Bharti may chuck brand Wal-Mart

The Wal-Mart brand may not come to India anytime soon. Bharti Retail...

The Wal-Mart brand may not come to India anytime soon. Bharti Retail, with which the US retail giant has tied up for its India entry, may not use the Walmart name for its front-end retail stores. Mike T Duke, vice chairman, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, dropped enough hints about it when he said: “three-fourths of our international business earnings are under 52 local brands across the globe. We want to be seen as local retailers serving the needs of the local people in an area.”

However, Rajan Bharti Mittal, managing director, Bharti Enterprises, said the final rollout plans of the retail and cash and carry stores would be made in April, and brand names for the retail and cash and carry stores would be announced then. Mittal did not confirm whether the stores would sport the Wal-Mart name. Sources say the forced closure of Reliance Retail in UP might have prompted Bharti to rework its branding strategy, and drop the Wal-Mart name to avoid any negative brand perception.

Duke said the international business division (catering to non-US markets) of Wal-Mart clocked a turnover of $90 billion in the fiscal year ended January 31. Duke also said Wal-Mart was expanding staffing with the help of India’s leading IT firms.

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PTI adds:Wal-Mart Stores would expand staffing of some elements of IT application maintenance and development with some of India’s leading information technology firms, the company said in a statement without naming the firms. “Today IT is truly a global business and as we deepen our relationship with India it only made sense that we take advantage of the 24-hour development cycle that India offers,” Duke added. India is one of several countries that the company is targeting as part of its remote sourcing model for IT activities, it said.

The global expansion would encompass projects that rangefrom the tactical to the strategic in order to provide necessary support for the company’s growing business around the globe, the statement said. “By leveraging global talent and ‘following the sun’ to take advantage of every hour of the day, we can deliver IT solutions to Wal-Mart’s global businesses more quickly and efficiently,” Wal-Mart executive vice president and chief Information officer Rollin Ford said.