New Delhi: Reliance Industries Limited’s (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani unveiled his plans for the much-awaited Reliance New Commerce during the annual general meeting on Monday, integrating merchants, consumers and producers through a new digital platform.
“The main purpose of New Commerce is to completely transform the unorganised retail market, which accounts for 90 per cent of India’s retail industry. The three crore merchants and kirana shop owners, who generate direct and indirect livelihoods for over 20 crore people, form the backbone of India’s commerce eco-system,” he said at the annual meet.
The conglomerate’s CMD pegged New Commerce as a business opportunity worth $700 billion.
“For Reliance, it is the greatest opportunity to promote inclusive growth and shared wealth at the bottom of India’s commerce and retail pyramid. For this, we are deploying blockchain, IOT, AI and other new technologies on a pan-India basis. This tech-enabled partnership will link producers, traders, small merchants, consumer brands and consumers,” he added.
Reliance plans to remove inefficiencies in the consumption chain and transfer significant new value to consumers, producers and merchants.
“Our merchant Point of Sale (POS) Solution — Jio Prime Partner POS — is integral to our plan to create an ecosystem around small merchants. This user friendly digital platform is designed for inventory management, customer relationship management, financial services and other services,” he informed.
Jio Prime Partner POS, Ambani said, will modernise even the smallest neighbourhood kirana shop to become a future-ready digitised store.
“Our beta trials with thousands of merchants across multiple locations in the country established the premise of New Commerce with significant increase in sales and improvement in margins for the participating merchants. We are now getting ready to roll out the platform at a larger scale. Reliance’s New Commerce platform thus represents the Digital Symbiosis of Big and Small Enterprises,” he said.
Mukesh Ambani made his vision clear by stating, “I believe that the small must not only survive, but also thrive in New India.”
Addressing shareholders at the 42nd AGM, he said the retail arm would be one of the key growth engines in the group’s scheme of things. “Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail will account for 50 per cent of the company’s EBITDA soon,” he said.
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Source: News18