Retail Solutions Name of Author : Souvik Chowdhury & Shishir Sahu Batch : 09-12 Roll No : 05 & 43 Basic Statistics

of the sub-sector :
For the 4th time in five years, India has been ranked as the most attractive nation for retail investment among 30 emerging markets India remains among the leaders in the 2010 GRDI and presents major retail opportunities. India's retail market is expected to be worth about US$ 410 billion, with 5 per cent of sales through organized retail, meaning that the opportunity in India remains immense.

Retail solutions generally helps a company to achieve the following things 1. Improve efficiency 2. Balance between supply and demand 3. Flexibility in supply chain

AGS TRANSACT TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED:

They are one of the leading system integrators in the business of touch point transformation; a business that transforms the way a customer interacts with the service provider enabling efficient delivery of their products and services. Their business entails sourcing high-end technology products-both hardware and software, and customizing, integrating, installing and maintaining them. They provide a spectrum of services around these products to the banking, retail, petroleum and colour segments. They source such products through tie-ups with global players like Wincor Nixdorf AG (Germany), Postec Data Systems (New Zealand), Prism Payment Technologies (South Africa), Fast & Fluid Management (USA) and CST (Germany). Their retail segment product offerings include retail Point of Sale billing (POS) terminals, store automation peripherals, store automation solutions, mall intelligence software, digital signage, thin client, networking products and kiosks for various retail applications. They provide managed services that include installation, maintenance and management of IT equipment in a retail store. They also perform vendor management services. Since inception they have installed over 17,000 POS Billing systems. Our customers amongst others include Future Group, Aditya Birla Retail, Carrefour and Globus Their performance for the last 3 years is as follows:

ITC INFOTECH LTD:

The retail practice at ITC InfoTech draws strength from an in-house pool of highly experienced managers and hands-on business experts and consultants who bring "practitioner's" domain knowledge to retail industry processes, priorities and needs. Core Expertise: Domain practitioners with vast functional and IT experience from the industry Centre of Excellence (CoE) strongly aligned to the Retail Merchandising and Retail Supply Chain Management Niche solutions aimed at specific business requirements, challenges and for critical performance improvements
Their performance year ended March 31st is as follows:

IBM LTD:
IBM retail solutions can help retailers streamline operations, maximize utilization of assets, and develop marketplace insights to help create distinctive customer experiences. Some solutions focus on specific operations, such as merchandising and in-store transactions. Others, such as the Retail Business Intelligence Solution, can enhance the effectiveness of all operations. Each solution can be customized to meet unique business requirements. Figure 1-3 identifies the categories of retail solutions available from IBM.

Full-Year 2010 Results: By revenue IBM's biggest business is services. Combined, its Global Technology Services and Global Business Services units account for 55% of revenue. Software makes up 24% while Systems & Technology (servers, storage, retail solutions, and semiconductors) accounts for 18%. Net income for the year ended December 31, 2010 was $14.8 billion compared with $13.4 billion in the year-ago period, an increase of 10 percent. Diluted earnings were $11.52 per share compared with $10.01 per diluted share in 2009, an increase of 15 percent, the 8th consecutive year of double-digit EPS growth. Revenues for 2010 totaled $99.9 billion, an increase of 4 percent (3 percent, adjusting for currency), compared with $95.8 billion in 2009.

Key Issues and Challenges facing this subsector: Retail operations are inherently complex due to four factors: a) Product complexity. The retail sector has a high degree of product complexity, with the number of SKUs in stores running anywhere from the tens of thousands to more than two hundred thousand, a high degree of seasonal and fashionable items, and a lack of standardization of product hierarchies. b) Supply chain challenges. With so many different outlets and channels, multiple handoffs, and high frequency of replenishment, developing and managing an efficient supply chain remains one of the primary challenges in the retail sector. c) Scale complexity. Retail operations are executed on an extremely complex scale. The U.S. retail sector alone deals with hundreds of millions of transactions per day, driven by millions of customers who shop through tens of thousands of outlets. d) Process complexity. The business processes that support this environment are also inherently complex due to the multiple touch points across players in the value chain (manufacturer, distributor, retailer, consumer), the coordination required between the different planning cycles of each of these players, and geographic dispersion. Key opportunities and strengths for this subsector: Given the complex nature of retail operations and the underlying complexity of IT systemsparticularly from a functionality, fragmentation and integration point of view systems integration becomes a challenge in this space, making speed and flexibility of adding new functionality a top priority. It is not surprising then that many leading retail companies find that in the entire cycle of new functionality deployment, applications testing is often a bottleneck and slows down the introduction of new services in a highly competitive marketplace. There are two critical areas where IT can reduce complexity and improve results: 1. Functional retail areas: Merchandizing systems impact top-line revenues and need to be configured, customized and managed effectively for the retailer to improve its top line. To achieve this, retailers need to effectively mine large amounts of data and leverage this data to carry out effective forecasting, assortment planning, and collaboration with its suppliers so that

promotions and other merchandizing activities are effective and efficient. 2. Data cleansing and architecture: Data cleansing, and thereafter, effective mining (via large data warehouses) is fundamentally important in the retail space because so much decision-making is based on data. If the data is bad, the effectiveness and efficiency of carrying out retail operations is hampered. Your personal Analysis and Comments : With the increase in globalization of retailers both in terms of their points-of-sale, as well as their points-of-supply, the Information Technology (IT) spend in the retail sector has increased considerably and plays an increasingly important role in managing the complexity of retail operations. Much of the retail operations functionality is driven by customized point solutions in areas such as merchandizing, supply chain management, in-store operations, seasonality and promotions planning. This means the underlying IT systems to drive operations are equally complex. With such a vast amount of work required for retail IT, it is key to focus on the core business, and consider outsourcing non-core functions of the applications, such as maintenance and here the Retail software solution providers play a big role. They need to understand the needs accurately and come up with requisite solutions. Overall still there is a lot of scope for this retail solution provider companies. Reference/Bibliography : http://www.agsindia.com/ http://www.itcinfotech.com/ http://www.ibm.com/investor/4q10/press.phtml http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/07/28/add-it-all-up-ibm-is-cheap/ http://www.syntelinc.com/uploadedFiles/Syntel/Digital_Lounge/White_Papers/Synte l_RetailComplexity.pdf