Infosys launches radical retail tech services

Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan is an unassuming man, who doesn't use his position to be imposing. It's less important for him to be the company's controller than to look like he is. Perhaps it comes from his background as an engineer rather than a sales or marketing director that he likes to get down to brass tacks.

Although he is one of the seven co-founders of Infosys, Gopalakrishnan became CEO less than a year-and-a-half ago. Since he assumed that role, the company has been feeling the effects of a rising Rupee exchange rate, high inflation in India and an international economic slowdown.

Agenda Setters 2007 - Top 20

Find out who made it into silicon.com's Agenda Setters top 20 by clicking on the links below…

1. Mark Zuckerberg Facebook
2. Steve Jobs Apple
3. Eric Schmidt Google
4. John Chambers Cisco
5. Ashley Highfield BBC
6. Nicholas Negroponte OLPC
7. Niklas Zennström Skype
8. Diane Greene VMware
9. Jonathan Ive Apple
10.Viviane Reding EC
11.Paul Coby British Airways
12.Marc Benioff Salesforce.com
13.Emily Bell Guardian Unlimited
14.Larry Ellison Oracle
15.Jeff Bezos Amazon
16.Ben Verwaayen BT
17.Nandan Nilekani Infosys
18.David Yu Betfair
19.Satoru Iwata Nintendo
20.Mark Hurd HP

He said: "Immediately I had to make sure that we looked at expense control so that we can get the margins back up. There we've done an excellent job because our margins are back at a historical level already and now I need to look at how I can get the growth back up and here, what we have to do, is look at new customers, new markets because we have a limited number of customers."

Today Infosys' revenue comes primarily 50 per cent from the US and 30 per cent from Europe. To target new markets and customers Infosys has branched out into the Middle East and Latin America with new offices in recent months.

Gopalakrishnan is in the UK to promote a new retail technology offering from Infosys, which although innovative, has yet to prove itself in the real world.

But this fledgling offering represents a fundamental shift in Infosys' business strategy for the future.

From being lead by its customers in the past, the company will be proactive in providing systems offerings in the same vein as Microsoft or IBM. It's a reaction to economic realities, says Gopalakrishnan.

The retail offering, called ShoppingTrip360, focuses on a wireless infrastructure of sensors and mobile data links that give retailers and packaged goods suppliers highly detailed information about customer behaviours.

It uses slab sensors that can give real-time data on, among other things, how many units of a particular product are on the shelves, how many products are facing the customer on the shelves and how many customers passed by the product.

Shoppers log in to an information service in store through their mobile phones to receive information, such as recipes and offers on products as they pass the relevant shelves.

From this level of footfall data it's easy for retailers to determine where stock-outs occur and the conversion of browsers to buyers. Gopalakrishnan argues that the system gives stores the same level of customer information that online retailers are now familiar with.

He said: "Shopping Trip 360 is really a consolidation of some of the research we have been doing in the retail industry. It takes all the point solutions which we have deployed and combines that to create what we believe to be the next wave of innovation. This then brings that online experience back into the store, into the physical world and creates an environment which is as rich in terms of applications, in the information it can provide."

The rationale behind the system is to provide benefits for high street retailers, packaged goods suppliers and shoppers. The system has been fully developed by Infosys through it's own capital expenditure and will be charged as a service on a pay-per-use basis.

Gopalakrishnan told silicon.com the system was developed in close collaboration with its retail customers.

He said: "They have said don't use RFID. They have said make it a true plug-and-play model. They have said make sure the shopper wins in the end but make sure you don't invade any privacy; don't use any push messaging; allow the shopper to pull the message when and if they want to. The same technology benefits all three and the capital investment is relatively low cost. To deploy this technology can take as little as a week."

The company is doing a number of pilots with retail customers, but it remains to be seen whether it will take off in such a technology averse sector as the retail industry. Retail provides around 14 per cent of Infosys' total yearly revenues, so it is an important customer base for the company.

What is interesting is that this proactive approach and service-oriented business model is expected to become the blueprint for Infosys' business in other sectors and that may be why Infosys has chosen the retail sector as a proving ground for its new business model - because although retailers prefer to throw people at a problem, they will invest in technology if it's cheap and can demonstrate a swift turnaround.

Gopalakrishnan said: "This is an evolutionary approach for us as a next step. We have been providing discrete services up to now and we are proactively investing and recommending business solutions to our customers."