Transforming the point of sale to point of service - applying SOA in the Indian retail scenario

Unorganized retailing is by far the prevalent form of trade in India – Constituting 98% of total trade, while organized trade accounts only for the remaining 2%. The retail industry in India is of late often being hailed as one of the sunrise sectors in the economy. However, in order to find its feet in the Indian environment a lot needs to be done in terms of efficiency enhancement. This case study is an attempt in exploring the benefits of applying Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) in the organized retail industry, for achieving business efficiency by transforming the point – of – sale into a point – of – service through SOA and thus ensuring maximum customer satisfaction. The discussion is divided into three parts; firstly the introduction which gives an idea about the retail sector and SOA. The second part deals with the areas of improvement for the Indian region in case of retail through information technology. The third part deals with the SOA based suggestions for the mentioned problems. The conclusion sums up the effective use of SOA in retail.