A Happy New Year to you all. It has indeed been a momentous end

of 2018 for us, with the successful conclusion of North India Retail

Awards (NIRA 2018) and South India Retail Awards (SIRA 2018)

in December. We want to thank all those who joined in creating

a powerful and collaborative atmosphere at both the events. We

hope you are already on your way to creating success stories from

the experiences shared at the event. For those who couldn’t make

it to NIRA and SIRA, our January issue of IMAGES Retail magazine

encapsulates the theme event.

We dedicate the fi rst edition of 2019 to Technology. As we know,

retail technology has been the greatest game-changer of all. Th e

technology footprint leading to decisive impacts in numerous

stages of retail such as enterprise system along with customerfacing

functionalities like payments, customer services and loyalty

programs has been a sure shot success formula for retailers. Th e

issue brings you an overview of the top tech innovations which

came into limelight in 2018 and were quite popular among the

brands/retailers. Th e feature also highlights analysis/views/

opinions from the CIOs and other retail experts from the industry.

We also bring you major technology trends to look out in 2019.

We also bring you a feature on the Who’s Who of the Indian

Retail Industry. Th e story will walk readers through what these

retail leaders are doing diff erently to stay ahead of the curve

and also focusing on the challenges faced, marketing and

Omnichannel strategies, and the expansion plans.

Shifting focus a little, as 2019 dawns, we are busy working

towards creating another success story – the 12th Edition of our

fl agship event, India Food Forum 2019 to be held on February 5-6

at Hotel Renaissance, Mumbai.

We hope that you will fi nd this edition of the year as insightful as

the rest and we hope to see you in large numbers at the India Food

Forum 2019.