Retailers to tap technology to aid growth

As retail gets more organised in India, technology would play a larger role in the industry. Discussing this at ReTechCon, where the topic was Intelligent Retailing- Efficiency through Technology, Ganesh Natarajan,deputy chairman and managing director, Zensar Technologies, said as non-IT companies are increasingly finding it difficult to develop their IT capabilities, there is great potential in outsourcing this function to an external party.

"Outsourcing IT capabilities also helps in bringing down costs and improving earnings for the company," Natarajan said.

It is estimated that globally, about 10 per cent of backoffice process in retail like HR management, IT etc would be outsourced, with a strong likelihood that even more mainstream processes like buying and merchandising will start getting outsourced.

Natarajan said it is likely that a larger number of processes would be outsourced to India.

BS Nagesh, Managing Director & CEO, Shopper's Stop said IT companies need to look beyond the big five retailers at the second level of companies which could drive the industry's growth.

"Implementing technology is important, not only to improve the productivity, but also to provide a better experience to the customer," he added.

Fred Balboni, vice president and retail industry executive, Asia pacific, IBM Global Services, pointed out it was adoption of technology to improve the in store experience that would ensure customer loyalty as there was no major differentiation between retailers on the basis of products anymore.

Gibson Vedamani, ceo, Retailers Association of India, said the retail IT has emerged as the backbone of the industry and the idea behind ReTechCon is to provide a platform for the retailers and technology service providers.