IoT Implementation In Indian Retail Industry: Challenges And Opportunities

Overview of Indian Retail Industry

The retail industry of India is a predominantly unorganized sector which is having a healthy economic growth and is responsible for the changes taking place in the demographic profile of the country. Besides this, there also exists an increased rate of disposable incomes. This, in turn, is associated with changing the tastes of the consumer as well as their preferences, this acts as a key factor responsible for the growth of the organized retail (Sultana 2014).  The organized retail industry of India is having a very high potential because of the existence of the huge market along with the growing consciousness of the customers regarding the quality and the services provide by the product. However, this type of growth is dependent upon the ability that the retailers are having in the organized sector so as reinvent and stay ahead with respect to the change in time and the changes in the innovative technology.

IoT is generally considered to be an innovative way, which is being used in almost each and every sector. This technology is associated with bringing a lot of opportunities and this is generally done by bringing every object, consumer, and activity under the digital realm. This technology is generally considered to be a true essence in inter-networking the various kind of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items. All this are generally embedded with the electronics, software, sensors, actuators and the network connectivity which are in turn associated with enabling of the objects to collect and exchange the data.

Some of the major problems, which are faced by the Indian retail industry while conducting business online have been listed below:

From a survey, it has been noticed that the Consumers are greatly influenced for the purchasing of the products by the various kind of marketing related messages that are provided to them by means of media such as the printed media or magazines (Desai and Thakar 2018). So while conducting business internationally Indian retail business is not capable of providing effective advertising and is also lacking an inaccurate translation of the message from one language to another. The retailers of India also lacks in understanding the culture, customs, morals and even religious views that are predominant in the other countries (Gandhi and Dev 2016). The motivation for buying the products generally varies from country to country which is yet to be realized in the retail sector of India. People in various countries generally have different values and priorities on various products that are being exported and along with this there also exist certain people who like to buy products online while other people choose the traditional form of marketing.

Challenges faced by Indian Retailers while conducting business Internationally

The inability of the Indian retailers to communicate with the customers in the international market is considered to be one of the biggest barriers to conducting business internationally. Besides this, the failure in illustrating the actual point of the business to the international customers is another major problem faced by the Indian retail industry while conducting business internationally. The Business executives of India might be facing a lot of barriers when they try to communicate with people belonging to some another country. Language differences are one of the major reason lying behind this problem. The pace of traditional business negotiations is also different (Bhatnagar and Verma 2016).

Another major challenge that is faced by the retail industry of India while exporting goods to the international market is a different kind of rules and regulations in different countries. This means that while the products from India are sold in the international market then they need to consider the rules and regulations of each country where the Indian products are being exported. In a similar fashion, the return processes are also very complicated for the Indian retailers. The return process generally involves various kind of documentation as well as the calculation of costs for shipping, the border duties and the taxes that are to be paid to foreign governments of each market. Besides this the international customers also sometimes back out from the products exported from India due to high cross-border duties, taxes, and cost of international shipping (Venkatesh, Rathi and Patwa 2015). The differences in the Time zone is also considered to be one of the biggest barriers that make the process of establishing collaboration very difficult with the foreign executives.

Indian firms are often associated with the establishment of relationships with the distributors who are generally located in the countries whose markets they are seeking to enter. Due to this reason, the companies are associated with appointing sales reps based in those countries (Kalia, Kaur and Singh 2018). This might be also be associated with the engagement of the local marketing and public relations firms so as to provide assistance to them.

The usage of the IoT would be associated with bringing a lot of benefits to the retail industry. Implementation of this technology with being entirely disruptive for the retail industry some of the major benefits of having been listed below:

