Retail Suite.Global

2024: Product Coming to Market

In the 2nd quarter of 2024, the developer of standard software solutions for retail, logistics and e-commerce "Flight" plans to start selling a new import-independent ERP solution - Retail Suite.Global, the company told TAdviser in early February. It was created as a competitor to complex products of large Western vendors, such as SAP S/4 HANA Retail, Oracle Retail Merchandise Operations Management, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce, and is designed to digitalize the work of medium and large retail enterprises.

In total, the development of a comprehensive solution from R&D and setting requirements to the release of the product took more than 3 years. For its refinement, a grant RFRIT of 99.94 million was received. rubles The total cost of the project to create Retail Suite.Global exceeds the amount of the grant.

Thanks to the RFRIT grant, we were able to hire additional highly qualified personnel and accelerate the release of the product the market needs for 1.5 years. Several teams were organized to develop a comprehensive solution in parallel, TAdviser said in Flight.

As of February, measures are underway to prepare for the release of the product on the market - submission of reports on the project, entry into the register of Russian software, etc.

Retail Suite.Global has a modular architecture. The system consists of several related modules to automate key retail processes within a single information space. Retail Suite.Global's functionality includes retail enterprise resource management, operational accounting and operational support in terms of commodity movement management, pricing, purchasing, sales, categorical management, store shelf space using analytics and ML-AI models in supporting business processes.

Information from the site "Flight"

Polet claims that, as in the advanced solutions of large Western vendors, Retail Suite.Global ML/AI algorithms allow you to automate huge packages of repetitive tasks, transfer the load from person to machine and support the user in making decisions. Also, all control loops use a single data store built according to the principles of Big Data.

Among retailers, a request was formed for ERP systems of a new generation. ML/AI procedures allow you to achieve cross-functional process optimization, which allows you to further reduce costs and make additional profit. With the exception of several of the largest retail chains in Russia, most domestic retailers are deprived of the opportunity to massively introduce and develop promising ML/AI technologies. Self-development of solutions of this class is quite expensive, labor costs and requires appropriate competencies, the company told TAdviser.

Retail Suite.Global has ready-made ML models trained on retail data and widely implemented in business processes.

In the description of the project for the development of Retail Suite.Global on the RFRIT website, one of the key results of the project is the possibility of curbing price increases for the population by applying an AI solution in medium-sized retail chains as an element of competition with top retailers in order to minimize costs and increase management efficiency.

Narrowing the technological gap and greater flexibility in management compared to federal retailers will help mid-size retailers reduce costs more efficiently, better understand the needs of their customers, better target the range and prices of their buyer, more accurately plan promos and respond faster to new market challenges. Together, this will strengthen opportunities for competition with federal retailers and will have the effect of containing prices for the population, they say in "Flight."

Among the clients of Polet, who at different times implemented its solutions, according to the company's website, Magnit, Gazprom Torgservice, VkusVill, Agrocomplex, Magnolia, Tervolina, Spar, the Verny supermarket network, Yves Rocher, Vladkhleb and many others. According to the developers, several large customers of the company have already expressed a desire to implement a new comprehensive ERP and are ready to be pilot customers.

In addition to Russia, the company sees Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as promising markets for sales of Retail Suite.Global. For their retailers, the solution will be available with localization at the level of legal requirements, operational management, integration with local financial/accounting systems and government services.

I must say that the co-owners of Polet are the founders of a number of IT companies. One of them is Astor, whose website also presents products under the Retail Suite brand. Polet explained to TAdviser that their company is engaged in the development, development and support of software for automation of retail trade and is the copyright holder of the Retail Suite trademark (abbr. RS.). And Astor is one of more than 30 partners of Polet, a system integrator engaged in the equipment and implementation of IT projects of various complexity, using software manufactured by Polet, as well as solutions from other manufacturers.

Astor is not the developer and copyright holder of Retail Suite products, but has the right to use this trademark and is engaged in the promotion of Polet software, like other partners of the company.

Software products of LLC Polet, presented under the general umbrella brand Retail Suite on the websites of LLC Polet and LLC Astor, are solutions of the previous generation of software products and the property of LLC Polet. They have been developed and sold for a long time, and information about them is posted both on the website of Astor and on the website of their developer, Polet, the company told TAdviser.

As part of the grant, RFRIT "Flight" developed a new generation software product - Retail Suite.Global. The new digital platform and its modules are released under a new name - Retail Suite.Global and are a completely new software product, the developers say.

The key differences from previous software products in "Flight" are called:

• Compatibility with domestic and import-independent OS and DBMS;
• A new operational unit with functionality that meets the requirements of retailers of all formats and sizes;
• New, developed "from scratch" ML models;
• Big Data-based analytics integrated and incorporated into business processes;
• End-to-end business processes based on BPM techniques and technology using ML model data and enriched with interactive technologies (chats, mobile applications, etc.).

At the same time, the Astor website also presents solutions of Retail Suite.Loyalty Bigdata & AI and Retail Suite.Analytics SCM. They also contain ML/AI technologies and are developed by "Flight" outside the framework of the RFRIT grant. The functionality of the loyalty and supply chain subsystems was not part of the project. These software solutions use completely different ML models than the Retail Suite.Global project.

With the participation of grant funds, ERP modules, a store shelf space management module, a module for collecting and storing analytics and ML models for control loops were developed. In parallel, we invested our own funds in the development of new modules that will connect to the Retail Suite.Global. In 2023, a module was developed for personalized customer loyalty management based on ML/AI technologies. In 2024, the following will be released: supply chain management system (SCM), transport logistics management (TMS), warehouse (WMS) - the developers told TAdviser.