Case study : BIRetail - Retail Intelligence Resource

In India, BIRetail was launched only in May 2009 and the company has already met 75 per cent of projected revenue targets for the first year in the first 4 months of operation since the market is very receptive and positive.

BIRetail Ltd was incorporated in the year 2007 with headquarters in the United Kingdom by leading industry professionals who are having decades of collective experience with a vision to offer Business Intelligence Solutions specifically to retail industry. 

BIRetail Ltd has been one of the leaders in developing Business Intelligence (BI) solutions on new technologies like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which has drastically brought down the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Besides Gini & Jony, one of the other customers in India is Victorinox India, which is the Indian subsidiary of the 150 year old Swiss brand famous for its Swiss Army Knife. 

In 2008, the growth of BI adoption in the Indian retail industry was 22 per cent. BIRetail’s unique SaaS offering breaks the biggest hurdle, viz, the “price barrier”. The company hopes to be amongst the topmost BI solution provider for Indian retailers in the next one year’s time, and will definitely be the first choice amongst SME retailers looking to adopt a BI solution.

Case Study

Gini & Jony is an India-based retailer operating over 600 kids’ apparel stores targeting the age group from 6 months to 14 years. Founded in 1994, Gini & Joni moved on by opening first exclusive outlet in 1995 in Hyderabad. Currently there are 107 franchisees, 116 retail outlets, 32 factory outlets and available in another 600 multi-brand outlets in India.

Solution provided

Following the tech trail to accelerate growth, in July 2009, Gini & Jony adopted a business intelligence solution from BIRetail to generate smart reports to improve decision making and thereby, the bottom line. BIRetail provided Gini & Jony data-driven decision making capabilities to improve their merchandising decisions, optimise promotions performance, improve inventory & replenishment decisions, analyse performance of brands etc. The deployment started in August 2009 and completed implementation in a short time of eight weeks.

BIRetail’s best-of-breed analytical capabilities and visual representations have driven its strong underlying Business Intelligence platform, MicroStrategy. MicroStrategy is a front-runner BI platform, deployed by customers worldwide, and known for its superior quality analytics and flexible end-user interfaces.

Benefits

The solution helped Giny & Jony reduce operational costs. Further, the solution added both to the top line and bottom line by reducing the ‘shelf life’ of the product.

“We used BIRetail to manage our stocks. The idea was to get fast moving items off the shelves in seven weeks. Using the stock reports of our outlets we could find out the fast-moving items three weeks after the launch of the style. After identification, all merchandising was designed to clear out the style in the following four weeks. By week seven, the style was sold out.”

Gaganjit Kahlon, IT Head, Gini & Jony

“There are multiple factors driving Indian retail growth. With roughly 60 per cent of the total population below 30 years of age, favorable demographics are expected to drive consumption across categories. The much-talked about purchasing power of a young consuming middle class is finally crystallizing today.”

Niraj Jaipuria, Director - Sales, Asia Pacific, BIRetail