The Cloud as the Next Step at NRF 2015

At the National Retail Federation’s Big Show-2015, CitiXsys Technologies came out in force to showcase the power of Cloud Applications in the modern world of retailing. Kamal Karmakar, CEO, CitiXsys Americas, talks about what trends are going to dominate the upcoming year, and his insights.

At the NRF-2015, a record-breaking 33,000 attendees marked their presence to see how the world of retail has progressed, and what new trends are making their way into stores around the world. After 104 years, the Retail’s ‘Big Show’ unveiled several Big Ideas during its sessions, some of them which were cloud technology and its related security.

Among the sponsors, CitiXsys also participated in the Big Idea session where it highlighted the growing acceptance of cloud applications amongst enterprise retailers, and the way forward with iVend Retail on Cloud. CitiXsys presented a trend-discerning presentation on ‘Enterprise Retailers on the Cloud: Are We There Already?’ presented by Paula Da Silva, Vice President – Large Retail Enterprise of CitiXsys Americas.

About his experience at the Big Show, Kamal Karmakar, CEO, CitiXsys, says, “We saw retailers, whether enterprise-class or SMEs, making a noticeable shift towards Cloud technology.” The hesitation is gone, he says, and there is an active interest in how retail chains are looking for avenues where they can expand effortlessly and look towards thin-infrastructure models of retail management software.

“There is a greater percentage of retailers who met us looking at cloud as an end-to-end solution,” Karmakar says. Several retailers were asking about the robustness of a complete cloud-based retail management suite, and its incipient security. Related to this, “There were also many takers for a hybrid model of cloud application suite,” he says, where the operations and data were divided between a public domain cloud provider and the retailer’s own privately-hosted cloud. Security is a paramount concern for any retailers, big or small, Karmakar says, and “We’ve been addressing those concerns and educating our visitors on how the cloud can be the next avatar of security,” without compromising on connectivity and accessibility.

There is an identifiable movement towards solution integrators, he explains, where disparate software and hardware manufacturers and vendors come together to offer a unified solution for a retailer, instead of piece-meal add-ons.

“We had a good presence at NRF-2015 with our booth, and we were pleasantly surprised at the number of retailers and clients who took an active interest in CitiXsys iVend Retail on Cloud,” Karmakar comments, “The Big Show was bigger and better this time, and we got an absolutely phenomenal response from prospective clients. The companies liked our Cloud-based iVend Retail Suite, and our visitors ranged from super-size enterprise retailers to entrepreneurs.”

He goes on to say, “The iVend retail management suite is a complete solution which incorporates end-to-end store processes such as Sales, Inventory, Promotions, Loyalty, Analytics, Digital Passes, and our mainstay iVend Mobile POS. We offer our customers agility to set up a store in record time, real-time software updates and the ability to run in ‘off-line’ mode,” adding that, “The functionality to run a point of sale in offline/disconnected mode was especially asked-for, and we’re absolutely sure retailers would be that much empowered by our offerings.”

What about a peek into the Big Show-2016? “Judging by the great response we got from this edition, we’ve already booked a larger booth for 2016,” Karmakar says.

The Big Show was bigger and better this time, and we got an absolutely phenomenal response from prospective clients.