Tarun Bali IT Head,
The Body Shop
Enterprises across business verticals recognise the role that information and communications technology (ICT) plays in their day-to-day functioning. An enterprise requires robust IT and telecom infrastructure to communicate not only with its customers but within the organisation as well. Driven by the need to ensure effective communication, reduce downtime, improve productivity and increase efficiency, enterprises are stepping up their investments to upgrade their ICT infrastructure. With the rapid proliferation of smart devices and the launch of faster networks, the most significant trends that have emerged are the adoption of mobile, analytics and cloud technologies. Leading enterprises in the sales and distribution industry discuss their IT strategies, emerging technology trends and future plans for IT infrastructure upgradation…
What are the technology changes that are shaping the sales and distribution functions across enterprises?
Enterprises today are striving to deliver a personalised experience to their customers. Further, customers have become more digitally enabled and there is a rising demand from them for a consistent, positive shopping experience. As a result, enterprises are adopting new technological solutions to enhance their sales and distribution functions.
What is the company’s telecom and IT blueprint? What new IT infrastructure has it deployed?
Retail operations are very complex and demanding in nature, and require continual improvement in technology. So, the IT department is always on its toes to fulfil the expectation of external as well as internal customers. The technology requirements can be further split into front-end (retail outlet) and back-end (head office) operations. For data security, we are using a hardware-based virtual private network (VPN) to connect to our data centre resources using the public internet. We are now coming up with VPN data cards for employees to get office resources on the move/at home under the company’s internet usage policy.
In terms of business applications, we are running an integrated customer loyalty programme for instant gratification of customers and plan to shortly implement a centralised payment gateway solution to accept plastic currency with more customised offerings. The in-house hosted point-of-sales (POS) application is offering convenience billing, dynamic promotions, and gift vouchers with relay transmission of transactional data at the head office for quick analytics by stakeholders. These front-end applications are backed by the strong, integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) SAP ISRetail solution to fulfil product sourcing, merchandising and supply chain demands. All these applications are supported under LAN/WAN environments as process owners/end-consumers are always geographically spread out.
Our in-house hosted data centre is backed by dedicated optic fibre leased lines to facilitate remote connectivity of stores and e-commerce channels with the warehouse at all times. The central warehouse is also connected through leased lines with additional broadband internet as a backup line. The stores are using different ISPs as per the availability of services. Internet traffic includes data (POS, biometric attendance) and video streaming of CCTV footage to be viewed centrally at the head office.
A new IT initiative that we have undertaken in the past year is the installation of VPN boxes at our stores that run on public networks. This has been done with a view to ensuring secure connectivity and is in line with the company’s IT policy.
What advantages has the company gained from the new set-up? What were the challenges in implementing the new infrastructure?
With the installation of VPN boxes, the company has been able to ensure secure and encrypted transmission of data. This has enabled it to have a centralised control on data transmission, prevent data leakage and optimise hardware resources. A key challenge that we faced while rolling out this infrastructure was that the broadband networks were spread across multiple carriers with different internet protocol policies. Hence, the task took considerable time and enormous resources were used to configure the asymmetric network.
What is the level of adoption of applications such as CRM, SCM and sales force automation in the sales and distribution industry?
CRM, SCM, and sales force automation are core elements of a customer-centric business approach. However, mere upgradation of the CRM platform does not cater to all the needs of customers until the back-end infrastructure is synchronised with the sales force. In our company, we have adopted the SAP IS platform for retail ERP and WenPay HRMS for people management.
What are the key emerging trends in the technology space for enterprises involved in sales and distribution functions?
Automatic store replenishment systems, predictive analytics for fulfilling customer demands and timely delivery using global positioning system (GPS) tracking are the key emerging trends in the technology space for retail enterprises.
What are the company’s future plans regarding the upgradation of its telecom and IT infrastructure?
In the next few years, the company plans to replace its asymmetric digital subscriber line networks with MPLS networks at the top-performing stores. This will help us in synchronising our omni-channel fulfilment centres with the e-commerce channel. We are also going to soon launch in-store 4G-enabled tablets for obtaining feedback from consumers. This will help us in further increasing customer loyalty.
“Automatic store replenishment systems, predictive analytics for fulfilling customer demands and timely delivery using GPS tracking are the key emerging trends in the technology space for retail enterprises.” Tarun Bali
