Retails - Timex: Fast Track

Time Stops



After six long years, the joint venture between Timex and Titan (Tata Group)
came to a rather abrupt end. According to an insider, Titan took away all the

infrastructure that they could and formatted the rest. Suddenly, US-based Timex

corporation was all at sea, there was no distribution channel and no network so

as to speak of. And the company did not even have the privilege of time, systems

had to be up and running almost overnight.

Starting all Over



Sanjay Singh, CIO, Timex, was grappling with these issues when he sat at the
helm. Internationally, Timex was using Oracle for ERP. The Indian arm was also

using the same, Singh decided to build his infrastructure around this solution.

"We had very little infrastructure when we started out. My first priority

was to get the POS network up and running, as we did not have much distribution

so as to speak of. Subsequently, there were the inventory, billing and order

management modules that needed to be set up."

Singh went on to choose a variety of technologies to get his

work done. For instance, his biggest priority was the flow of data from the POS

terminal to the company headquarters. "Watches is a very dynamic industry,

trends keep changing all the time and you have to be at the top all the while.

Like for instance, currently stainless steel watches with big dials and

chronograph watches are in vogue. Hence, I wanted all the data to be available

for analysis at the headquarters more or less instantaneously so that the

manufacturing process can be changed accordingly," says Singh.

To achieve this, Singh went for Power Builder software to

connect the POS terminals with the data center. The system was email-based, thus

at the end of every day, an email would be dispatched from the local vendor to

the headquarter. After an authorized person validates the data, it is hosted on

the ERP network for the managers to view and make decisions.

Yet, the most noteworthy thing of this system set by Singh is

that it is based on open-source. Yes, Linux. "We were among the first few

to host our systems on Linux in 2000. In fact, India was the test-bed for the

company and we have been quite successful in our endeavors," he exults.

According to him the biggest gain has been in terms of cost

reduction, in terms of maintenance costs. "We had to be quite cautious in

our decision as we had limited finances and infinite work," he says. Singh

has been very happy with the results, as in case he gets stuck with any problems

he consults the online forums (he is also an active member of the forum).

In the Time to Come



Going ahead, Timex is ramping up its infrastructure and is in the process of
connecting all the regional centers through WAN. Singh is also optimistic about

virtualization and distributed computing.

By March 2007, Timex will have around 80 showrooms across India

and Singh and his team deserve all the accolades for ensuring that Timex stays

on the fast track in India.

Shashwat Chaturvedi



maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in