Systems integrator and solution provider in Auto ID technologies, Great Eastern Impex is one of the largest RFID, barcode labels and printing ribbon manufacturers in India. Established in 1983, the company has been delivering value and innovation to their clients in manufacturing, distribution and retail businesses. “With convenience being a demand today, barcode technology is increasingly being adopted by SMB retailers apart from the large retail chains, where the use of barcode is already pervasive,” says Shakti Jain, Managing Director, Great Eastern Impex. The statement is aptly supported by an impressive growth of over 30 per cent of the Barcode/ADC industry in India, as reported by AIDC Association of India.
With Barcodes an already established tool in the international retail market, many Indian retailers are looking for the advantages that it offers. Barcodes are typically made up of a prefix that identifies the company (or a manufacturer) and a suffix that identifies the product (or SKU). On its packaging each product carries a barcode which uniquely identifies it and distinguishes it from all others in a shopping basket. At the checkout, an automatic or handheld scanner reads each barcode. This number is passed on to a computer, which matches it against a file and retrieves the relevant information from the database. “The process of bar-coding not only saves time for the retailers; it helps increase their efficiency by keeping a record and identity of every item sold so that they can re-order more quickly, optimize their stocks, speed up transactions and have financial and marketing information at their fingertips with unbelievable speed, detail and accuracy,” details Jain about the product and the advantages of the technology.
Apart from convenience, with compliance being a mandate in the industry for source-tagging of goods shipped to retailers worldwide, bar-coding is picking up in its demand by the exporters also. “Exporters broadly have two options – either outsource their requirements to a nominated vendor or install in-house printing systems for on-demand labelling. We, as a company, provide the latter solution to exporters. There has been a steady switch towards adoption of internal/on-demand systems that helps exporters to automate their processes apart from meeting compliance standards,” says Jain.
[bleft]The main focus of the company for the year 2012 remains on core products and markets and the aim is to provide integrated solutions – barcode, RFID, EAS, packaging systems – to manufacturing and retail businesses in India.” – Shakti Jain Managing Director[/bleft]
Barcode business is more or less commoditized with a number of players offering similar products/solutions. “Customers need to evaluate various brands, product functionality, and application design to choose a long term partner with sound expertise and service network,” reasons Jain. Commenting upon the ongoing process of upgradation of the technology every day Jain adds, “Barcode technology based on GS1 (formerly, EAN) is the world’s most widely adopted supply chain standard for goods, services, assets and location identification since 1977. Over 1 million companies of all sizes use GS1 standards to execute more than 5 billion transactions a day. Having said that, Retailers do need to keep abreast of new technologies, Radio Frequency Identification, Mobility, Self Service, etc. that can compliment and improve supply chain processes to better service end-consumers.”
The product range of the company includes hardware outsourced from leading suppliers, label/tag/ribbon supplies manufactured in house and software/services available through nationwide support. The company has recently introduced RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) solutions for manufacturing and retail supply chain market, which helps the retailers with item visibility, stocks and loss prevention through radio or wireless communications that uniquely identifies and transmits data relating to an item, object, or an individual. The company is moving on and is cautiously optimistic for 2012, after seeing their growth moderating in 2011 as compared to 2010. “There had been significant slowdown during second half of the year resulting in lower output and demand across various industry sectors,” affirms Jain.
The main focus of the company for the year 2012 remains on their core products and markets and they aim to provide integrated solutions – barcode, RFID, EAS, packaging systems – to manufacturing and retail businesses.
