STP IN RETAILING

It was 10:30 am in the morning. I met Sarika who had already reached office. She then introduced me to Sandeep, the manager of the store. He was a tall, thin and a fair looking man, with curly hairs and tired eyes. Looking at him one would feel like he has not slept for many days. Sandeep was a very gentle person and good by heart. He was also very helpful in nature and fond by all the staffs. Gradually as time passed we both became good friends.

As decided I had called a meeting of all the department managers from my team.
“Good morning friends, so what is your plan of action for the day?”
“I have to check with the warehouse team if all the stocks which had arrived yesterday have been in-warded or not”, said Shanti, her ear rings shimmering due to the lights falling on them from the spot lights above. She was the department manager for the ladies section. She was a cute, fair little short lady, nattily dressed, and an epicurean.She used to only concentrate on her department issues and not beleaguer in any other activities not concerned to her department. She was also very particular about time.
“I have called all my staffs in the first shift as we need to re-arrange the complete section of men’s accessories and men’s casual-wear, said Rajesh, another department manager from the men’s department. Rajesh was a fair guy, with a sturdy built, broad shouldered and having curly rough hair. He was a very aggressive and short tempered person and used to often end up in arguments.
“I will be taking a meeting with my team as to how to achieve this week’s target”, said Nilesh.
Rajesh sarcastically looked at him at laughed loudly.
“What is there to laugh in that?” confronted Nilesh.
“Now please don’t start it again”, Ashfaque intruded, sitting in one corner of the room.
Rajesh had this habit to rile Nilesh and tease him, especially because of the way he dressed and for taking long meetings to achieve targets, which used to not be achieved.
“ I will have to check how many jhablas (infant tops) have we received yesterday, as we are out of stock on the same”, said Aparna, a tall authoritative lady, with a slightly fair complexion skin, wearing a beautiful pink, fully embroidered luknowi pyjama kurta.(ladies ethnic top-wear and bottom-wear) She used to carry an all time smiling face. She was also in charge of the kids department along with Ashfaque.

After listening to all of them I said, “During my observation on the shop floor I have realised that a standard store check-list is not being followed. There was no specific work flow that the department managers and the team were following. No one also knew their job role in detail. I shall prepare one and give it to you all. I shall also give all of you your key responsibilities so as you are aware of your job role. This will help you do your job more systematically and efficiently.” Everybody gave a very quizzical expression.
“Ok, now tell me how many of you all aware of the S-T-P of Marketing. Most of you are from the B-schools and so should be aware of it.”
“Segmentation…..hmmm….P is for Positioning and T stands for… hmm..” replied Aparna with a low tone, with her finger on her lips, her eye balls looking up and forehead slightly lifted upwards, an expression showing her trying to recollect the words. “Targeting” replied Nilesh promptly.
“Great” I replied. “Are you all sure that all the products displayed in your section is placed in the right section. Can we use the concept of S-T-P to display our merchandise inside the store?”
There was not a single sound in the room. All started looking at each other, waiting for someone to reply. I explained to them assortment plan in merchandising, its importance within the store and how it can be related to S-T-P.
As I stood up I told them, “Today, first thing in the morning we will only concentrate on setting up the departments as per S-T-P. Any question?”
All of them stood up and got ready start up with the work assigned. As they moved out of the room I could hear them mutter to each other, the voices gradually fading away.

A typical retail store is segmented either as a lifestyle or a value format and the store is positioned accordingly after targeting the right audience. Every retail store may further be segmented within into various verticals, and these verticals are further segmented into departments and sections. Now onceOnce the concept of store format is clear one needs to clearly understand the departments, products and their assortment hierarchy within a store. Understanding product assortmenthierarchy (product mix) is very essential as it helps one to display the products in the right manner and easier to assist a customer buy a product. It also helps one to plan the layout of the store very systematically.
Many retail organisationstores have large number of brands and products within the verticals, like Apparels, FMCG and General Merchandise and are termed as product lines. Apparels which is referred to as Product Line. They offerconsist of shirts, trousers, t-shirts and other products. Therefore, it can be concluded that these stores have a wide product line with different products (shirts, trousers, t-shirts). These various options that are provided are termed as product width. The shirts within the apparel section are further in differentiated by styles, sizes and colours which are termed as the product depth. Therefore, it can be concluded that they have a wide product line with different product lines (shirts, trousers, t-shirts). Product line depth indicates how many product variants are there under each brand/ product line.

