Modern technology assists in the growth of any comapny. the Retailer lists, in the form of a presentation, 12 I-T comapnies that have helped in the growth of the retail sector.

ORACLE RETAIL
Data management solutions

With Oracle Corporation, RDBMS has acquired a distinct position in the field of IT application and has actuated a revolution in business operation by redefining database management system.
Its service in the retail sector has enabled many organisations to experience a hassle-free running of business with considerable increase in profit. Service provided to Lifetime Healthcare Pvt. Ltd presents a clear picture of their operational mode that has facilitated business development of Lifetime.

Core client
Lifetime Healthcare Pvt. Ltd, founded by Mr M.C.Kini and Mr A.Suryanarayanan, is the promoter of the LifeKen brand. It is fast- emerging as the leading player in India's organised pharmacy retail. LifeKen can today boast of about 60 stores (in Bangalore and Chennai), which are fully operational and integrated with the latest technology from Oracle Retail. LifeKen has very aggressive growth plans that include opening of 700 stores across the country in next three years.
As a distributed business, challenge that LifeKen faced was that of having a centralised view of all the items sold, purchasing process, inventory levels, sales, product promotions, replenishment, stock counts, accounting for losses due to pilferage or shrinkage, distribution from warehouse to stores, receiving at the warehouse etc. Some of these were managing multiple MRPs for different batches (price moves by batch numbers), maintaining inventory by batch number, track expiry dates, pharmacist authentication for sale of scheduled drugs, mandatory capture of doctor's and patient's names, incorporation of local tax and VAT calculations, drug identification number and tax identification number. To have a competitive edge over others, LifeKen required a strong technology-backbone. Getting and managing data from a centralised location enabled LifeKen to analyse historical data very effectively, this increased its efficiency in planning purchase and distribution activity.

Technology-empowerment 
The Oracle retail solution, the IT backbone of LifeKen's aggressive scale-up plans, was implemented by Oracle Advance certified partner, Tata consultancy services, and went live in March 2007. M.C. Kini, CEO, LifeKen says “Adoption of Oracle's Retail applications gives LifeKen a plug-and-play solution that will allow faster rollout of stores, greater control over business processes, and a dynamic view of the business in real time. The solution gives LifeKen the flexibility to expand with the support of a world-class technology platform for the company's massive scale-up plan.“We were absolutely clear about what we wanted for our business and we found that Oracle's retail applications were best suited to deliver what we were looking for. We understand the competitive edge that IT can give us, in a business where the ability to scale fast is the name of the game and best practices need to be incorporated. LifeKen's adoption of best-of-breed global standard technology at this early stage in our business is in line with the aggressive growth targets we have set for ourselves.”
 “Oracle Retail can successfully transform the economics of many leading retail businesses in India just as it has helped several retail companies across the world. The Oracle Retail Center of Excellence in Bangalore is playing a pivotal role in supporting customers in India,” said Jay Bhow, head of Oracle's Retail Center of Excellence.

Solution implementation
The overall implementation by TCS, from the initial phase to stores, took less than a year. The localisations were shared by both Oracle Retail and TCS.Oracle was involved in building customer specific features for tracking batch numbers and expiry dates in ORMS, ORSIM and ORPOS, shipment receiving and dispatch on ORMS (to simulate warehouse management capabilities), VAT / tax identification number / drug license number for store, warehouse and suppliers for Indian context, TLOG/RTLOG for POS, replenishment algorithms modified to suit pharmacy needs.The project implementation started in May 2006 with the modules of merchandising, stores and point of sale (ORMS, ORPOS and ORSIM). In August 2006, due to the location proximity to customer, the Oracle Retail Center of Excellence (CoE) in Bangalore was involved in providing executive sponsorship to manage the development and delivery of custom features, which were being developed by Oracle for LifeKen and also to monitor the overall implementation. The CoE was instrumental in providing domain experts in the areas of ORMS, ORPOS, ORSIM and the integration bus (RIB) to work collaboratively with LifeKen and clarify implementation queries and resolve issues at the customer location. The legacy data migration into the Oracle Retail solution took about three months and was managed by LifeKen and TCS to ensure that the integrity of the data was accurate.  Initially, the foundation data were migrated and validated and then, the transaction data were migrated. The stringent measures were taken up to ensure quality and a smooth go-live scenario. The best-practice implementation approach ensured that there was zero loss and impact to the business.The phase-II of the implementation involving the invoice matching (ORIM) and data warehousing (ORDW) has begun and the rolling out is expected in a few weeks. “Implementing a global software solution for LifeKen, the first Indian Oracle Retail customer, has been a proud moment for all of us and the commitment, cooperation and quick responses that we received from LifeKen have been a phenomenal experience”, says Balajee Gopalan, Operations Manager, Oracle Retail Center of Excellence.Oracle Retail solutions are used by 17 of the top 20 global retailers.

Microsoft
Sun Microsystms
ETP International
HCL
IBM
SAP
FusionRetail
Protocol
JDA
BNG Infotech
Dynamic Vertical Solutions (DVS)
Rance