Retail is the key focus vertical for Motorola Solutions: Jayant Rastogi

Jayant Rastogi
Country Manager & Area Sales Director 
Enterprise Business, MSI

When it comes to retail, Motorola Solutions is a cut above the rest.  Most of the top retailers of the world including Walmart, TESCO, Sears and almost all Indian organized Retailers use its solutions. The company believes that as the industry matures, there is a huge scope to take these solutions to the next level. To known about the latest, VARIndia talked to Jayant Rastogi, Country Manager & Area Sales Director, Enterprise Business, MSI.

What are the products that Motorola Solutions (Enterprise Mobility ) deals in ?

Motorola Solutions at a very high level connects the mobile worker within and outside the four walls through its technology around Rugged Handhelds, Barcode Scanners, RFID and EWLAN.

What kind of retail solutions are you providing in India? Do you think retail is a mature concept now in India or has still miles to go?

Retail is the key focus vertical for Motorola Solutions and we are there right from the point of sales to the store and the backend warehouse. We work with most of the  organized Retailers in providing a solution right from the basic scanning at the POS , to instore inventory and cycle count, price checker, shelf labeling , Ewlan both in the store and the warehouse , managing the warehouse and distribution centres.

We touch the retailers in four key areas: ( 1) Connect with Shopper ( Assisted Selling, Price checker , Guest Wifi and Mobile Self Service ) (2) Enable Associates ( Staff communication and management, Merchandising and Inventory management in the Store ) (3) Empower IT ( Wireless comm. Infrastructure and device and Infrastructure Management)  (4) Distribution Operations ( Warehouse DC Management, Delivery and Fleet operations ). We have 119 different application use cases among these 4 key areas.  

Most of the top retailers worldwide like Walmart, TESCO, Sears and almost all Indian organized Retailers use our solutions. Currently in India most retailers focus on distribution operations and point of sales.  Some of the more mature retailers are at different stages of implementing the other solutions. There is a huge scope to take these other solutions as the industry matures. 

What is the opportunity in Organized Retail and your views on traditional small format and SMB retailers in India? Can they afford and use Motorola’s solutions?

The India Organized Retail is approx 7% and growing. There is a huge scope for our partners to take these solutions and help Retailers do more with less. It is a misconception that technologies like bar-coding, mobile computing etc are only meant for large organized retailers. Traditional retailers can achieve the same level of professional efficiency as large organized retailers by implementing these technologies. For example Shrinkage (unaccounted / lost items/ Pilferage due to theft/breakage etc)  is problem across all Retailers   . India has the highest rate of Shrinkage anywhere in the world. A industry estimate states that Indian retailers lost Rs 9300 crores to shop lifting and theft during 2009-10. Technology can help keep check on shrinkages by enabling regular inventory count by using mobile computers. 

These solutions are not targeted to just top retailers but also smaller traditional retailers with shopping areas of even 1000 sq ft.  Our aim is to not only reach out to large retailers but also to these SMB/ traditional retailers and enable them to be as efficient and competitive. We have rolled out cost effective products and solutions to cater to this segment of SMB Retailers, like the MC 2100 rugged Mobile Computer. These products were designed with developing markets like India and China in mind.

Majority of retailers today are aware of barcoding solutions and are using some kind of barcode scanning at the Point of Sales. This definitely helps them in automating invoicing and checkout for customers. Customers don’t mind spending time shopping but hate waiting in the queue for billing and checkout. Here the selection of Point of Sales scanning technology becomes all the more critical as Traditional Retailers have smaller space and less number of POS counters. Hence it’s important to get the right Barcode Scanner which helps you in faster scanning and this ensures smaller queues and frees up space for more customers to walk-in. We address this with hands free scanning and digital imaging. Motorola Solutions has the widest range of products and solutions for different kinds of requirements.

What are the top 3 requirements of an Indian SMB or Traditional Retailer?

The important points for the Indian SMB / Traditional Retailer 

1)     Ensuring Product availability at the right prices

2)     Customer experience thru faster invoicing and checkout

3)     Control Shrinkages and ensure profitability 

With varied solutions in your portfolio, how are you streamlining your channel presence across India?

Motorola operates through their eco-system of partners. We have partners who sell our Products and ISV’s who develop applications around our products. We are currently present in the major Metro’s and are looking at expanding to the 2nd tier cities. We operate thru our two distributors Ingram and Westcon.