Target India, the global in-house engineering arm of $73 billion Target Corporation has been present in India for more than eight years managing the entire gamut of technology infrastructure for the US-based retail giant with the help of its own team as well as strategic technology partners. With the global retail space going through a massive evolution with the traditional brick and mortal model giving way to multichannel retailing, the Minneapolis-headquartered company is now looking at partnering with technology start-ups in India to harness their ideas and technological depth to complement its skills.
Navneet Kapoor, president and MD of Target India said the company is in the process of launching a ‘start-up incubator model’ especially targeting small companies and start-ups working in technologies which can complement its expertise in areas such as analytics, search and content.
“Traditionally, we have worked with bigger companies. Now we are saying innovation can come from smaller companies especially at a time when the world is changing so fast and the frameworks used to mobile technologies are changing almost every week,” he said.
“We believe that the start-up ecosystem is quite rich in India now; there are plenty of talents and companies. Many of them have one foot in India and the other in the US. We are looking at working with them, learn and hopefully share with them,” Kapoor added.
Target India started its India centre in 2005. From a small team of 20-30 players when Kapoor joined it almost eight years ago, the team has now grown to around 2,900 people. Apart from helping the parent in areas such as storefront designing, merchandising, big data and analytics, Target India has also been driving its multichannel retailing capabilities with the launch of its ecommerce portal in 2011. The main objective behind driving the multi-channel retail capabilities is to help the guests (customers) the convenience of shopping with the help of any medium – mobile, internet or even physical stores.
“Our core focus right now is innovation and learning from the ecosystem around us apart from our internal team. We know that working with players, both big and small, can give us access to talent and ideas that will help leapfrog the competition,” he said.
While acquisition is one area the company is open to look at for acquiring new technology skills, it is evaluating various options including investing in the start-ups and giving support including technology resources and infrastructure, as a part of the incubator programme. “We are in the process of figuring it out, but it could be a case by case basis,” Kapoor said to a query on if the company would fund start-ups as a part of the incubation programme.
Apart from its key market the US, Target Corporation has also now established presence in Canada. Last year, it opened 124 stores in the country. The designing of the stores were done out of India with the help of a pool of structural and mechanical engineers.
Going forward, Kapoor said, Target India is going to focus on areas like digital and analytics out of its India centre as the company believes that the future of retail is going to be determined by the mobile and multichannel abilities.
“Analytics, digital and mobile are the core focus areas for us; it is the future for any retail organisation. Those who don’t get it right will certainly face survival issue,” Kapoor said.
