Polaris Retail passes Service Revenue to Partners

With the social structure getting disintegrating with the disintegration of the joint families, the lifestyle of the people is changing very fast. Young people – male and female alike – are opting to go out and earning their share of money. In this scenario, the commercial and entertainment establishments are also evolving to suit the lifestyle of the common people. The result of this is that the good old day’s film halls have been replaced with the multiplexes. The moms and pops stores have been replaced with organized retail stores. These changes have really been the avenues of time pass for the young outgoing people. They do not go and buy their goods there. Rather, they prefer to unwind themselves in the bars, disqs or theatres. The modern retail stores are catering to the multiple needs of the people, including shopping, eating, discothèques, theatres, etc.

It is very amazing to see that the gigantic multi-storeyed retail stores are being manned by very few people, but the customers’ experience is quite satisfying. So, there has been a huge surge in the number of retail chains across the country, including B- and C-class cities. The growth of retail industry and better customers’ experience is because of the process involvement. These retailers are investing heavily in the technology to make the process streamlined.

In this scenario, enterprise solutions vendors like SAP, Oracle, BaaN, Microsoft, DVS, Polaris Retail and other home-grown companies are doing a very good business. Among these names, Polaris Retail is the established home-grown product vendor. Unlike other vendors, this company does not procure retail solutions from the overseas market and implement it in the Indian market. For the last ten years, Polaris has been developing IPR and solutions in the space of Indian retail industry by its own R&D activities. Mohit Oberai, Sr. Vice-President & Business Head – Retail, Polaris Software Lab Ltd., says, “We at Polaris Retail are focussed on providing end-to-end solutions across various formats of retail verticals. We offer products, services, consulting and training addressing the retailers’ needs.”

The difference between Polaris Retail and other vendors is that this company has developed solutions understanding the nuances of the Indian retail segment, whereas the other vendors bring in software from the overseas market and deploy it in the Indian market without understanding the niceties of the Indian market. The fact is that there is no standard in the Indian retail industry. Rather, it is evolving, whereas in the overseas market there are different standards for retail industry. The law and processes have been gradually coming into various formats of retailing.

He adds, “Our expertise reflects in our strong understanding of the retail domain. Each retailer has unique business needs, ‘one size fits all’ never really fits.” “Beyond products, services or solutions, we foster the retail business through its entire life cycle. Enabling and standing by the retailers all the way – be it installing the new application, moving the applications to a new technology in a non-disruptive manner or even maintaining the applications without letting them get obsolete,” he adds.

It was ten years back that the company started its journey inspired by the vision of Mr. Arun Jain, Chairman, Polaris. He knew that after ten years time, the Retail set-up in India will assume a gigantic shape and if they start addressing it in the nascent stage, it will surely bear fruits later on. Mohit adds, “We have developed understanding of the domain, advantages, constraints and the complexities involved in each format of retail. For example, taxation is a complex thing in India, which is different in different states and the Government of India is bringing in changes from time to time. So, in this scenario, it is imperative for the IT companies which are offering solutions to this domain should have a firm grasp of that vis-à-vis the geographies context.”

The flagship product of Polaris Retail is Retail Excel, which addresses the entire plethora of organized retail – be it small or large. It has various functionalities, including point of sale, inventory management, stock handling, financial accounting, customer management, etc. All of that caters to various formats of retailing and various categories. Mohit says,–“There are software, but most of the software are strong in one vertical. None of the software caters to majority of the verticals, whereas we have developed this generic software, which caters to majority of micro verticals of the retailing space.”

Retail Excel caters to grocery, pharmacy, fashion, consumer durable, IT and agro retailing and a whole lot of other micro verticals. The company has approximately 200 clients from large to small for Retail Excel. And these customers are being catered through the channel partners. The partners not only sell the solutions, but also provide services on top of it.

Apart from this capability, our Retail Excel is able to be integrated with various enterprise solutions and the company has the capability to do it itself. It can be integrated to SAP, Oracle and Baan for the large retail if they have a legacy application running at the back end. It is a dynamic solution, which has got all the components to cater to all the large to mid-size retailers. So far, it has a good number of clientele bases.

According to Mohit, the retailers are expanding through franchising or various other methods in various geographies and Polaris Retail is able to service them. He says, “We have partners who are trained on Polaris Technology and we transform our knowledge to them. In turn, they integrate our solution and provide service on top of that and it happens on a pan-India basis.” There are nearly 200 customers for this product and it is being distributed, integrated, trained, customized and supported by a set of solution partners.

Apart from this capability, Retail Excel is able to be integrated with various enterprise solutions and the company has the capability to do it either through the solution partners or directly. Retail Excel can be integrated with SAP, Oracle or even Baan for the large retail if the company has a legacy application running at the back end. It being a dynamic solution, it has a huge clientele base and has been successfully deployed across multiple retail formats and retail categories.

