Convergence of social media will enhance retail boom in India

By Vimali Swamy   |   Friday, 20 November 2009, 19:32 IST
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Chennai: Technological convergence will emerge as the key differentiator in retailing in the coming years, but customer loyalty will play a main role in growth of IT in retails industry. This was the theme of 'Retail Razzmatazz' organized by IT Solutions firm UST Global. Now in its second year, the week long annual event was conducted in both Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai centres of the company. The sole idea of this annual affair is to pioneer retail thought leadership and dissemination of retail related knowledge. "Close to 30 percent of the company's business comes from the retails segment and our partnership with various Global 1000 retail clients only enforces the strong expertise we have in the retail domain," said Krishna Prasad, the Global Head for Delivery and the Head of the Chennai center at UST Global. The event brings together some of company's leading customers in the retail segment and the teams working for them and help understand the industry needs and devise new practices to deliver effective solutions. "Over the years, UST has continued to work with some of the giants in the retail industry in the U.S. and Europe. In India, the concept of organized retail is just picking up and we plan to tap the opportunity and work with both the multinational and domestic clients," said Prasad. While devising best practices, the company also looks forward to inculcate new technologies like Business Intelligence, Mobile synchronization and many new inventory tools to leverage efficiency and bring down the cost factor. Addressing the event was Marsha Blakeslee, General Manager Global who talked about the role convergence of social media to enhance customer loyalty in retail and the opportunities for ITeS players like UST in emerging markets such as India. "The mobile market in India is one of the largest and fastest growing in the world. Almost every other person in all age groups today carries a cellular phone. And with cellular phones becoming more of a PC day by day, opens up numerous opportunities for retail players to acquire a loyal customer base and serve them better. This is where players like us come into play by helping them organize their business, tap their customers, improve efficiency and reduce cost by using the best in breed technologies," she said. In alignment with the occasion, the company organized other events such as whitepaper presentations, Innovative Product development contest, best practices exchange, panel discussion, guest lectures and quiz. "For UST, it is a platform to showcase, learn, share and build thought leadership in the retail space. For the world, it is a forum to understand our capabilities, share industry experiences and the evolving future in retail," said Ganesh Kalyanaraman, General Manger - Marketing and Business Development.