Bengaluru has become a tech battleground. Whether it's biggies such as Wal-Mart and Target or specialty retail outfits L Brands and Lowe's, they're all scrambling to hire talented engineers in this southern city as they push to conquer the new frontiers of e-commerce: same-day delivery and cutthroat and personalised pricing.
The latest to open this battlefront in India's technology capital is Columbus, Ohio-based L Brands, the seller of lingerie, personal care and beauty products, apparel and accessories such as Victoria's Secret, Pink, Bath & Body Works, La Senza and Henri Bendel. Its centre was inaugurated just last month at Manyata Tech Park, a gated hub for some of the biggest technology companies in the world, including IBM. The company has leased two floors in one of the buildings for its tech centre, which it calls Mast Global Services, to main tain a discreet profile.
Inside, a giant screen at the centre of the hall streams popular Victoria's l Secret model shows; cut-outs of top t models decorate the walls, and sever, al rows of long, elevated benches lie s vacant, at least for now. Soon, the s floor will have Victoria's Secret mannequins and some of the flagship lingerie will be placed on the benches.
“The idea is to rec reate the same environment so the engineers here are able to visualise better,“ said a person familiar with the company's plans. There are about 150 people on the floor staring at their Apple computer screens and tap er screens and tapping away intensely, almost unaware of the fancy setting. About 600 engineers can be accommodated across the two floors, the person said.
L Brands wants to develop its nextgeneration e-commerce platform and also analyse customer data to develop new offerings and sell more.
Walmart, the world's biggest retailer, is tapping engineering talent in Bengaluru to build its e-commerce platform, Pangaea, which will power its global expansion and integrate all back-end operations. Already, its unit called @WalmartLabs employs 200 engineers in the city.
“In our experience in Bengaluru, we have found a very good talent base for our work at @WalmartLabs, which keeps us ahead of the curve,” said Jeremy King, senior vice-president and chief technology officer of Global e-Commerce at Walmart.
Minneapolis-based Target, which set up a technology centre in Bengaluru a decade ago, is now pushing aggressively to build analytics and big data capabilities. Target’s centre has about 20 data scientists with doctorate degrees in operational research combined with newer software skills. Some of their salaries are equal to or exceed those of the top management.
“It’s not your average talent. You need to be willing to pay for it. And if you don’t have exciting problems to solve, they won’t stay back,” said Navneet Kapoor, managing director of Target India. Lalit Ahuja, an Indian technology industry veteran, who helped set up Target’s centre, said retail is fast becoming a technology industry.
“Today, these retail captives are considered the second headquarters by their parents,” Ahuja said, referring to the tech centres. Target has even gone beyond tapping the traditional talent pool and is hunting for disruptive startup teams in the ventures backed by its accelerator.
Vignesh Girishankar and Srikrishnan Ganesan, the co-founders of Konotor, a startup from the first batch of Target’s accelerator, say the retail technology battle is actually helping the ecosystem.
Their product, Konotor, allows clients to engage with users of their apps with a messaging system.
From about 100,000 users when it partnered with Target a year ago, the startup has now 6 million users across 100 retail stores in the US.
“Target is leveraging our product to help them with inventory and store-related queries during the busiest time of the year,” the founders said in an e-mail.
US retailers tapping India for technology talent is not new — over the years, companies such as Home Depot, Tesco and Target have worked with Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro to outsource lowend, commoditised software application development and maintenance work. Now, these retailers are tapping Bengaluru for much more than cost savings — figuring out the next big disruption and ensuring they move sales from old world retail stories to online and mobiles. With Amazon giving some of them sleepless nights, the time zone differences actually work to their advantage.
“When US stores shut at night, engineers in India wake up to analyse all data, help with insights. With retail moving beyond stores, it’s a 247 enterprise now,” said Ahuja.
Source: Economic Times
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