Indian retailers turn to HR tech to solve frontline scale challenge

India’s organised retail sector is increasingly converging on a singular idea: growth on the shop floor will depend as much on people systems as on technology, with HR emerging as a strategic lever rather than a back-office function.

That theme ran through the Retail HR Tech Summit 2026 hosted by the Retailers Association of India (RAI), where senior HR leaders from some of the country’s largest retailers discussed how workforce transformation is becoming central to retail scale and consistency.

As formats expand, consumer expectations rise and frontline roles grow more complex, retailers are leaning on HR technology not just to automate hiring or payroll, but to build capability, culture and leadership depth across thousands of stores.

“Retail has always been a people-first industry, and technology today is enabling us to be far more intentional about how we build those teams,” said Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO of the Retailers Association of India. At a time when scale and service consistency matter more than ever, he said, the ability to hire and nurture talent aligned to both capability and culture has become a strategic priority, adding that HR tech is now about “strengthening the human foundations of the industry”.

That balance between scale and human connection was echoed across by experts. In fact, in his keynote address, Neelmani Singh, group head, learning and head, Global Centre for Leadership (Gyanodaya) at the Aditya Birla Group , pointed to retail as a sector where technology and human capability intersect daily. HR tech, he said, must move beyond automation to augmentation, helping organisations build skills faster and create consistent employee experiences across formats and geographies. “In a people-intensive industry like retail, the real value of AI and digital platforms lies in how effectively they support learning, leadership development, and frontline empowerment,” Singh said.

What this really points to is a retail sector rethinking how it builds its workforce for the next phase of growth.

For large retailers operating at scale, the conversation has clearly moved from intuition-led people decisions to data-backed systems. G.R. Venkatesh, CHRO of Reliance Retail , said that as organisations grow, people decisions become systemic rather than instinctive. “Technology helps HR move from reacting to issues to anticipating them, whether that is frontline readiness, internal mobility, or leadership depth,” he said, adding that the key upskilling for HR leaders now lies in combining judgement with data discipline.

Several leaders highlighted how retail careers themselves are changing. Darshan Thakkar, VP and retail HR head at Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands, noted that retail talent is no longer linear, with careers stitched across roles, formats and skills. “HR leaders need technology not to automate people, but to design more fluid and responsive career pathways,” he said.

As technology reshapes operations, HR is increasingly being asked to ensure that scale does not come at the cost of engagement, capability or culture. Nandini Mehta, CHRO at Metro Brands , said strong cultures are enabled by systems and feedback loops, not chance. “HR technology helps create that consistency,” she said, adding that the real test for people leaders is using digital tools to reinforce values rather than dilute them.

For India's retailers, the future of competitiveness may well be defined not just by store counts or margins, but by how effectively they blend people-first thinking with tech-led execution.