Growth Opportunity For Retail During Recession

CIO reported on Friday that Indian outsourcers will be hit hard by the credit crunch as financial establishments become nationalised, acquired and fall to their knees. A Forrester Research analyst believes that IT budgets in the banking, insurance and financial services sector will be cut by at least 15 per cent to 20 per cent.

However the industry should be looking towards the retail market where there has been exceptional growth over the past ten years, and even reported by The Times today. Merchants that have expanded into multi-channel retailing, particularly online, need to focus on consolidating their assets to streamline data for managing the supply chain.

Brands like Tesco and Asda which have moved into home products and clothing need to ensure they are fully compliant with new retail legislations and integrate all systems to provide regular market overviews in order to remain agile during fragile times.

Last week’s Oracle Openworld Event 2008 unveiled a host of new products for the market to be able to expand on offerings to improve Business Intelligence and collaboration services. This enables us to provide retailers with even more agility and more rounded security and compliance solutions. My colleague Simon Ellis was quoted by Iain Thompson at VNU regarding the launch of Beehive that will “improve project delivery efficiency and cut down on communication/travel costs leading to an increased project margin of more than three per cent.”

New solutions will further the productivity of global businesses and improve the operability of sophisticated IT systems. Over 50% of mid-sized companies have turned to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to improve their business performance. Integrating IT systems also improves communication within the organization increase productivity and collaboration between staff, clients and partners.

Vedante Srihari, Head of Calsoft Enterprise Solutions and Managing Director of Inatech solutions