Besides its contribution to the organized retail, the company has taken a bold step towards enabling the unorganized retailers who are small in size, but they want to grow. Obviously, they are facing threats from the organized retails, which are coming to their geography. These unorganized outlets are typically local kirana shops or local garment shops. They are the shops which provide the comfort level to the customers to buy from them because of the relationship. But the modern retail offers better experience to the end-customers in terms of price, stock handling, customer interaction, displays, etc. All of the capability of the organized retail is because of the implementation of processes. If the processes are streamlined, business can be more efficient and customers’ experience can be better for the unorganized retail. Mohit says, “We have simplified our flagship product Retail Excel and launched a product called smart store for small retailers.” These retailers want to be organized but have limitations in terms of infrastructure, deployment, spending capability on IT. They want a simple product, which is ready to use at the same time and give them best practice and streamlined process. They need efficiency to compete with organized retail.

Smart Store is basically a box product, which has been built upon Polaris Retail’s long- term experience, and has been simplified to that extent that it is completely plug-n-play. For the small retailers, it is easy to buy, easy to deploy and also easy to get support, whether it is online or local.

In order to make this available across the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent, the company is in the process of appointing a battery of distributors and dealers, though nearly 1,000 customers are using this product and have been launched in ten states six months back. The company is about to launch this product in the rest of the states in the end of this quarter. As of now, there are 20 distributors and have 300–350 resellers who are spread across the entire geography of the country. Mohit adds,–“We have a complete set-up to enable the retailers on the best practice also. And, when we feel there is any requirement to imbibe certain things we develop our selves.”

As it is very simple, Polaris Retail has put in computer-based training module into it. The distributors and resellers are able to deploy this software in less than two hours in a retail outlet. The retailer is able to use the computer-based training and support easily through online or our toll-free number. The retailer is also able to get support through the local resellers available in his area.

Mohit says, “We are also into implementation, integration and support services depending on the retailers’ requirements. We are the one company, which is supporting maximum formats of the retailing. We are able to maximum number of retailer categories.”

As there is taking place too much competition in the retail market, Polaris Retail competes and complements with other vendors. For example, Baan does not have front- end solution. Here, Polaris solution is the ideal choice.

The company has also pan-India implementation and support teams who are spread across all the regions of India. There are certain strategic accounts, where Polaris implements solution directly. The company has just started operation in the Middle East, Africa and South-East Asia. The headcount of the company is 150, out of which 120 people are based out of Gurgaon, which houses most of the R&D and corporate activities. Besides, the implementation and support team based out of Mumbai, Chennai and there are residential executives in Bangalore and Kolkata.

Apart from Indian subcontinent, Polaris Retail has also entered into the Middle East, Africa and South-East Asia through various partners. From the customers’ perspective, the solutions from Polaris Retail is quite competition as an indicator Smart Store for a single store is Rs.14,990. However, the pricing depends upon the format and modules they choose. Polaris offers more than 7–8 modules and caters to single user to the multi-users base. Similarly, from the perspective of the partners, the company provides a healthy bottom-line between 15–20 per cent. On top of it, they provide service revenue. And, it also provides top line to their existing business.

With the competition growing thick and fast, when asked about how does Polaris wants to position itself, pat came the reply from Mohit, “We are going to position ourselves in the leadership position. We are investing on the partners to imbibe capability for integrating solutions. We have a structured training programme.” “

When the partners join us, we evaluate their competency. When they cross the gradation process, we have a structure programme in terms of training. Their process is evaluated once in six months. Besides, we are in the process of launching a partner portal for our Smart Store partners,” he adds. The second important thing for Polaris Retail is that it is SAP IS retail partner. SAP has chosen PRIL as A1 VAR partner for retail in India. Mohit says, “We have done the first live IS retail implementation for DCM Shri Ram.” He adds, “Retail Excel is the only solution which is powered by SAP Netweaver.”

Having so much of capability, Polaris is able to support the organizations in their entire lifecycle. Mohit says, “In many times, we as consultant recommend the right solution to the enterprise and partner retailers in their growth by integrating solutions for their back-end and front-end needs.”

Over the period of time, Polaris has seen a very good customer retention ratio. Mohit says, “We have clients, who for 7–8 years time are growing on our platform.” We are growing at 100 per cent year-on-year. The company is expecting to surpass the previous year’s revenue within the first two quarters of this year.

Finally…

Addressing the market and the customers, Mohit said, “We are able to do flexible customization in order that the retailers make transition from legacy practice to our best practice smoothly.” For the channel partners, he said, “We treat the partners as the extension of the Polaris family. We have a structured family, which provides them all enablement.”