Lenta Tech

As of May 2025, the Lenta Tech team employs more than 1000 experts.

2025: Bringing Proprietary IT Products and Services to the Foreign Market

As TAdviser found out, Lenta, the largest hypermarket chain in Russia and the fourth largest grocery retailer in the country by revenue, is exploring the possibilities of developing the sales of its own IT products, as well as IT services. This follows from the request for proposals for the development of a strategy for selling IT products to the external market, which the company placed on August 19.

From the documentation for the request, which TAdviser got acquainted with, it follows that the company requires services for conducting research on internal business processes, a target business audience, analyzing the market for targeted IT solutions in the retail segment and consulting, aimed at justifying and developing a model for commercializing internal IT products, services and solutions of the Lenta Tech insider IT division in the foreign retail market in Russia.

The purpose of these services is to obtain analytical data, design artifacts and consulting support. Lenta needs them to commercialize internal IT solutions, services and services in the foreign retail market without reducing the quality and efficiency of the services provided for the group's internal customers and forming a target portfolio of services/products/services, as indicated in the terms of reference for the request for proposals.

Lenta will have to choose a business model to form the most competitive positioning in the market. Possible model options are product, product and service, service. A roadmap for entering the foreign market is also to be developed.

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Фото: Official Telegram channel Lenta Tech

One of the goals in the terms of reference is the formation of Lenta Tech positioning "as a market IT company providing services/products/services to other retail market participants on a commercial basis in order to separate from competitors." Earlier in an interview with TAdviser, Lenta's Director of Digital Innovation and IT Sergei Sergeyev noted that retailers are all very similar, and differentiation is needed - this is the value for the company.

Explaining TAdviser, in connection with which Lenta decided to develop its own IT-Business focused on the foreign market right now, the company said that it had implemented high-quality products for internal customers, and the results provided significant economic effects for the business. So, for example, by introducing a service for remote acceptance of fresh vegetables and fruits, Lenta reduces write-offs by 3-4% per year, which in absolute terms is a "colossal amount."

Not all companies can afford to go into a long project cycle of custom development with a large budget, so we are ready to provide services and offer our subscription solutions, helping companies receive benefits and recoup costs faster, "said Lenta.

The Lenta Tech website lists 7 products as of August 2025:

• Primo RPA is a platform for robotizing business processes. Lenta Tech said that in addition to Lenta itself, this product is used by VTB, Gazprom Neft, Alrosa, MMK and a number of other companies;
• Geo Portal - a platform for analyzing locations and competitors for opening new stores;
• EDM Hub - a solution for automation and unification of electronic document management processes;
• Bird is an analytical tool for assessing consumer preferences;
• Deli - analytical tool of category managers for effective management of the assortment matrix;
• GisMark is a marked goods solution. Declared as relevant for retailers in countries where mandatory state labeling of products is carried out;
• "Acceptance of fresh vegetables and fruits" is a mobile application for automating the acceptance of fresh products at the distribution center with a complete translation of the acceptance process into digital format.

At the same time, the aforementioned Primo PRA solution was developed not by Lenta, but by the company of the same name, Primo RPA. Lenta clarified to TAdviser that their company does not sell this product, but sells expertise in robotizing business processes: this is a custom development format based on the vendor's platform. Lenta itself has more than 60 of its own robots inside that help optimize routine processes, and the company is ready to share this expertise with the market.

All other current products on the Lenta Tech website are in-house development. Some of them were made on the basis of vendor solutions, but adapted to the needs of the business. At the same time, not all solutions presented on the site will be included in the target portfolio. When positioning, Lenta focuses on the needs of the business and will create a portfolio around the processes of commerce, logistics and formats.

The company believes that Big Data solutions such as Deli, Bird, Geo Portal have the greatest prospects in the foreign market due to the fact that "there are either no analogues of such products on the market or there are very few of them," and they see the potential for their sales not only in the food retail segment and FMCG, but also in related industries.

According to the Lenta Tech website, in addition to products, the company already offers services for their implementation and integration. And in fact, Lenta has already begun selling products and services to external customers.

We already have the first contracts, while we plan to enter the active sales phase from the beginning of 2026. Now preparatory work is underway to analyze the market, develop a value proposition and positioning, form a portfolio and strategy, "TAdviser said in Lenta.

It is worth noting that retail, especially large, is traditionally one of the leading industries in terms of digitalization. As a rule, large companies in this segment have strong internal competencies in the field of IT solutions development, creating and developing many necessary IT products to automate business processes for themselves instead of purchasing them from vendors.

At the same time, the development in the foreign market of sales of IT products developed within the company is still difficult to call a mass history in this industry. However, there are already examples. So, for example, in 2024, Yandex Lavka launched a direction to sell its own technologies to network retailers. We are talking about solutions that are designed to help businesses start assembling and delivering goods or improve their existing ones.

2024: Development of Lenta Tech IT brand

To achieve the set goals in the field of digitalization and import substitution of IT, Lenta needs to create a recognizable IT brand Lenta Tech on the market. Denis Korovin, Operations Director of Lenta IT, spoke about this at the TAdviser SummIT conference in November 2024. Its own IT brand would allow attracting the most talented employees to the company. The Lenta Tech symbol is an orange cat named "Ugh."

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Фото: Lenta Tech Website

During 2024, the company worked to combine under this single brand the most technologically advanced teams working within Lenta through IT, big data and online. And in 2025 it is planned to popularize the Lenta Tech brand.

See also

Digitalization and Robots in Tape