IBM offers management solutions for retail sector

New Delhi, Nov 20 (UNI) Targeting the country's retail marketing giants, US-based hardware giant IBM today launched its business intelligence solutions offering a variety of services to enhance management efficiencies.

Called the Store Integration Framework (SIF), these solutions will help Indian retailers address key issues related to security, channel integration, and customer management helping them boost sales, increase management efficiencies, minimise losses due to theft and increase customer satisfaction.

The firm's innovation suite for the Indian retail sector includes solutions such as IBM digital video surveillance (DVS) solution, the Integrated Multi-channel Retailing Solution and IBM AnyPlace Kiosks Solution, to help Indian retailers leverage IT for greater competitive advantage.

''With increasing competition, companies are actively looking for IT solutions that will allow them to focus on strategic and innovative business models,'' IBM Director Solutions (India and South Africa) K S Raghunandan told reporters here.

The retail industry incurs losses of nearly 50 billion dollars annually to fraud, theft and administrative errors globally. IBM has developed a smart DVS solution which connects digital surveillance video with point of sale systems, inventory, customer and employee data.

This integration gives retailers the ability to dynamically search and analyse store activity, view and record live action, quickly recall previous recordings, query events, and trigger alerts to loss prevention staff when anomalies are detected.

''The organised retail industry in India is seeing tremendous growth. In order to address the various issues and hurdles faced by our industry today, there is a pressing need for innovative and practical solutions to further accelerate growth in the retail industry,'' said Retailers Association of India CEO Gibson G Vedamani.

Retailers also can leverage this technology to better understand the effectiveness of store design and in-store promotions by tracking customer entry, customer behaviour and customer circulation plans.

The solution not only handles thefts but can also help the retailer boost productivity from space, people and merchandise.

The store innovations combine a service oriented architecture to help retailers transform customer experience, empower teams to boost productivity, and streamline store processes while reinvigorating customer loyalty and driving profits.

UNI