JDA Software ties up with HCL Tech

US-based JDA Software on Wednesday announced plans to aggressively target India's growing retail sector in partnership with HCL Technologies.

"We see India as one of the fastest growing markets in Asia Pacific along with China. The partnership with HCL will give us ground presence in India and, over the next 12 months, HCL would be able to fully implement JDA solutions on its own," Philip G Boland, vice president, JDA Software said.

"The alliance is in line with HCL's strategy of partnering with leaders in various verticals to build domain expertise. We have been working with JDA for the last couple of years outside India and we will now offer composite software and hardware solution to Indian clients," Rajiv Sodhi, vice president, head - global retail delivery & corporate tools group, HCL Technologies, said.

JDA would drive the sales effort in India as per the agreement. While JDA would earn from the software sales, HCL's revenues would come from the software implementation and hardware sales. JDA has no immediate plans to set up offices in India.

Initially, a team of JDA employees will join the HCL team to ensure seamless service. "The agreement with HCL is on a non exclusive basis so if a customer so desires JDA would be able to directly implement its solutions," Boland said.

"The retail sector is typically a low margin business and IT spends are generally about 3-4 per cent of the revenues. IT spends in the industry showed a turn around last year and we see IT investments picking up in 2005 in the sector as retail chains go for upgrades and newer solutions to keep pace with geographical growth," Sodhi said while declining to share growth targets.

"With foreign direct investment in retail sector is likely to happen sooner or later, Indian retail sector is going to be major growth market in IT solutions," Sodhi added. HCL's overseas customer like AS Watson, Dairly Farm, GSI Commerse and Coles Myer among others already use JDA solutions.