Holistic tech experience for retail sector

Established in the year 2015 by Jash Choraria, Unifynd is a technology innovation company based in Mumbai, India. Unifynd is a team of young and self-driven professionals working in a collaborative setup and mentored by industry leaders and experts. “The company’s core premise is to ideate and create solutions in a resurgent India using the Unifynd framework. The vision was to transform the traditional physical retail experience by eliminating the hassles that come with it, and integrate the unique benefits offered by online shopping,” says Jash Choraria, Founder, Unifynd, adding that the company was initially established as a big data analytics startup in the year 2015. However, when Anish Jain (Head of Product) and Jeevika Tyagi (Chief Marketing Officer) came on board in June 2017, they reinvented Unifynd, making it a company focused on building holistic, user-centric, technology products.

According to Choraria, Unifynd’s approach is very straightforward: How to blur the lines between offline and online experiences by embedding technology in physical retail? “We are enabling retailers to provide a holistic technology experience without making customers download a mobile application. The Indian shopper is evolving and takes certain comforts which the online retail boom has provided for granted. Our goal is to leverage those habits and deliver a superior customer experience alongside increasing engagement and sales for retailers,” he says.

FutureRetail.tech (FRT) is a cutting-edge suite of products taking care of aspects like customer-experience, loyalty and management products for retail enterprises. Choraria mentions that it is the outcome of two years of intensive research and development, and points out that FRT provides a seamless retail experience, harmoniously blending the online and offline retail with customer satisfaction at its core. It is a comprehensive, one-stop solution for all retail technology requirements.

FRT connects the shopping mall with the people who own and manage it, and with those who sell and shop in it. It gives mall owners and managers the knowledge and tools to serve their tenants and customers optimally, and in turn provide a superior experience for everyone involved. “FRT offers an insights-focused platform that connects the shopping mall with its stakeholders and uses data to improve itself over time. It helps mall management maximise asset value through data-driven targeting and marketing, creating a comprehensive customer preference database, decreasing operational costs and driving sales,” explains Choraria, adding that retailers can maximise store revenue by improved customer information, engagement, and communication. And thereby providing a superior online and offline shopping experience they can drive footfall and sales.

“We are retailing our suite of products from FutureRetail.tech to malls in India, with our first deployment, which went live in June 2019 at Phoenix Marketcity and Palladium, Chennai,” he informs. As of today, the company has six live custom technology development projects for clients in India and abroad. In India, the company works with West Coast Fine Foods (Cambay Tiger) and Argos Greens, to name a few. For both clients, Unifynd is building solutions to centralise data collection and augment it with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)-driven decision-making capabilities.

Innovation is key to the growth strategy. “FRT merges cutting edge software with intelligent hardware and integrates the tool into the customer’s experience cycle with a two-pronged strategy: eliminating the hassles of physical retail and providing the niche advantages of online shopping,” says Choraria, affirming that each retail destination is unique and with FRT, you can pick, choose and customise the modules, platforms, and hardware offerings to suit your business requirements.

FY 2019/20 is a big year for Unifynd with respect to realising the business and revenue targets. Plans are underway to have three live deployments of FRT across India, with two proposed deployments already in the pipeline. In addition, there are also plans on adding three new modules to the existing suite of offerings in the near future.