IBM announced that Joyalukkas, India’s leading jewellery retailer, is collaborating with IBM Global Business Services (GBS) to design, develop and deploy a new cloud-native e-commerce platform across 11 countries including India, UAE, USA, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman.

Joyalukkas Jewellery, part of the Joyalukkas Group – a multi-billion-dollar global conglomerate – is one of the fastest growing jewellery chains globally, with 160 showrooms across 11 countries.

To navigate the constantly evolving nature of the jewellery business, from handling daily price fluctuations of precious metals and gemstones, to drawing insights from shopping patterns, the company was looking for a technology-driven solution that would enhance efficiencies, drive growth and boost resilience and adaptability.

To help fulfill this objective, IBM has developed a highly flexible and secure cloud enabled e-commerce platform for Joyalukkas, built on Adobe’s Magento Commerce. The company has also engaged with IBM iX, the business design arm of IBM GBS, to develop a clear roadmap for their digital journey.

By leveraging a design thinking methodology, Joyalukkas was able to define the core objective of its new digital strategy as well as identify and narrow down its target audience which includes millennials and gold investors.

These insights are enabling the company to tailor a uniquely personalized country-specific experience for each of their customers on the new platform. The platform has further been developed as Progressive Web Apps, which deliver a mobile native experience for customers, providing them further familiarity and ease of use as they browse on their mobile devices.

With the cloud-native architecture ensuring scalability and agility, the e-commerce platform will also integrate the company’s existing applications like ERP, CRM, inventory management system and others.

The platform will also enable Joyalukkas to automate their order and inventory management across their own site as well as on multiple online marketplaces where the company’s merchandise is sold– thus bringing in efficiency across channels.

These capabilities will be fulfilled by leveraging a host of application plug-ins from the Magento Marketplace to enable additional features using cloud-based APIs. IBM further custom-built a unique product configurator that will enable Joyalukkas to automate creation of stock keeping units (SKUs) for easier inventory management across their multiple marketplaces. Built to leverage data and analytics to drive an enhanced customer experience, the e-commerce platform will go live later this year.

Joy Alukkas, CMD, Joyalukkas Group said, “We wanted the best possible partner to reimagine our e-commerce platform hence we picked IBM for this initiative. Our brick & mortar stores are spread across many countries; however, a strong online presence will help us extend our reach to every nook & corner of the world. This initiative will further help us to fulfil our vision of ‘Ornamenting the World’.”

John Paul Alukkas, Managing Director- International Operations, Joyalukkas Group, added, “Our ambition is to provide a seamless, continuous consumer experience across any device or location a customer wishes to shop from, and we are collaborating with the best i.e., IBM to manage this expectation. To meet the extremely competitive retail environment and constantly evolving customer demands, Omnichannel retailing is a must and at Joyalukkas our mission is to offer the best-in-class Omnichannel shopping experience to our valued customers.”

Commenting on the collaboration, Kamal Singhani, Country Managing Partner – IBM Services, India/South Asia said, “Currently, companies in all industries, especially the gems and jewellery sector, operate in an experience-first world. It is crucial to not just have an online presence but have a comprehensive strategy that has digital and customer experience as pillars built on a strong foundation of technology like cloud and AI. Through this collaboration, we are proud to help Joyalukkas deliver an elevated and engaging digital experience for their customers while simultaneously enabling significant cost savings through streamlined market expansion and considerable operational time savings through automated inventory creation process.”

Accordingly to a recent EY report, India is one of the largest jewellery consumption markets in the world, with a share of approximately 29%; the gems and jewellery sector will likely grow by US$ 103.06 billion (INR 7.7 trillion) between 2019 and 2023.