By Sreekumar Raghavan
Some time back I had written a column on how IT sector which is changing the face of Indian retail industry through innovative solutions was perhaps ignoring our local khiranas which ofcourse created a chain of events that ultimately led me to attend a major franchising event focussing on technology solutions for retail in Bangalore. It helped me get in touch with the real IT people who helped developed solutions for giant retail businesses as well as small ones.

Ofcourse, we have several examples of commodities sector leveraging the benefits of IT: eChoupal of ITC, the award-winning KISSAN project of Kerala Government which also used audio-visual technology to spread the awareness of modern farming practices and solutions and several others. In USA, IT has been leveraged by scrap jewellery buyers who use online facilities to buy precious metals from public who courier their products to be sold. The sector that has immensely benefited from advancement in IT solutions is shipping and logistics sector, aviation, oil and natural gas to name a few.

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The market regulator Forward Market Commission's effort to spread awareness about futures trading among small traders and farmers in interior mandis has also got to leverage information technology to bring futures prices and other data to the door steps of our active spot markets.

As I write this I read a news report about a online gardening sector player, Gardening Express of UK introducing world first truly dwarf patio buddleia, named Lo & Behold Buddleja Blue Chip and couriers the item to those who order online.Buddleja Blue Chip is the first in a new generation of the ever-popular buddleia butterfly bush, that is truly a dwarf, perpetually flowering and genuinely patio sized plant.The result of painstaking breeding in the U.S., the plant has undergone extensive trials, including with the RHS here in the UK, and has already proven itself as a unique world first, and looks to be a run away success..., the PR release went on.

I tried to find out the background of the company and this is what I got: Gardening Express was established in the late 1990's by Chris Bonnett, whilst still a teenager, after he decided it would be a fantastic idea to combine his passion of the great outdoors and plants with the Internet. Following past experience of plants purchased from other mail order companies, it was quickly decided that there was room for much improvement in the market; they never seemed to grow and we knew we could do much better, and so, Gardening Express was born.

Whilst studying for a degree at Writtle College, world-renowned in the world of horticulture, Chris painstakingly built up the business, until a full blown sucess had been created from the foundation years of hard work. In 2005, shortly after Chris graduated, the website was relauched, a large premises acquired, and ongoingly a nursery built and expanding number of staff recruited to keep pace with demand. Gradually through the continued dedication to quality, service and value for money, the business has become a force to be reckoned with in mail order Gardening, and is now one of the largest independent online Garden Centres in the UK.

This example again goes on to prove that anybody in commodities sector can leverage the technological advances in IT and web to further to create niche business areas and still grow. I believe, it will be mobile applications technology that will drive many innovative solutions that enable even fishermen out in the deep sea to take a strategic decision whether to go ahead or not with the catch. Something similar would be happening in our mandis as traders eagerly search the inbox for market sensitive information which some agency might be providing.

And you thought the techies will be content with writing programming codes or developing innovative solution packs just for every sector. In our Commodity Stocks section today you will find an item on an  IT solutions company in USA, called Exobox which has invested in 16 income producing oil and gas fields. According to the company it is intended that the cash flow and the net worth from assets will assist to further develop the Company's software products and technologies. Furthermore, it is intended that owning these Assets will assist the Company in developing sales channels in the energy industry for its software technologies. I am not sure whether there are very many examples of the Exobox, dealing in one core business and investing substantially in another sector to grow.