Killick Datta worked for Nike when Adidas and Puma were the biggest brands. After over three decades in the shoes business, he still visits malls every weekend because it is crucial to “know your marketplace”
As a student athlete at the Durham University in the northeast of England in 1979, Killick Sudeepto Datta sometimes wore school-issued Adidas tracksuits on campus. The then graduate business student at the Durham business school was sitting in the library one day when somebody famous approached him.
“I was wearing the three-stripe [Adidas] tracksuit and this guy walked up to me and said, ‘Take that off,’” he recalls. “He didn’t know who I was but I knew who he was. I asked him if he had something to give me that was free [in return], and he said yes – a Nike tracksuit.”
The man who approached Datta was Brendan Foster, Britain’s only track and field medal winner at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Foster was working informally for Nike at a time when Adidas and Puma were the biggest sporting apparel brands. The former star athlete would go on to be a key sport commentator for the BBC and, in 1981, Nike’s U.K. managing director.
“I thought this was my ticket to get free tickets,” Datta explains. “If I became a good friend of his, I thought, he might give me some tickets to watch some major sporting events.”
Foster roped in Datta as one of the first employees at Nike International where he would go on to become the Director of International Market Development. Any parent today would be proud to see their children do well at a global company such as Nike, but it was a different story for Datta in the early 80’s.
“In those days, shoes and clothing in those days were not considered as an industry that’s as well-appreciated as it is today,” said Datta, now CEO and President of Global Brand Partners, a global distributor of footwear. “I love sports but I had no clue where it would lead me. It was just something I felt good doing.
“The first job I had at Nike was to drive John McEnroe around. My dad would have thrown up if he’d heard that after sending me to public school and Oxford that I’m effectively a taxi driver for a tennis player.
“[McEnroe] would do a TV show on the BBC, so I’d put a Nike logo on his collar so the BBC couldn’t frame the logo out of the shot or they’d cut off his face. The BBC then put the microphone on the collar, so I’d put Nike badges on both collars. That was the fun we had, it was like a drug.
“But there was no career path. I had no idea Nike would get to where it is now. It was a huge risk for me.”
“Know your marketplace”
In the 36 years since, Datta has owned or taken central roles in distributing globally some of the biggest retail brands: Nautica, CAT, Hush Puppies, Sperry, L.A. Gear, and 7 for all Mankind denim. Now living in Singapore at the invitation of the island nation’s Economic Development Board (EDB), the American is helping to develop the country’s wholesale fashion industry.
Despite decades of experience, Datta stays hands-on because it is crucial to “know the marketplace”.
“I spend every Saturday and Sunday in one of the malls [in Singapore],” he reveals. “I’m here 10 days in a month. I’m traveling in Europe once a month, the U.S. once a month, and I’m at a mall.
“Sometimes some ugly-looking thing takes off and you wonder, ‘How did that happen?’ The ugliest thing in the world is Crocs! As shoe people we were horrified!”
He adds: “All along we’ve been told that women like their feet to look small, and then you get Ugg?! Now and again you get things that completely break the mould.”
To illustrate the importance and, crucially, difficulty of keeping up with market trends, Datta recounted how his teenage daughter had asked for a pair of sneakers he had not heard before: the Puma Creepers which had been made famous by noted style leader, Rihanna.
“They looked horrible to me but she said, ‘Dad, you’re in the shoe business. Can you get them for me?’ I sent out emails to my contacts to get a pair of Creepers; I got them.”
Datta, who also runs celebrity management company Universify, which counts Hollywood A-Lister Jennifer Lopez as a client, understands what a famous name can do for sales. But in the internet age where the availability of information has made the Creeper a must-have fashion item, there is only so much celebrity endorsement can do.
“You guys cannot be fooled into buying average products just because I told you Usain Bolt wears it,” Datta says, referring to Puma’s Usain Bolt-inspired line of products. While the world’s fastest man helped Puma post a seven percent year-on-year jump in global sales (10 percent currency adjusted) in 2016, Datta claims Nike would have “made him the next Michael Jordan”.
He continued: “Branding is important, but just because Under Armour is bidding [to be the kit sponsor for] Real Madrid…would you wear Under Armour soccer boots? You’re not. So this must be done right.”
The future of malls
In over three decades in the fashion business, Datta has seen the retail sector face and overcome challenges, but the current “seismic challenges” described by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz have left retailers “absolutely terrified”, he says. But the industry veteran thinks the physical store will not disappear completely.
“I cannot believe that you will dress yourselves completely by buying off the internet,” he asserts. “You have to go into a store to try out clothes. Will you have stores that are as big as you have today? I don’t think so. What I think will happen is you’ll get to the point where you can walk into a store, see everything as if it’s a showroom, but you order it online and have the merchandise delivered to your house.”
He adds: “As a wholesaler, I work with both sides. For example, with Nordstrom, we continue to supply their brick-and-mortar operations. We also operate Nordstrom.com. They also make us hold inventory, so if a customer orders online it’s delivered from our warehouse. That way, the retailer has completely passed on the risk of having inventory to the brands. So we carry the risk, we ship the goods, and we pay Nordstrom their profit.
“I think there will be a hybrid. I don’t see all your malls going empty in 10 years’ time. Going to the mall is still an experience.”
Killick Sudeepto Datta was the speaker at the recent SMU Wee Kim Wee Centre CEO Talk, ‘The Business of Fashion’ held on March 30, 2017.
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Last updated on 27 Oct 2017 .
