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Target India, the Indian operations of the US-based retailer, has launched its third round of four month intensive accelerator programme to find innovative technology solutions in retail with the help of five early stage startups.
The latest batch includes the following five startups:
- Findmeashoe – helps consumers to find the right-sized shoes by using a mobile app
- BugClipper – has a bug-tracking solution for the testing phase of quality assurance
- TimeFlex – Internet-of-things solution for retail stores that monitors the micro-environment (conditions like temperature, humidity, lighting and odour)
- House of Blue Beans – a 3D product visualization software firm
- Discover Dollar – which tracks where firms are losing out money through leakages or overpayments and provides a dashboard for real-time analytics
Bangalore-based, Target India plans to work with these five startups to help retailers, with – search on apps, 3D imaging and data analytics. The startups will also be accessed to design and technology, mentorship and a dedicated space at their Bangalore office, provided by Target India. Selected companies will also be provided with thought leadership in enterprise business areas including Finance, Legal, HR, Marketing and IT Services.
On this development, Mahesh Calavai, Director for strategy and innovation at Target India said “If it’s a consumer facing operation, our consumers will get to interact with that, if it’s to do with an internal function, our teams will be able to evaluate whether the product works. The business teams get to decide whether a particular idea has merit.”
Target was founded in 1962, as a subsidiary of Minneapolis-based Dayton Department Stores and it was launched as a retailer in Bangalore (India) during mid-2005. Target collaborates across borders in support of business initiatives. More than 2,900 team members are engaged in work that supports the global strategy across business areas such as technology, marketing, human resources, finance, merchandising, supply chain, property development, analytics and reporting.
Target Corporation launched its first accelerator programme in India in March 2014 and then launched the second in the same year in the month of June to help further its transformation into an omnichannel retailer. Target India’s portfolio includes – muHive, Unbx, InstaClique, Konotor, Turnaround Innovision, Instaclique, Twiddly, Whodat’s Spaces, Wazzat, Torch and Visarity.
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