Retail Business To be Tagged With RFID
Ranbaxy may be the first in the list
World`s largest retailer, Walmart, US has asked its top 100 vendors to become Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) compliant by January 2005. Ranbaxy Laboratories, India`s largest pharma company may be the first one to implement Wal-Mart`s RFID initiative.
This is the part of ongoing efforts to employ upcoming technology, Ranbaxy has implemented RFID and the company is moving to Next Generation Bar Code system to strengthen the supply chain and meet customer needs. The company also claims to have done the needful much before the deadline set by Wal-Mart. The RFID chip which is fixed under the label of the product contains all relevant information like manufacturer`s name, batch number, expiry date and other relevant information. It helps in monitoring the product movement and automatic updating of records. This will enable Wal-Mart to record the movement of products automatically.
An official from Ean India, which spreads the RFID initiatives in India, says that RFID is going to make a prototype shift in handling of materials in the coming time. A study in FMCG companies found that over 5-10% of sales is lost due to the fastest selling, best selling item not being available in the stock. The companies can not do anything about the same since the information was not available in the real time. When margins are so less in today`s competitive market, RFID will surely move it towards a better position and will add to the bottom line of the companies.
At the retailers` end RFID enables them to reload the stock without physical verification and detect pilferage in real time. Estimates say that there are presently four billion tags in use, off which Gillette alone is reported to be using 0.5 billion, as blades and cartridges are among the most pilfered products at the retail level.
Indian software principles can also gain from this segment as well. India has skills to build RFID solutions and maintain them. India Inc is pursuing RFID consulting as one of the next big opportunities. With the current trend India has an upper hand over others in software and business process consulting with low costs driving the business.
