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 Rakhee Nagpal, Founder and MD, Dynamic Vertical Solutions spoke to Ashwani Mishra on the challenges in the retail sector and also on the R&D and future plans of DVS in the country. Excerpts from the interview:
1. What according to you are the immediate technology issues and other challenges that the retail sector is going through?
Usage of disparate systems across departments by retailers is the biggest challenge. This further aggravates to a situation making integration of software between different departments difficult. Software solutions should allow the head office of the retailer to analyze information to enable better business decisions. Currently, most retailers have disparate systems for each business division using different languages, different ways of transferring information leading to challenges in integrating the system.
It is very important for one department to communicate with the other seamlessly, which becomes a challenge in a lot of today's retail business.
Another challenge is the budgets allocated for IT solutions in retail are still limited thus making it difficult for software and applications to be implemented in their true capacity. DVS is working with industry associations and academic institutions to educate the need for long-term investment in IT and to consider this investment in IT as a means to accelerate the growth plan.
Skilled manpower and attrition is another challenge for this industry. Attrition rate in retail industry is second highest; retailers incur huge costs in training their people to manage operations at various levels.
Attrition in the industry digs deep holes in retailer’s pockets as training requirements are high and the costs associated with it are huge.
We have been trying to address the issue of manpower. The advantage of LS Retail is that it is on Microsoft platform, which is familiar, user friendly and training can be conducted in a couple of hours saving invaluable man-hours and expensive trainings. Apart from the software advantage DVS has, we are working along with select education institutions to getting the students trained on latest technologies and hence training the manpower for retail industry.
2. For mid-size retailers operating in centralized environments, you offer solutions that support warehouse management, distribution, payroll, and CRM. And it's all integrated on an easy-to-use Microsoft Windows-based platform. Do you plan to offer these solutions on other platforms as well?
DVS’s solution-LS Retail is fully integrated from Point of sale to the back end. The advantage of LS Retail running on a single Microsoft platform provides our clients with access to adopting options of integrating our software with most advanced and innovative technology solutions available in the market. This discourages monopoly and provides transparency and a healthy market environment. Microsoft spends huge sums on R&D and innovation which ensure that our clients continue to be on the most advanced technology platform. Some of our solutions are already built on the .NET platform. We can also explore other technology platforms depending on the end user requirement.
3. You are also in talks with Reliance Retail for offering end-to-end products related to accounting operations and inventory management among other things? What has been the progress and by when can we expect the deal to finalize?
Our solutions are scalable and can cater to a single store and can scale up to over and above 1000 stores. We are in talks with large and small retailers in India. More information will be shared as deals get finalized.
4. DVS has taken a step to offer integrated retail solution in the market. You plan to localize the products, market the solutions and build the partner network. With respect to the partner network, what is your strategy and plans in the next one year?
DVS as an organization believes in partnerships – as it is the most effective way to move forward efficiently in a market like India where the market dynamics change on a regular basis. We have grown our channel partner network by 100 percent in the last 18 months and have established a network of 20 partners across India. We intend to increase this number in the months to come, and are not only exploring partnerships with software solution providers, but also with hardware solution providers, consulting organizations as well as organizations which have the geographical spread.
We are currently focusing on training of our network of partners on the product, keeping focus on aspects like knowledge and methodologies.
We would also encourage partnerships with companies having geographical presence and advantage, which would help in increasing our network of partners across various verticals.
5. What are the R&D activities that DVS focuses on and what are your plans on this front?
We intend to spend 80 percent of our marketing budget on R&D. Market intelligence helps to understand the unique needs and challenges of the niche vertical markets within retail and across various territories. Our activities can be summed in three parts educating retailers, bringing new technology to India and training.
We intend to work closely with the Indian associations who focus on retail as an industry to edify retailers on the advantages of technology and its usage in improving their operations. Moving forward we are looking at working with international retailers to adopt best practices and incorporates them into our solution offerings. Part of our investment also goes in training, identification and development of niche verticals and emerging retail formats.
6. What are the products/solutions in the pipeline from DVS? Any other expansion plans?
DVS has focused on the retail segment in the last 18 months and this will continue to be a key focus sector going forward. Some of the future offerings for the retail industry would include international standard products like handheld devices, these devices help to keep a check on the footfall, theft and shrinkage etc. at the store level.
We have already expanded to the hospitality segment to provide integrated end to end solutions for the niche verticals such as fine dining, resorts and hotels and beauty salons/ health centers for example. As of now we will focus within these two segments on delivering 100 percent features and functionality for every client to run their business efficiently by reducing cost and maximizing consumer experience.
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