Cognizant Technology Solutions has entered into a five-year multimillion dollar engagement with the Future Group, India’s largest multi-format retail group, to provide end-to-end information technology infrastructure services for all Future Group companies.
For Cognizant’s retail practice, the deal marks a major foray in to the huge Indian retail market. It already works with 12 of the top 30 global retailers.
The US-based IT company with large offshore development centres in India will support over 1,000 Future Group stores, including marquee names such as Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, Central, Home Town, and eZone, across 85 towns and cities in India. The agreement will also cover new stores the company opens in the future, says a Cognizant press release.
Besides providing service desk support, data centre management, and network services support, Cognizant will also deliver the mission-critical, last-mile IT infrastructure services support to Future Group’s growing network of stores, warehouses, offices, and data centres.
Set up lab
Along with Future Group, Cognizant will set up a Point-of-Sale lab to develop and deploy next-generation IT solutions to provide best-in-class consumer experience in stores, and also to co-innovate around the future of the store, leveraging mobile and kiosk technologies.
“We are delighted at the opportunity to enable Future Group to meet the everyday needs of over 220 million customers in India more effectively, and drive innovation and thought leadership in the Indian retail industry,” said Mr R. Chandrasekaran, Group Chief Executive for Technology and Operations at Cognizant.
Cognizant's retail practice provides clients with business solutions in the areas of supply chain, merchandising, stores, e-commerce, and retail analytics.