'Innovation' comes to focus at UST's Retail Week

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, INDIA: UST Global, a provider of IT and business process outsourcing services, said that the third edition of its annual Retail Week had 'innovation' in the retail sector as its focus.

The five-day event, organized across multiple locations in the established and emerging IT hubs of Southern India, was inaugurated at the UST Global center in Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram on Monday and concluded today.

UST Global, which provides IT services and solutions for Fortune 500/Global 1000 companies, including several major clients in the retail sector, said this year the event had a central theme of ‘Innovation’, with individual sub-themes governing each day.

The theme for the inaugural day was Store Operations, while Warehouse Management, Customer Experience, Supply Chain Management and Point of Sale were the themes for subsequent days.

Retail Week was conceptualized in 2009, with the aim of driving thought leadership in Information Technology for retail businesses, said UST.

In accordance with the ‘Retail’ premise, contests were organized for whitepaper presentation, product development and quiz, in addition to guest lectures by industry experts on how technology affects the business.

“The natural dynamics of the organized retail industry makes it a steadily expanding area of business. Typically, it depends on a widespread customer base, and has a very democratic way of measuring success. So this makes the retail vertical a secure bet for long-term IT investment,”said Alexander Varghese, country head and vice president (Corporate Services) of UST Global.

K Radhakrishnan, president of Future Fresh Foods, the fresh produce arm of the Future Group, delivered the keynote address, predicting that food and fashion are the high growth sectors within the retail industry.

UST said the event is intended as a platform for showcasing the potential of IT in the retail vertical, and also to share industry experiences and facilitate discussions on the evolving future of technology in the retail space.