Reasoning’s Empowers Indian Retail Industry with E-Tailing

Bangalore: Reasoning Global eApplications Limited successfully organized the first Indian E-tailing conclave of the conference series in Bangalore. The Conclave arranged in association with Google, HDFC Bank and Aramex International received an overwhelming response from around 120 top-notch retailers. Retailers having a pan India presence such as Tanishq, Sri Krishna Diamonds and UB Industries were witnessed participating at the interactive session at E-Commerce Conclave which aims at enabling Indian retailers to overcome various barriers and start leveraging new channels such as the Internet & mobile effectively for increasing their consumer reach & sales. 

Google, HDFC Bank, Reasoning & Aramex came together and identified the key obstacles that retailers face today such as, technology difficulties, complex payment solutions, lack of understanding of capturing consumers online and the difficulty in managing the logistics of an online business. To provide one stop solution to all Indian retailers these 4 major players are building an eco-system which would help create simple, usable & affordable solutions to address all of these issues. This series of conferences is an effort to make retailers aware of the new market dynamics and to empower them to tackle the common barriers in building their online stores.

The event also had interesting sessions by dignitaries from Google, HDFC Bank, Aramex International and Reasoning Global eApplications Limited. The first session was by Mr. Saurabh Chandra, Product Marketing Manager, Google India on ‘Today’s consumers search & Shop!’. While talking about today’s consumer and their shopping habits he said, “Internet and mobile are the fastest growing media currently. Also, the online activity of the Indian internet population is maturing with significant amount of time being spent looking for products and also researching for purchases. In this context, it is imperative that Indian retailers are present online and leverage various forms of Internet marketing to reach out to their customers.”  

The second session was on ‘Enabling e-commerce is a natural extension of banking services’ by Mr. Srikant Siddi, Dy. VP, HDFC bank.

The third session was on “Challenges & Solution for setting up a profitable online store” by Mr. Anubhav Kushwala, VP Business Strategy & Alliances, Reasoning Global eApplications Limited. While talking about E-tailing trend and benefits of online store he mentioned, “That the market today is very conducive for retailers to start building a new sales channel using the Internet. By building an online store retailers can increase their consumer reach significantly and increase their sales both online and in-store. MartJack the multi-channel commerce solution is a complete solution designed specifically for Indian retailers to meet their end-to-end requirements for building an effective online sales channel. With MartJack retailers can build an online store in 3 days and then leverage the in-built promotional tools as well as integration with Google Adwords to advertise and get consumers to their online store. With the capability to publish products to market places retailers can get access to an even larger consumer base. With easy to use interfaces which can be integrated with existing ERP, POS etc. systems for managing orders, leads, customers and operations MartJack also helps in maintaining a low cost of operations thus making it easy to build a profitable online store. Lastly he also talked about integrated payment solutions which complete the offering to provide a one stop solution for building an online store. ”

The forth session was conducted by Mr. Percy Avari, Country head, Aramax International, India on of the important aspect of e-tailing “the Role of logistics in e-commerce order fulfillment”. While talking the crucial role of logistics he said, “We are going to leverage the entire eco-system to take the brick and mortar business online where they can build a new sales channel. The focus is to enable this without having the retailers to reinvent the wheel and build their website, marketing, payment systems and logistics systems separately. The goal is to have all of this as a single solution with the retailers getting superior technology, payment solutions, marketing tools and logistics solutions without having to build anything from scratch. With this eco-system the retailers stand to benefit from the economies of scale of all the involved partners of the system – this would provide them superior cost effective one stop solution for their entire logistic requirement.”

Today Indian e-commerce market is estimated to be 20,000Cr which is believed to be just a tip of iceberg, there are always new challenges and nature of retailing itself is changing. There is an opportunity and requirement today for every retailer - to stay competitive, reach a larger number of consumers and maintain a strong, active customer base. Here is the gap which Reasoning has tried to fill up by organizing an E-tailing conclave with an aim of educating and empowering the retail community to endure rapid transformations of the Indian retail industry in context with the growing adoption of the Internet as a shopping channel among consumers.

The second part of the event was an interactive session on E-tailing where Mr. Rajiv Prakash, CEO, Future Bazaar India Ltd and Mr. Prashant Lahoti, MD, Access2Future shared their experience on E-tailing and how it made difference to their business. 

Post this successful E-tailing conclave in Bangalore, Reasoning along with its co-partners Google, HDFC Bank and Aramex International will be organizing similar conclaves in metros  such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune. 

About Google
Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Google, Google News, Google Toolbar, and Blogger are trademarks of Google Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. For more information, visit www.google.com

About HDFC Bank Limited
Promoted in 1995 by Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), India's leading housing finance company, HDFC Bank is one of India's premier banks providing a wide range of financial products and services to its 19 million customers across hundreds of Indian cities using multiple distribution channels including a pan-India network of branches, ATMs, phone banking, net banking and mobile banking. Within a relatively short span of time, the bank has emerged as a leading player in retail banking, wholesale banking, and treasury operations, its three principal business segments.

The bank’s competitive strength clearly lies in the use of technology and the ability to deliver world-class service with rapid response time. Over the last 15 years, the bank has successfully gained market share in its target customer franchises while maintaining healthy profitability and asset quality.

As of June 30, 2010, the Bank had a distribution network with 1,725 branches and 4,393 ATMs in 780 cities.
For the quarter ended June 30, 2010, the Bank’s total income was INR 53.60 billion (Rs.5,360.0  crore) as against INR 51.36 billion (Rs.5,136.8 crore) for the quarter ended June 30, 2009. Net revenues (net interest income plus other income) were INR 33.41 billion (Rs.3,341.0 crore) for the quarter ended June 30, 2010, an increase of 15.2% over INR 28.99 billion (Rs.2,899.2 crore) for the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Net Profit for the quarter ended June 30, 2010 was INR 8.11 billion (Rs.811.7 crore), up by 33.9% over the corresponding quarter ended June 30, 2009.

The Bank’s total balance sheet size increased by 25.3% from INR 1861.15 billion (Rs. 186,115.0 crore) as of June 30, 2009 to INR 2332.53 billion (Rs.233,253.0 crore) as of June 30, 2010. Total deposits were INR 1830.33 billion (Rs.183,033.0 crore), up by 25.6% over June 30, 2009.Total income for the year ended March 31, 2010 were INR 199.80 billion (Rs19980.5 crore). Leading Indian and international publications have recognized the bank for its performance and quality.

For more information please log on to: www.hdfcbank.com
About Reasoning Global eApplications Limited

Reasoning is retail centric, software product development, company that is focused on enabling retailers leverage the immense capabilities of the Internet and mobile platforms as powerful customer acquisition, customer connection and marketing channels. Reasoning’s products, especially MartJack, enable retailers to establish an online store front quickly & at a low cost to update it simply & continuously without having to maintain an expensive IT infrastructure.

About Aramex

Aramex is a leading global provider of comprehensive logistics and transportation solutions. Established in 1982 as an express operator, the company rapidly evolved into a global brand recognized for its customized services and innovative multi-product offering. Traded on the NASDAQ from 1997 to 2002, Aramex today is a publicly traded company on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM: ARMX), employing more than 8,600 people in 310 locations, and leads a strong  alliance network providing global presence, and bringing together 40 independent express companies from around the world.  The range of services offered by Aramex includes international and domestic express delivery, freight forwarding, logistics and warehousing, document management, consumer retail services, and e-commerce solutions.