After Tesco, its Target

Target enters on a tech footing
The Times of India

Bangalore: Close on the heels of Wal-Mart waiting in the wings to begin its India retail story, comes Target, the second largest discount store, with a set of different plans.

The US-based $42 billion Target Corporation, with over 1,300 stores selling everything from clothing to furniture to electronic goods to sports goods to home products, is a house-hold name in the US with its striking red bull’s-eye logo.

Swerving away from setting up retailing outlets, Target has jumped on the IT bandwagon by setting up its own captive centre here. Its Indian subsidiary, Target Technology Services India (TTSI) is the first development centre outside the US, other being located in US with over 2,000 employees.

Says Paul Singer, chairman, Target Corporation, “Retail has become more of a technology business. To differentiate ourselves from time to time, huge investments in IT are critical and our needs are growing each day.”

The company has been working with Indian partners, such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Syntel, for the past 10 years. “Our centre will work in a collaborative manner with Indian partners. It would be more of a centre of excellence and would work on core technologies while applications and maintenance support will be handled by our Indian partners,” Singer added.

Kicking off with 50 employees, Target is planning to aggressively ramp up its headcount and “our recruitment will run into several hundreds in three years,” he said. Declining to reveal the amount of investment that goes into IT and R&D of new software products, he said, “Target is a great consumer of technology. Right from travel, financial services, supply chain, e-commerce and business intelligence, technology has become the cornerstone of our operations.”

“Speed to market, innovation and superior quality is mandatory for success in any venture and is more important in retail where there is fierce competition. Being able to deliver these from here — at a lesser cost and excellent talent will give Target an added advantage,” said Lalit Ahuja who heads the Indian operations.

Although Target does not plan to enter the retail business like Wal-Mart, it has lined up plans to begin BPO operations soon.” We are looking at back office operations being done from here shortly,” Singer added. Interestingly, this is the second retail tech centre that has come up here in Bangalore, after Tesco, a leading UK retailer, which set up shop a year ago.