Customer data science company dunnhumby to offer services to Indian cos

The company has been in India for ten years serving its multinational clients

London-based dunnhumby, fully owned by Tesco, will provide customer-centric services and data-driven solutions to Indian companies, mostly retailers. 

The London-based company currently already provides these services to its global clients such as Cadbury, Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, Danone, Diageo, GloxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg’s, L’Oréal and Unilever through its R&D centre in Gurugram.  It will use this Centre to now also provide services to Indian companies. 

The company has been in operation in India for ten years. When asked why it has taken so long for it to tap Indian companies, Guillaume Bacuvier, global CEO, dunnhumby said the company thinks that it is now at this stage that the Indian retail market space has reached the required maturity. 

He refused to divulge names of Indian companies that dunnhumby is in talk with, but said it will clinch the deal with a company next month.   

“It can be any international company with operations in India. It can also be any native Indian company,” he said.

On the recent gross domestic product (GDP) data which showed that domestic demand as reflected by the private consumption expenditure grew at a healthy 8.6 per cent in Q1FY19, up from 6.7 per cent in Q4FY18, he said Indian customers have come of age now. 

Companies such as those in grocery space require specific and personal customers data and solutions such as what kind of products are to be put in shelves in India, he said. 

dunnhumby has 450 people, mainly data scientist and engineers, at its R&D centre in Gurugram.