Walmart to add more Indian vendors for faster IT innovation

United States retail giant Walmart is looking to grow its IT vendor base in India to help speed up technology innovation of the company and reduce costs.

The outsourcing push is part of Walmart's bid to keep pace with consumer habits as more of them shop online, and also to fend off competition from online retail heavyweights such as Amazon, the Hindu Business Line reported Thursday.

Walmart, which already works with domestic Indian companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and multinational corporations including IBM, Accenture and Cognizant, is evaluating more Indian vendors to carry out back office and technology-related projects, the report added.

In April last year, Walmart expanded its WalmartLabs R&D facility in Bangalore and hired 100 software developers. WalmartLabs, which creates social and mobile commerce products, is part of Walmart's global e-commerce business.

Walmart is not the only U.S.-based retailer making a greater push into India to help grow its online business. Earlier this week, Amazon recently met with the Indian government to persuade it to relax an e-commerce regulation forbidding online business-to-consumer (B2C) sites that are backed by foreign investment, from selling directly to local customers.