What are the career opportunities in the retail sector?

Retailing is a people-intensive business. The growth of retailing, though in the current times may be challenging, is still expected to be positive according to industry experts. The online business of the food and grocery category has grown over 300 per cent in the recent months and organisations such as BigBasket does not offer delivery slots to customers for over two days after placing of orders consequent to the sudden surge in demand. The brick and mortar retail sector is expected to make a rapid come back from its set back. This last mile activity in the supply chain in any product sales-related business activity is bound to flourish in some form or the other according to industry experts. The instance that industry experts cite is that of Avenue Supermart’s (D-Mart’s) emergence and its best performance in the stock market. Also, the extent of growth in the online grocery business is slated to increase with a four-fold jump in the number of new users post the tough lockdown period. People are now used to ordering online even in Tier-II towns.

The gap between manpower demand & supply: Now let us look at some data published earlier. Manpower in modern retailing in India makes an interesting analysis. Estimates published by the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship in their Annual Report 2018-19 show that Indian organised retail sector would employ around 5.6 crore people by 2022, which renders an incremental requirement of 1.07 crore of direct retail manpower. And many more are to be engaged indirectly to add value to the retail sector. Thus, the retail sector comes second only to agriculture in direct manpower employment. Attrition in this sector is high too as growth happens with both organic expansion and acquisitions as well. Reliance Retail and Future Group who are the biggest Indian retailers are known for big acquisitions in the sector. While Reliance Retail acquired the British Retailer Hamley’s and domestic companies such as Fynd.com and Shri Kannan Department Stores, the Future Group acquired Easy Day, Nilgri’s, Heritage, etc. The global big names also treaded the acquisition route. Amazon made investments in Aditya Birla Retail’s More stores and Walmart acquired the Bengaluru-based Flipkart.

This sort of growth and expansion results in the creation of new retail jobs in India. The rank and file of retail organisations would constitute almost 70% and the balance jobs are supervisory, managerial and leadership positions. While no big qualifications save relevant experience would only count for the rank and file front-end jobs, one needs function-specific qualifications for the higher positions. Currently, there is a big gap between manpower demand and supply in key retail functions such as Store Operations, Buying & Merchandising, Visual Merchandising, Retail Finance & Accounts, Retail Human Resource Management, Retail Supply Chain Management, Retail Marketing & Brand Management, Omni-Channel & Ecommerce Management, Retail Systems and Information Technology. And now demand is more than supply.

The unique nature of retail jobs: The nature of retail jobs is unique. For example, a merchandising manager has to exercise the dexterity of mapping customer needs with a merchandise-mix plan to fulfill the forecast demand. On the other hand, the retail buyer’s key role would be to source the planned merchandise from the right vendors at the right cost. Further, both the merchandiser and the buyer would together help serve customers with the right product, at the right price, at the right time and in the right quantities. The front-end store management personnel would focus on operating the store efficiently to serve and satisfy customers through a team of people. In online retailing too, the roles are quite similar to the functions of the brick and mortar retail business. Here the e-commerce portal replaces the store and there’s an integrated technology-supported platform that holds the merchandise mix. Timely last mile customer deliveries play a key role in determining the success of the business and creating customer stickiness.

Need for Industry Allied Retail Education: There is a direct need of bridge-skill gaps and to educate people in the functional areas of retailing. Changed methodologies of practical learning have to be introduced in higher educational institutions to foster learning attitudes better. Special courses that may have online access to learning digitally along with providing an opportunity to relate those inputs to practical experience, would not only stand learners in good stead but also make a big difference to the retail sector’s manpower in India, as a whole. Worthy of mention here is retailvarisity, which is an e-learning portal dedicated to functional retail courses at all levels.

To recapitulate in conclusion, manpower in retailing would play an important role in the growth of retail organisations in India. Various key functions are found to be in demand. The typical roles in retailing are unique to the sector and hence winning careers are available at an arm’s length. The need of the hour is to use changed methodologies to include online learning with exposure to practical interventions as well in addition to academic reading. The Indian retail sector is all set to grow by leaps and bounds and it throws open various avenues for people to be engaged with it and grow.

About the Author:

Dr Gibson Vedamani is an author and a retail industry consultant based in Mumbai. He was the founding CEO of Retailers Association of India. At present, he is serving as the Founder & CEO, Retail Solutions & Learning Technologies LLP.

 

 

 

 

Note: The views expressed in this article are solely author’s own and do not reflect/represent those of Shiksha