Omni-Channel is History; IoT is Future!

There has been a lot of discussions about ‘Omni-channel business’ in India in the recent past and before we could understand the relevance of it to Indian business environments, there comes another technology update -  the Internet-of-Things (IoT), which is catching up fast in the world of business.

While Omni Channel refers to a business which virtually opens up all possible “doors” for customers to enter into a shop to do transactions simultaneously, Internet-of-Things makes devices across Point Of Sale wired through internet for dynamic data handling and transfer and anytime access for better business management.

Both these technologies have become a fad in the West. It is surprising that India, which is among the fastest growing retail markets in the World, is still to catch up with a suitable technology to sophisticate her Point Of Sale (POS) counters. It is only during the past few years that POS technology has invaded into tier I and II cities, thanks to overwhelming presence of super and hyper market stores. Still millions of Kirana stores and other small and medium businesses across India are following traditional means to do business.

According to a recent study, more than 80 per cent of Indian retailers are still relying on traditional billing system with majority of them using hand-written bills or outdated cash registers forcing customers to fret out standing on long queues to complete transactions. The poor inventory management, haphazard business strategy and improper sales and staff handling add to the woes of these old-gen retailers as they become no match to technologically advanced peers in their respective localities. And of course, they lose customers and struggle to hold on to stiff competition.

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