Lighting in hypermarkets has become much more functional than just highlighting your groceries and vegetables. Bringing the most extensive solutions on aisles, Philips India has got solutions as savvy as being GPS-enabled to lights that keep the vegetables fresher. Harsh Chitale, Vice Chairman and MD, Philips Lighting India Ltd, talks to Point-of-Purchase on the innovations in lighting.

Tell us about the hypermarkets you have worked with in India and what has been the response so far?
 
Philips Lighting is a market leader in the hypermarket and retail sector lighting in India and has been instrumental in driving the LED wave over the last three years. Some of the key customers include all major hypermarket chains and retail players in the food and large retail segment. It's good news for us that they are fast becoming aware of reduced carbon footprints.
 
Along with sustainability, we are offering tailor-made solutions for drawing attention to fast-moving, high-profit articles that is essential. For instance, accent lighting on the head of the gondolas can create dramatic effects for the products on display. By placing colour behind the product, additional attention can be created. While integrated LED shelf lighting can draw extra attention to smaller, but generally more expensive, items. Every detail of the product is exceptionally clear and an impression of a halo is created around it.
 
In this line of lighting, what does Philips offer to lower power consumption since it's a major issue worldwide?
 
Our LED solutions offer lower Total Cost of Ownership, durability, longer life and enhanced lighting experience as compared to conventional solutions. Our range StoreWise has made daylight harvesting possible while Dynalite range gets switched on only when it's required thus reducing the power consumption exponentially.
 
Whom do you see as your future clients in India?

We see a huge demand for energy efficient lighting among large format stores in the retail and hypermarket segment. We are hopeful to partner with all major retail and hypermarket chains in the country in the near future.  
 
Who are your global clients currently?

Some of our large global clients for our retail lighting solutions include major supermarkets and retailers such as Carrefour Santiago (Santiago de Compostela, Spain), Consum Supermarkets (Valencia, Spain), Food Lover's Market (Durban, South Africa) and Thalia Bookstores (Hagen, Germany) to name a few.  

Are you planning to bring any more innovations for hypermarket/retail arena? Please give us details.
 
Keeping in view our customer's evolving needs, we at Philips continuously innovate and introduce new products and services that can best serve our customers. Innovations done by Philips in LED lighting recipes can even help supermarkets reduce food waste by increasing the shelf life of fresh produce. Philips LED lighting can be used as a powerful, in-store sales tool, to enhance food presentation and can also help reduce food waste by emitting the right colour temperatures to slow down the discolouration of sliced meat.
 
The flexibility offered by LEDs can also support new store layouts and specific promotional events such as creating a particular relaxed and intimate ambience for a wine-tasting evening. As part of our power-efficient range, the StoreWise system can also sense core business hours to adjust itself automatically. Philips Indoor Positioning system allows shoppers to locate products with help of their smartphones.
 
Philips strongly believes that the supermarket/hypermarket chains in India are gradually moving towards LED lighting with controls like StoreWise and Indoor Positioning and will completely transform in the next 3 years. The end to end approach from Philips with a suite of services to support the customers across the lifecycle is a clear differentiation for Philips in the market.