Partners Seek Trust, Momentum of the Market in Bringing Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail to India

As Raman Dhooria of Microsoft wrote for us recently, Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail arrives in India in the midst of what is expected to be significant growth through at least 2013 in the Indian retail industry.  However, only a small portion of that growth is currently seen as coming from large retail organizations, the ones that Microsoft and its partners hope will benefit from AX for Retail.

So what are the prospects for Dynamics AX for Retail in India now given the market's unique challenges and conditions?  We asked Rakhee Nagpal, Managing Director for Dynamic Verticals (DVS), a retail-focused partner in India.  Based on market conditions,greater CIO sophistication after years of India-based global IT deployments, and the room for growth, Nagpal believes the room for growth is significant, but challenges remain that have to be met with sensible, robust solutions.

MSDynamicsWorld.com: What ERP needs of larger Indian retailers are not met with current retail solutions?

Rackhee:. Companies in India are still at a very nascent stage of software deployment within their retail businesses. While retail accounts for $500bn as a contributor to the Indian economy, only 5% of the industry is organised, hence the market still has a lot to learn about technology being a fundamental backbone and growth driver of their business.

Larger retailers today are paving a path for technology best practices in the country, although, a lot of the larger retailers are still using disparate systems for each department within their business, creating companies within a company. This gives rise to inconsistency in data, manual intervention for integration of these various products, resulting in higher cost and more ...