Intel’s EMPG (Emerging Markets Platforms Group) looking for scope of business in the evolving market in developing countries wanted to take the small-scale retail (kirana stores) section to a higher frequency of technology, bring in changes to the traditional buying/selling patterns, improve convenience for everyone in the eco-system and effectively raise this section to a competitive platform with the supermarkets.

In this project, that Intel called HFR (High Frequency Retail), my job was to conceptualise the way to go, conduct an extensive research in different cities, work closely with a team from HFI (Human Factors International, Bangalore) and develop concepts of platform(s) that would run on the Intel dual-core/quad-core chip, build prototypes, and facilitate in achieving the goal of the business plan.

For Intel it was business, but for me as a designer, it was a bridge between user-convenience and business. I had to achieve both to call it a success.

The research with the HFI team itself was great learning for me. With an efficient process of extracting useful data from varied information developed by HFI, we managed to tabulate the pain-points, needs and wants of the consumer, retailer, distributor, wholesaler and the manufacturer. Optimising these results, we came up with device-platform concepts that would facilitate such scenarios in functioning in the desired manner. The final concepts evolved after several stages of conceptualisation, strict scrutiny and user-validation on site, followed by market survey to assess price sensitivity and final prototyping.