Newgen Software Forays into Retail & Hypermarket Segment

Trent Limited placed an order for automating and image-enabling its Purchase and Payment process. Trent operates a nationwide chain of retail stores under the brand ‘Westside’ and a hypermarket ‘Star India Bazaar’.

For purchase of goods, it follows a predominantly centralized model, wherein majority of purchases are made at the central warehouse in Pune and some purchases at the individual local stores. A Goods Receipt Note (GRN) along with other documents such as Invoice, Lorry Receipt, Quality Inspection Report, etc., is received and a copy of these documents sent to Mumbai head office through courier. At the head office, the bills are approved by recording the purchases in the existing Bill Passing System (BPS), and then the vendors are credited.

The entire process is extremely time consuming, cost-intensive and requires large, dedicated staff. With its expansion plans in sight, the company anticipates problems in scaling-up its operations. To overcome the problems, Newgen Software proposed its state-of-art, proven Document Management Solution, which would greatly speed-up the entire process and reduce the courier and human resources costs. All GRNs and associated documents would be scanned and introduced into DMS, which would be integrated with BPS and EX (financial software). Document images would be accessed by the relevant personnel for approval.

In addition to benefits such as improved turnaround time and cost cuttings, the solution would enable fast retrieval of required documents with plenty of options for search and navigation. Further, the solution also generates user reports based on different parameters such as supplier, location, time-period, etc.

Trent Limited, a public limited company established in 1998, is into retailing of readymade garments, household and gift articles, cosmetics and perfumes. It runs business under two formats, Westside and Star India Bazaar. With 25 stores under the Westside format, Trent Limited has one of India's largest and fastest growing chains of retail stores. Under the Star India Bazaar format, it operates a hypermarket.