Amazon India's Samir Kumar Draws Inspiration From Shubman Gill In Second Innings At E-Commerce Giant

In cricket, a second innings often reveals a player's true mettle: how they balance aggression with patience, how they adapt without abandoning their core game.

Shubman Gill, in his recent second innings, didn't change much. He still played his shots when the ball was loose and defended when needed. That, says Samir Kumar, country manager for Amazon India, is exactly how he plans on approaching his own second innings in India.

Kumar, who was first part of Amazon India's team during its 2012–2016 launch phase, is now back at the helm and witnessing first-hand how far the company has come. "It's amazing to see the scale of the company and how loved we are by the Indian customer," he told in an exclusive interview to NDTV Profit. "The 21st century is going to be India's century," he said, quoting Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Now, as Amazon doubles down on India, its strategy is clear: serve every corner of the country with unmatched selection, dependable logistics, and relentless focus on customer experience. While comparisons to quick-commerce players like Blinkit and Zepto are inevitable, Kumar puts that in perspective: "Quick commerce is a small segment. We're playing the overall portfolio."

He believes Amazon's long-term edge will come from its supply chain strength and its ability to carry deep assortment even in limited spaces — a quiet but significant differentiation that becomes more powerful with scale and time.

And like Gill on the pitch, Amazon knows when to attack and when to defend. "We'll play defence and offence as and when needed, and it'll remain the same boring stuff of focusing on core inputs that customers care about and continuing to innovate on that," Kumar said.

The focus isn't just on customer satisfaction, it extends to Amazon’s ecosystem, said Kumar. The company has invested Rs 300 crore in its fulfilment centres to ensure associates have access to clean drinking water, air-conditioning, washrooms and rest areas. "It's not just Amazon employees, we're doing this for any delivery partners too," he added.

Amazon also continues to empower India's small and medium businesses to sell globally, helping them plug into international markets and grow sustainably.

"In today's fast-moving world," Kumar said, "forget months and years, everything's happening in days and weeks." But amid the whirlwind pace, Kumar's game remains rooted in these principles: focus on the customer, invest in infrastructure, and keep showing up innings after innings.