ITC may offer supply chain management

With Wal-mart knocking on the doors of India's retail industry, other retailers are watching closely. ITC is focussing on supply-chain management and back-end systems for large retailers reports CNBC-TV18.

The Sunil Mittal-Walmart tie-up may have hit roadblocks with the Left parties opposing Wal-Mart's entry and Commerce Minister Kamal Nath saying he will check whether Walmart flouted FDI rules.

But YC Deveshwar, ITC's chairman, who's an integral part of the retail sector says,"Sunil Mittal is a very smart man, and so is the minister, so if he's made a statement he must have had good reason for it and if Sunil Mittal has done the agreement he must have good reason for it. I think we may have to wait and see"

ITC feels that an important component of retail comprises back-end functions like supply-chain management. It is considering providing this to large retailers.

"All of us don't have to compete with one company. We are not going to be in that space as matter of fact and we would like to provide services to them; all retailing companies will not be able to in a cost effective manner to deal with supply chain as its  complex task" says Deveshwar.

ITC says it's in talks with retailers to provide supply-chain management services because it already has a network and other companies will need to build their own back-end operations.