I want the promise on a shopper's screen to survive the visit to the store.

I joined Arunvaya Stores as a programmer and store-systems analyst in July 1992, just after completing my computer science degree at Kavelin Institute.

Open to

Board appointments
Speaking invitations
Executive opportunities

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A customer who travels to collect a jacket does not care which application last counted it. She wants the item we said would be there, in the condition and size she expects. At Varneli Retail, I lead the technology through which those promises move between our website, stores and service teams. A stock record, a reservation and a ready-for-collection message describe different stages. My work is to make the handover dependable enough that colleagues can give a clear answer, including when the item is not yet available to promise.

I started in store systems in July 1992. What stays with me from that work is the person at the counter trying to help while the screen supplies only part of the story. A return may lack a usable order link. A customer record may look similar to another without belonging to the same person. A fast lookup may still leave a queue waiting on something else. I want those distinctions to shape our investment decisions. They help us choose a change that improves the working experience rather than merely replacing the application in which the difficulty appears.

My remit is 162 technology employees through five direct reports, supported by forty-five contractors counted separately. Our FY2026–27 authority is ₹96 crore, with ₹62 crore for continuing operations and ₹34 crore for change. Varneli's 6,800 colleagues serve customers through 148 stores in twenty Indian cities and direct online sales. I report to Devansh Karmelkar, our CEO, and work with Malvika Tervade, our retail operations director. Merchandising, service policy and store operations retain their own decision makers. The technology function must make their choices workable and visible across the customer's journey.

Stock that could not yet be promised

A 600-order collection rehearsal found ninety-six apparent availability errors: fifty-four items were returns awaiting inspection and forty-two were already reserved elsewhere. We changed the status and reservation handover with the responsible operating owners. The ₹3.6 crore programme established correct status for the examined cohort; it did not turn a rehearsal into a claim that orders had been fulfilled.

A faster screen with a smaller queue result

Across a thirty-store, six-week study, the 95th-percentile item-lookup time fell from eleven to four seconds. Observed queue medians moved from 4.8 to 4.4 minutes in separate before-and-after cohorts. I reported both measures and their different scope. The ₹2.8 crore deployment improved the application result, but the observations did not establish that it alone caused the whole queue change.

Ambiguous customer links left separate

Of 120,000 candidate links in a customer-record exercise, 12,000 were held as ambiguous. Further review confirmed 4,000 and left 8,000 separate. We did not make uncertainty disappear by merging every similar-looking record. The ₹95 lakh work concerned identity linkage; it did not create permission for a new use of the customer's details.

Current focus

I am concentrating on the points where a customer promise crosses an internal boundary: availability to reservation, return lookup to service judgement, and a matched record to an authorised use. I want the remaining question to be visible to the colleague who must answer it, rather than passed silently to the customer.

Conversations I welcome

I am interested in a limited external board conversation about retail technology and service dependence. Twenty-two proposed annual days, employer consent and an appointment-specific assessment would need to fit the responsibility. I remain accountable for my present executive role.

162

Technology employees

Five direct reports; forty-five contractors separately

₹96 crore

Technology authority

FY2026–27: ₹62 crore operations and ₹34 crore change

34 years

Retail systems experience

Store applications, channel integration and enterprise leadership

The customer should not have to understand our system boundaries to receive a clear answer.

Iravika Nerurkar

Chief Information Officer

Areas of stewardship

Where accountability has been mine.

IInventory promises across channels
IIReturn and service record continuity
IIIRetail application and queue measurement
IVCustomer-record linkage with distinct use authority

Selected work

Decisions, and what they changed.

Ninety-six items that existed in the records but could not be promised

A September 2024 collection-service rehearsal examined 600 proposed orders across a defined store cohort.

The full account

A return lookup with an explicit route for the unresolved hundred

In February 2025 we examined 1,200 return-lookup cases before extending a common service workflow.

The full account

III

Seven seconds faster at the screen, twenty-four seconds different in the queue

A thirty-store study over six weeks in July and August 2025 examined an item-lookup application change.

The full account

In the words of others

Trusted by those who appoint.

Iravika kept the collection decision focused on the promise we were about to make. She explained the ninety-six exceptions, the cost of correcting them and why a successful rehearsal would still need a controlled introduction.

Devansh KarmelkarFictional chief executive, Varneli Retail

She gave store operations a usable route for the hundred return records that remained unresolved. My colleagues could explain what would happen next without pretending that a missing link had already answered the policy question.

Malvika TervadeFictional retail operations leader, Varneli Retail

The journal