The AV Birla?s retail venture, the Aditya?Birla Retail Limited (ABRL), plans to roll out about 10 hypermakets in the country in the year 2008-09,?under its brand ?more?. The investment on each such venture will depend on the size of the hyperformat, said Sumant Sinha, CEO, ABRL at the sidelines of a conference, which announced a tie up between ABRL and Oracle, the multinational software company. According to media reports the investment on each venture could be to the tune of Rs 25 crore.
Recently, in the month of March ABRL had launched its first hypermarket in Vadodara with the investment of Rs 25?crore and announced its plan to launch more of such formats in Gujarat and Delhi. Both Tata group and?Reliance Retail also launched their hypermarts in Gujarat during the beginning of this year.
Earlier, ABRL had unveiled its plan to invest, Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 crore in expanding its operations across the country over a period of five years. The company had declared its intent?to emerge as one of the leading retail players in India by planning 1,500 supermarkets and 100 hypermarket stores in the next five years.
Oracle will provide retail-based applications, finance related and infrastructure software to the the retail arm of Aditya Birla group. ?Our global clients include reputed names like Tesco, Esprit,cSainsbury, Carrefour, Benetton etc. In India we already have a set of clients and are in talks with many new players,? said Mukesh Mathur Oracle Retail India director and business head.
?Our IT backbone, of which Oracle Retail Applications are key components, will help us offer best choices to our customers. Oracle retail applications will support our different store formats and help us roll out our new stores faster,? said Sinha. Aditya Birla Retail?s IT infrastructure will help set a benchmark of using IT for customer acquisition and retention in the Indian retail industry, he added.
