Infosys Technologies Joins METRO Group Future Store Initiative to Drive Innovations in Retailing

“real,- Future Store” in Toenisvorst, Germany implements Infosys ShoppingTrip360 for superior shelf inventory management

Toenisvorst, Germany – November. 24, 2009: METRO Group, one of the largest and most important international retailing companies, has selected Infosys Technologies (NASDAQ: INFY) as a partner in its Future Store Initiative (FSI) for the advancement of cutting edge technologies and innovative shopping concepts. Infosys was chosen as a METRO Group FSI partner on the basis of its ShoppingTrip360 solution, an innovative managed service that offers retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies with visibility on shopper and shelf activity with unprecedented granularity.

"The real,- Future Store is our real-life R&D laboratory where we are able to test and develop new technologies that form the basis of new innovations in retailing,” said Dr. Gerd Wolfram, Head of CIO-Office, METRO AG and leader of the METRO Group Future Store Initiative. “Infosys is aligned with METRO Group’s vision of innovation through cooperation between companies from retail, consumer goods, IT and service sectors. Infosys’ insights and new approach to the shopping experience are unique and compelling for us.”
 
Infosys has implemented its ShoppingTrip360 Smart Shelf Pad in the “real,- Future Store”  located in Toenisvorst, Germany. Smart Shelf Pads are unobtrusive add-ons for existing store shelves that allow a retailer to monitor inventory levels of merchandise and provide actionable insights like out-of-stock alerts. 

Upon successful implementation of ShoppingTrip360 in the “real,- Future Store”, METRO Group will evaluate the results and look to leverage it in other of its stores.

"The concepts and technologies that prove successful in the “real,- Future Store” are then introduced successively at stores belonging to our other brands," says Dr. Gerd Wolfram. "As a result, the work we do in Toenisvorst with partners such as Infosys is vitally important for the future development of the entire group and the retail sector at large."

ShoppingTrip360 was designed by Infosys to create an information ecosystem where retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies can achieve a truly differentiated method of engagement with in-store shoppers and gain greater visibility into in-store activity. The solution delivers a suite of services, including personalized mobile marketing and creating a 360-degree view of real-time shopper and merchandise activity. Based on a network of tiny wireless devices that are deployed with minimal impact on existing store layouts and operations, specific feature sets may be introduced into services incrementally and with minimum back-end infrastructure requirements. The information ecosystem is offered by Infosys as a managed service where CPG companies and retailers can subscribe to specific insights without having to risk large capital investment or future technology obsolescence.

“From the large hypermarket to a small corner shop, retailers are operating in an extremely challenging environment that includes shrinking margins, strong competition and increased consumer demands,” said Karmesh Vaswani, associate vice president and head of Retail, CPG and Logistics for Europe, Infosys Technologies. “ShoppingTrip360 is suited not just for tracking inventory on the shelf real-time but also engaging the shopper as she interacts with the shelf at the point of relevance. Our partnership with the Future Store Initiative is further validation of the innovative offerings we bring to the retail and CPG market and we look forward to further collaboration with METRO Group and its partner network.”