1. This is associated with improving the experience of the customers along with refining the experience that the customers are having. The implementation of the IoT would be associated presenting an opportunity for the retailers in India to develop an ecosystem which would be improved and would be associated with connecting the physical as well as the digital worlds. This would be initially associated with allowing a bidirectional and real-time interaction with the consumers who are present inside and outside the stores (Gregory 2015).
2. IoT would be associated with the optimization of the operations that the supply chain is having. The products and the devices which are connected with each other are generally responsible for the providing the retailers with an opportunity and helping them to optimize the various operations while facing the complex supply chain which initially increases the important digital channels along with attracting more demanding customers (Balaji and Roy 2017).
3. The implementation of the IoT would be helping in the reduction of shrinkage and fraud. Retail stores are associated with facing a common problem related to the Shrinkage and fraud, this might be arising due to the customers or due to the employees. IoT would be associated with helping in the process of curbing the theft of items. This is generally done by adding a layer of visibility and traceability for the items present in the inventory (Gregory 2015). The various kind of technologies like the RFIDs, smart-shelves and camera feeds are generally combined with the sophisticated machine learning technology. This helps in providing a clear picture of the things which are going on inside the store, along with helping in the detection of any kind of suspicious movement and also for determining the fact that if the items have been obtained legally or not. Besides this, the tracking of the items would also be associated with discouraging the patrons and the employees as well from any kind of theft of the goods. This would be acting as a huge improvement to the traditional system used by the retail sector in India which is generally dependent upon the human monitoring, point-of-sale data and receipts to validate the sale of goods (Shankara et al. 2015).
4. The use of the IoT would help the retail industries in improving the process of tracking the inventory in the warehouses and inside the stores.This helps a lot in the elimination of the perennial problems that are faced by the retailers due to lack of accuracy while managing the inventory. Besides this, there also exists problems like the Store shelves aren’t replenished on time; misplacing of the items in the shelves which initially results in making the sales associates not capable of locating the items which the customers are looking for (Chan, Lau and Fan 2018).
5. IoT technology helps in tackling the various kind of problem like bringing of more visibility in the inventory location along with offering a higher rate of control. Once the inventory management system is deployed would be associated with direct synchronization of the RFID chips, sensors and beacons, physical assets with the database servers (Dlamini and Johnston 2016). Besides this, some other technologies would also be deployed which would be associated with enhancement of the control of the retailers over the goods that are located in the shelves of the store and in the back store, this type of technologies mainly includes the shelf sensors, digital price tags, smart displays and high-resolution cameras.
6. Additionally, the retailers would become capable of ensuring the fact that there is an adequate amount of inventory is stocked and in the case when the stocks become less would also be recorded. Reordering of the stocks which are low in amount can be done by depending upon the analytics that is generally provided by the POS or Point of Sale data (Chan, Lau and Fan 2018).
7. Usage of the IoT in the retail industry of India would be associated with reducing the opportunities for any missed sales opportunities to poorly stocked shelves. In case, whenever the customers would not be capable of finding any item inside a store then they would be thinking of moving their business to somewhere else. The major reason lying behind this the unavailability of the desired items in the backrooms or are displaced somewhere else (Dlamini and Johnston 2016). By usage of the IoT, the sale associates would become capable of quick tracking of the items by making use of the mobile devices and beacons which are installed all around the retail stores. This IoT device would also be helping in the receiving of alerts at appropriate times regarding any misplaced items or emptied shelves and this, in turn, would be helping in the minimization of any kind of mishaps.
8. The usage of the IoT would also be associated with predicting any kind of required maintenance of the equipment’s that are being used in various sections of the retail business. In the retail sector, there exists various equipment’s which are in need of periodic maintenance and repairs. Whenever the IoT technology is used it would be associated with helping in the process of monitoring the devices (Dey and Karmakar 2017). Any kind of minute changes taking place in the functionality of the devices would be tracked which would be followed by the initiation of the immediate maintenance so as to eliminate any kind of errors. In the retail industry, the temperature of the stores and the surrounding plays a very vital part and the IoT devices help a lot in the maintenance of the temperature functioning of the equipment. In case of any recorded malfunctioning immediate repair would be scheduled so as to prevent any kind of outbreak.
9. The adaptation of the IoT would also be responsible for better geological tracking of the items while they are being shipped from India to some other countries. Whenever the IoT is used along with a GPS system then tracking the locations of the shipments would be possible at a granular level. Besides this the IoT would also be helping in the tracking of the condition of the shipment along with which certain other criteria’s can also be monitored which includes mainly includes the monitoring the impact of the outside temperature upon items which are being shipped, time required by the shipment to reach the desired location and many more (Dey and Karmakar 2017).

Some of the strategies that can be adopted by the retail stores in India so as to move forward have been listed below: 

Opportunities of IoT Implementation in Indian Retail Industry

The IoT devices help in the process of connecting the customers in a new way by having more interactions and besides this, the customers would also be having a better access to the data than ever before. This would be helping the Indian retailers to manage their business in a proper way and help in removing the cultural differences. The implementation of the smart devices would be helping the retailers in tracking and recording the patters of each behavior of the consumer present in the international market (Deshpande, Gaddi and Patil 2014). This would be initially helping in understanding the international market and would also assist the Indian retailers in conducting their business by adaptation of new and innovative ways. Indian retailers can make use of this so as to take an advantage of IoT by making use of the insights, which are dependent upon the data so as to come up with advertising that would be more effective and would be helping in meeting the challenges faced by the Indian retailers.

The IoT would also be helping the Indian retails to track their goods which would help in the elimination of the risk related to loss of products. The IoT implementation by the retail industry of India would also help in managing the good that they are exporting to other countries which would help them in managing their inventory as well. This would initially help them in using the remote scanners and high tech devices to manage the inventory and meet the demands of the customers in the international market.

In many cases, it is seen that various business of the Indian retail industry is not associated with dealing with the physical inventory and with the implementation of the IoT a whole new world of possibilities for remote work would develop. The implementation of the IoT would be helping in creating a connection between the employees who are working remotely from some other country (Nowodzinski, ?ukasik and Puto 2016). This would be helping in accomplishing the new type of tasks from remote locations just be tapping into a device from the office or factory floor based in India.

The consumers of the international market are having access to various new forms of research and purchasing, which is likely to diminish the buying cycle. With the usage of the IoT technology the Indian retailers would become capable of serving their international customers at a faster rate and more accurately this would initially lead to the elimination of the problems related to delayed delivery or making of extra payments.

Along with speed, the Indian retailers would also become capable of accomplishing large-scale tasks at a faster rate with great precision (Kahlert, Constantinides and de Vries 2017). This implementation would also be responsible for providing assistance in the process of data analysis and management.

Conclusion:

The report helps in concluding to the fact that there exists various kind of problems in the retail industry of India. Despite facing various kind of difficulties the retail industry of India is listed as one of the top five retail industries of the world. The problems of the retail industries can be tackled by making use of the new emerging technology known as the IoT or the Internet of Things. This report mainly discusses the various type of problems which are faced by the retail sector of India while conducting its business internationally. Followed by the identification of the problems is a general overview of the new technology IOT which is to be implemented in order to tackle the various kind of problems that are faced by the retail sector. The report also helps in understanding the fact that the implementation of IOT would not only be helping in tackling the problems while conducting business internationally but would also be helping in managing the other activities of the retail industry.

References: 

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