Retail Technology Forum to promote emerging technologies for the retail industry

Making the announcement Mr. Ramakrishnan, promoter of RTF said "The retail industry in UAE and Dubai in particular is undergoing a major change due to unprecedented market growth. In the last 10 years, retail industry has grown from Dhs. 14 billion (1993) to Dhs. 26 billion last year (2003). Retail industry is the fourth largest contributor to the GDP last year. It is expected to leap by another Dhs. 9 billion in next 2 years. Hundreds of projects of various sizes are simultaneously happening currently at the retail front. It is the sunrise industry of the region. Surprising enough, the technology related to the retail industry has not been keeping pace. There are clearly identified trouble areas. Retail Technology Forum was conceived to address these concerns."

Retail technology forum works in association with key industry players & will address key result areas of retail industry with a focus on comprehensive technology solution needs. The forum is expected to bridge this gap between the opportunity and challenges in the retail industry by regularly interfacing with retail industry and technology companies to highlight the benefits of technology for the retail industry

"The meteoric rise in the retail industry coupled with increased competition & mounting customer expectation brings with it challenges which the industry has to address to continue this pace of growth. This is where technology comes in. These Emerging Technologies like - Front Office (Point of Sale, Retail & Scanning), Back Office (ERP, CRM), Inventory & Warehousing, Training & Change Management, Loyalty, Market & Business Intelligence are already changing the face of the retail industry world-wide. We will have to sooner or later adapt to these technologies in this region. This is the gap that RTF hopes to fulfil," continued Mr. Ramki.

Amongst the initiatives that RTF is taking is a workshop on Business Intelligence.

"Business Intelligence (BI) is the art and science of proactively gathering and analyzing critical business data for use in business decision support, corporate performance management, and customer relationship management (CRM). Business Intelligence helps understand the inner workings of any corporation and to predict the future impact of current decisions. BI allows for gathering, storing, accessing and analyzing data to help top management make better decisions," explained Mr. Ramki.

This seminar is part of the Retail Technology Forum's activities which include a Quarterly CEO's Meeting, Strategy & Global Trends, Monthly CXO's Meetings, Technology Specific Discussions, Periodic Newsletter addressing Market Trend, Research & Technology

"We realise that the Retail Industry will benefit form these Emerging Technologies, if they adopt them & harness their power. We hope that this forum will be a catalyst towards this end. We will continue in our efforts to endorse & encourage the retail industry towards implementing these emerging technologies," concluded Mr. Ramki.