Technology in the Indian retail supply chain

Reviewer: Chander Shekher Arora

This paper describes some determining factors for the effective operation of the outbound logistics and retail distribution side of the supply chains in the consumer goods sector in India. It then proposes a conceptual "framework" of IT deployment for handling the flow of supply chain information access across three distinct levels of complexity -- from the retail consumer to company--using Web-based solutions. While recommending a multi-layered approach for leveraging IT for effective retail distribution, the author perceives a very high potential for outsourcing IT management of the proposed solution. As per the author, such outsourcing will lead to reduction of Total Cost of Ownership, by leveraging economies of scale in the high-cost support function. Though the paper is strong in layout and conceptual presentation, with excellent diagrams, it somewhat lacks in depth and specific illustrations to be of significant practical use at the "how-to" level. The reader, no doubt, gets an idea about the peculiarities of Indian scenario for consumer goods and distribution, and the "critical success factors" for achieving sales growth in India. However, after taking into cognizance such factors (constraints), the paper just gives a descriptive approach to the proposed "solution architecture" without reporting any specific illustrative case study of the successful implementation of the proposed framework. That just limits the potential target audience to business school students and perhaps a few IT-savvy "logistics managers" with the companies having business interest in India. CIOs or IT professionals would find this paper of only peripheral interest.