 "Titan taps IBM Watson to drive sales")
Titan Company Ltd will use IBM’s Watson customer engagement and cloud-based solutions to increase engagement and sales with its 11-million loyal customer base. India’s largest watch maker sees digital as a growing medium and wants to serve digital customers like it does at its 1,500 retail stores, as it looks at e-commerce as a driver for growth.
The company says it sees the Indian e-commerce market overtaking the US and becoming the second largest in the world in less than two decades. However, to achieve success while fending off new online competitors, Titan needs to re-energise its 1,500 brick-and-mortar stores, build online presence and continue to inspire and excite its customers to drive more frequent sales. The company also said the current economic growth and rising household incomes are expected to increase consumer spending to $3.6 trillion by 2020.
Titan is beginning to integrate the solutions to serve as the backbone of its online platform, enabling the company to tailor online campaigns that are unique to their customers — not just taking into account preferences and past purchases, but also leveraging analytics to examine their real-time behaviour, so campaigns can be tailored on the fly to help drive a purchase.
For example, Titan can identify customers whose watch purchases in the past indicate contemporary fashion sensibilities and introduce deals on contemporary jewellery designs for these customers. They can not only customise the amount of the discount, but also where it should be delivered to — via email, mobile etc — all based on past behaviour. Next, as the customer navigates the site, the retailer can identify other items that are grabbing their attention and respond with deals on each.
“India is poised to become the largest digital marketplace in the world, which will introduce entirely new levels of competition between retailers looking to grow a loyal customer base,” said Harriet Green, general manager, IBM Watson Customer Engagement.
Through this, Titan aims to energise its current customer base, who on an average make 1.5 purchases a year, into regular buyers who buy three times as many items annually, whether through digital platform or retail stores. In the company’s store locations, sales associates will have mobile apps to provide them with details on each shopper (from past purchases to style preferences and more) so they can maintain highly-customised and personalised relationships.
“The continued growth of e-commerce presents a tremendous opportunity for Titan to better meet the unique needs of our customers while tapping into vital new revenues for our business. IBM will play a significant role in ensuring our success. We want to bring the warmth and relationships our stores are famous for, into the digital world that our customers are increasingly frequenting,” said Kuruvilla Markose, Chief Digital Officer, Titan Company Limited.