More than 50 percent of Indian retail companies will be operating on Artificial Intelligence (AI) by 2020, revealed a survey by PeopleStrong, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) HR technology and solutions company.

The survey showed that nearly 60 percent of Indian retail companies have replaced legacy systems and started storing their Human Resource (HR) data on cloud.

Presently, only 24.49 percent spend more than $10 per employee and another 45 percent of these organisations' report $5-$10 spends which is bound to increase soon as their legacy systems move to cloud-based transformative technology.

"There is a tremendous potential for this number to see a hike in the coming months. We are already seeing the change in the mindset of CHROs for adopting new age HR Technology solutions shifting away from Traditional ERPs," Prakash Rao, Founding Member and VP, HCM, PeopleStrong, said in a statement.

However, the biggest challenge that stands in the way of this adoption is disjointed technology and systems within retail enterprises, Rao said.

According to the survey, over 53 percent of chief human resources officer's (CHRO) representing over 500 plus retail enterprises in India believe that their HR verticals are still six quarters away from embracing AI in their day-to-day work.

Nearly 60 percent of CHRO's blamed it on the absence of seamless flow of data between different HR functions.

However, the survey conducted on 1,200 retail companies to understand their HR functions, highlighted that the Indian organisations are expected to bridge this gap by 2020.

First Published:Sept 5, 2018 5:31 AM IST