IndianRetailer.com: Cognizant’s Vice President of Retail Consulting Talks About Retailers Embracing IT to Accelerate Growth and Deliver Superior Consumer Experience

“We are in the midst of a once-in-a-decade shift in the technology landscape,” says Prakash Balasubramanian. “More than ever, retailers are grappling with the dual mandate to drive not just better efficiencies, but also greater innovation for the needs of tomorrow. Retailers are increasingly moving from merely incremental levels of performance efficiency to building new digital business capabilities.” Excerpts:

“There is a growing demand for our services, particularly in areas of modernizing supply chains as well as digital and ecommerce engagements. We are helping many other retailers around the world exceed customer expectations with the latest digital technologies.

While cost and operational efficiencies have been the most common challenges, today, we increasingly observe retailers coming to us with specific business-driven challenges. For instance, a global general merchandise retailer approached us with a large transformation program to enable their omnichannel fulfillment vision across a network of more than 40 distribution centers and a large transportation network. Cognizant led the entire program for them with a business outcome-based model.

Similarly, a leading UK retailer approached us with a vision to become the leading omnichannel retailer. What they needed was a partner who could spell out a roadmap and strategy to achieve that vision.

We also have the example of a leading department store chain in India—among the first few to branch out into online and mobile channels—that came looking for a comprehensive omnichannel strategy and a roadmap for execution. In sum, clients today are looking for partners who help not only define strategy, but also drive business transformation.

For the general merchandise retailer, we enabled considerable increase in distribution center (DC) throughput and capacity to handle about 80% increase in SKUs. The program management model helped the retailer to introduce metric-based portfolio management for delivery, manage supply chain technology investments, and measure, govern and improve program outcomes and KPIs.

For the UK retailer, we were able to define an aspirational customer digital experience through in-store, mobile, and social channels. We also helped them implement a set of systems and processes that provide an integrated view of customer, order, inventory, product and payments. In the case of the Indian retailer, we helped them formulate an omnichannel strategy and select commercial packages for the ecommerce, order management and warehouse management functions. This has enabled them to progress on their omnichannel journey with best-in-class technology and solutions to support their business objectives.

Globally, we find that digital technologies and omnichannel commerce are among the key trends in the retail market. Seamless shopping experience-across channels such as online, mobile and stores-is a key expectation of consumers in these markets. Omnichannel tops the list when it comes to aspirational goals for Indian retailers. In terms of technology trends, mobile adoption leads the pack.”

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