Do you believe in disrupting existing technology? Lowe’s does!

To compete with online rivals such as Amazon, US home improvement retailer Lowe's is doubling down on Indian talent for disruptive technology solutions as part of its omni-channel strategy.

The US company has closely worked for several years with Indian outsourcing giants such as Infosys and Wipro for back-office solutions.

After about 12 months of establishing its first global in-house centre (GIC) in India, Lowe's is working to expand its operations in the country by hiring more people, transferring more technology projects to the Bengaluru GIC.

Lowe’s chief information officer Paul D Ramsay said the company is looking to leverage the startup ecosystem through a brand new corporate accelerator programme that will be part of a larger innovation centre that Lowe's will launch in Bengaluru later this year.

He told ET: "We have a commitment to innovation. We have an innovation lab concept through which we look at the startup community. We also look at some of the bigger companies as well from an innovation perspective — so yes, our innovation play is part of our solution."

"We started off with 11 employees here (in Bengaluru). In about 12 months, we are now over 300 employees. And that will be over 500 employees by the end of this year, and with further growth to come as we progress. It's a growth story," he said.

Ramsay and his team at Lowe's has already met dozens of Indian startups that the company may look to tap for new-age disruptive solutions. He declined to comment on whether Lowe's had started working with any of these startups.

"Every time I come here, I spend time with the startup community," said Ramsay. "Part of the reason we're here is because of the entrepreneurial, technology capability we see here. This is a happening place. And we absolutely want to be part of that."

Lowe's, which competes with larger US rival Home Depot and generates a majority of its revenues through sales from its offline stores, wants to increase the proportion of revenues it gets from online sales and is looking to leverage Bengaluru's startup culture and abundance of engineering talent to fuel the strategy.

(Image: Indiatimes)