Microsoft Helping Retail Clients Deal With Post-lockdown World, Says COO

As lockdowns slowly lift across the country after over two months, Microsoft is preparing its retail customers to gear up for a different customer experience, said Rajiv Sodhi, chief operating officer, Microsoft India.

"Retail as an industry has most certainly had a pretty drastic impact (from the lockdown). I think one can say all retailers were working with technology even prior to Covid-19, but the situation has brought in a new normal into the industry," said Sodhi.

He added that in addition to managing their large workforce, the shutting down of physical stores has meant coming to terms with the fact that customer preferences will now change and there will be changes in the way customers shop.

"I think more and more retailers are looking at almost a hybrid version of their in-store experience, and complementing that with an online experience. So how do they maintain consistency across the multiple channels that you engage the customer in?

Microsoft is using its own best practices, some of its frameworks and templates to help customers in this area," said Sodhi.

Retail sales in India are expected to reach Rs 66.394 trillion in 2020 (post-Covid-19 estimates) compared to Rs 64.892 trillion in the previous year, a growth of 2.3 per cent compared to the original forecast of 12.4 per cent, according to data and analytics company GlobalData.

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The lockdowns have impacted jobs and spending capacity of consumers and even as retail starts to slowly open up, it will not be as robust as before owing to social distancing and reduced spending capacity.

Planning for a post-lockdown world, retailers have realised that competiton will be high and customer needs will shift.

Microsoft's retail clients were therefore, focused on cost savings, on how to use technology to get better returns on investment for their infrastructure and not compromising on the security of the systems, according to Microsoft's COO.

The second round of discussions was around how to create an omnichannel experience and drive better insights, where data and analytics will play a role in building a more personalised experience, he added.

"The one thing which is unique in India is the huge small and medium business (SMB) market that we have. It is a very different scenario in India compared to any other market in the world or most other mature markets in the world. Small businesses are not very adept with technology. So one thing we are doing very differently in India is a "back to business" solution.

It is a tailor made offering...available on a pay as you use model, and combines teams, security and our virtual desktop offerings so that SMBs can start using it," said Sodhi.