Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer in London, Alfuttaim retail in UAE, and Sears, Toys R Us & Macy’s in the U.S.Shyamala has made a significant impact that makes her stand out in the Product Management space and in the Retail Industry.

-She was invited by National Retail Federation (NRF) to be part of Technology Leadership Council and Women in Leadership Council.
-She was a Speaker at several industry leading conferences in 2020 including the Etail Conference, the Frost & Sullivan Thought Leadership Conference, BDI Conference etc.
-In 2017, She was Awarded the “Annual Make Magic Award” by Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette for her contribution in Macy’s ecommerce.
-In 2019, invited by Fortune Magazine as the ‘Most Powerful Women Next Gen 2019’
-Recently she was honored by Charlotte Business Journal with ‘Women in business Achievement Award’

Shyamala and her team was trusted to lead the delivery of some of the most critical initiatives for Lowes.com in 2019 & 2020. This included several strategic initiatives for Lowes.com like Separate Freight from Cost, Collections Selling, redesigning the Product selection, cart and checkout experiences and Most importantly, during the pandemic, Shyamala and her team built great technology products to serve the customers during these difficult times. For example, The surge in online consumer demand created by the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 led to increases in Out of Stock (OOS) scenarios for essential products which became important during the pandemic ( for ex. Chest Freezers were needed to preserve food supplies). In order to help the customers, the product roadmap was accelerated and a new Stock Alerts product was launched, which allowed customers to sign-up for a stock alert when the item they want to purchase is Out of Stock on the website. The Customer Engagement Rates were very positive and it also benefited customers during the pandemic.

During the first half of 2020,Lowe.com set the trend for the year by delivering 80% digital comps in Q1 and Q2 2020 saw Lowes.com deliver massive growth of +135% in revenues. This was followed by another 2 quarters of triple digit growth +106% in Q3 and 121% in Q4. This growth was also made possible by the key strategic initiatives and the increases in site Conversion driven by the work delivered by the ecommerce team. A growth in workforce was also achieved while increasing the Internal Team Engagement scores in 2020. In addition to the revenue growth achieved, a key accomplishment for 2020 was the stability of the Product Selection, Cart and Checkout through the Black Friday Holiday Event. Customers also experienced better site speed as compared to the nearest home improvement competitor, leading to better conversion, resulting in ecommerce sales growth that surpassed the biggest competitor.

Lowe’s Ecommerce performance and the recognition in the industry: Some links below
1PYMNTS.com -Lowe's Reports 135 Pct eCommerce Sales Spike
2Digital Media Solutions -Lowe’s Rides The Ecommerce Wave To Reach Consumers During Early Holiday Season
Beats the competitor -https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2020/05/20/lowes-beats-home-depot-sales-surge
Shyamala’s Recognitions in the industry:
Part of NRF Technology leadership council and women in leadership council
https://nrf.com/about-us/committees-councils/technology-leadership-council
Recognition by Charlotte Business Journal with ‘Women in business Achievement Award’
https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2021/02/09/cbj-reveals-women-in-business-award-winners-wib.html
Speaker in events: Invited to be a speaker in conferences as ecommerce Product Management expert and a digital innovator
Etail West –https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/etail-west-conference/#the-evolution-of-digital-omnichannel
Invited be a speaker on bridging the gap : eCommerce in the Covid Economy.
https://bdionline.com/event/062320ecommerce/
https://www.asdevents.com/data/media/e021756-speakers.pdf
Linkedin profilehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamala-soundari-kuppusamy-66486717/