AMR rates HCL Technologies as leader in retail

AMR, a leading industry focused research agency that provides independent analysis, has rated HCL Technologies Ltd as a leader among offshore service providers focused on retail market. This report, titled An Executive Guide To Selecting Retail Service Providers, provides a comparative analysis of all global, offshore and niche service providers that support retailers with business process optimisation, redesign, technology implementations, and support activities. It is designed to enable decision makers determine services providers with deep expertise across multiple retail-focused business processes, technologies, and retail industry segments.

Retailers have increasingly cited domain expertise as an important factor in selecting IT service provider. AMR reviewed consulting and outsourcing service providers' capabilities in various sub-domains of retailers / CPG's focus areas like supply chain, store operations, home office planning and demand intelligence.

HCL Technologies emerged as a strong performer in all of them with a "leadership status" in warehouse management, product sourcing, ecommerce, advanced retail planning and replenishment. It also received a "strong rating" in logistics, customer segmentation and loyalty, point of sales, inventory management, price management, financials and HR.

HCL's business consulting provides a quarter of the company's revenue. AMR has emphasised its expertise in GERS applications and acknowledged it as being in an advantageous position in the Indian market, being the prime implementor of JDA solutions in the country.

AMR's ratings reflects the software major's efforts to shift from "commoditised" IT to high-end IT services by building expertise in diverse retails value segments through strategic partnerships, client engagements and investments in building IPs / frameworks. The report also notes HCL's business models.