· In a retail store the various departments and sections are the segmentation of the entire store done as per customer type
· and the placement of merchandise on the various fixtures based on the layout inside the store are positioning of the merchandise
· and the product width and depth available is again for targeting the various types of customers inside the store.

Nilesh and Rajesh divided the team into two in the men’s department. Nilesh took care of the men’s formal wear while Rajesh took care of the men’s casual wear and essentials. They both had a tough time arranging the products as per hierarchy within the sections. Ashfaque took care of the boys wear while Aparna took care of the girls wear and infants section in the kids department. They too were having a tough time in displaying the products. Shanti and her team did not have much problem as her department was almost as per the product assortment plan. It took them almost a week to set up their sections. It was a hectic activity as they had to identify the stocks as per the product hierarchy, properly merchandise the stocks, identify the soiled and damaged goods, remove excess stocks from the fixtures, re-pack opened products, and so on. From that day onwards they decided to take care of their sections assigned to them and to maintain it religiously.

CONT'D...

The next day I reached the store at 10am. I made sure I come early.
The way to the staff entrance was from behind the store. I literally had to jump over trashes thrown here and there. There was an entrance to the store from behind, where I noticed a security guard. When I enquired him where the staff entrance is he pointed me towards a spiral staircase made of iron taking to one level above the ground floor.
“So every day I shall have to climb these steps to get inside the store”.
I climbed the stairs with great difficulty and entered in. I noticed another security guard sitting here. There were many registers piled up on the table, with lots and lots of dog’s ears on them. He told me to enter my name, date and sign in one of the columns. I did as told and went inside. As I entered to my right side there was a small opening aisle and few small cabins were situated. Just adjacent to this aisle was a door which takes you to the shop floor. It was around 10 am and I could see that only few staffs had arrived. As Sarika had also not arrived I thought of taking a round of the entire store
The back- office was a partition made at one end of the store on the first floor. As I came out of the office I noticed huge fixtures made of slotted angles aligned in single long rows. The men’s section was located here. I could notice all the merchandise either stacked or racked randomly. All the employees had a uniform, a bright yellow shirt with the Big Bazaar logo on the right side pocket and dark navy trousers. An identity card placed on a lanyard worn around the neck could be seen tucked inside the pocket. “Why were they hiding their ID”? I noticed one of the employees in a civil dress. He was formally dressed up with a tie. He had a very strange dressing sense. Imagine wearing a blue shirt and brown trousers. I realised he was an employee as he too had an ID.
“Sir, are you in charge over here”?
“Well, yes I am the department manager, how can I help you?”
“Well, my name is Chinmayaprasad and I have joined today itself, so can you help me with the layout of the store and introduce me to all the staffs around”.
Those days there was no formal induction or orientation programs conducted for newly joined employees.
“Oh, I see, we had heard about you joining over here. Hi, my name is Nilesh; can we start with the men’s department sir?”
“Yup, it’s ok with me.”
We entered the men’s casual section. All the casual shirts were displayed in one end of the section and all the casual trousers were displayed in the other end. I noticed three staffs trying to arrange the merchandise that were left randomly by the customers who had just left the place. I approached one of the lady staffs. She had a wheatish complexion, thin in stature, and had a nose ring pierced. Her hair was loosely tied with a black ribbon, resembling a pony tail. Her eyes were lovely, with plain black pupils through whom I could notice my face and the back drop of the floor. She had applied ‘kajal’ (a type of eye-liner) in her eye-lids, and she had a well formed eye brows.
“Hi, are you assigned to this section?” I asked her.
She just nodded her head.
“Do you take care of the entire section?”
“Oh! No. She is from the men’s formal section” immediately replied Nilesh, the department manager.
“Then why is she in this section?” was my immediate next question.
“She is covering this section also, as in the morning shift all the staffs do not come, and of course she is well versed with this section also.” replied Nilesh proudly.
As I was asking these questions I noticed that the other staffs were feeling very uncomfortable.
In one corner of the section one staff was seen busy removing the plastic package from the merchandise lying in the carton besides him. He noticed me and stood up.
“Good morning Sir”.
“Very good morning to you”
“What are you doing?”
“New stocks have arrived, and so I have to display them quickly. We are told to remove the plastics before displaying the new stocks.”
When I looked around at all the plastics lying around on the floor he quickly replied, “the housekeeping staffs will clear them.” He then looked towards the entrance to the wash room and yelled, “Hey, housekeeping”.
At once I could feel the goose bumps all over my body. I had never experienced such a thing before in my entire career. I somehow felt that something was wrong somewhere.
We then entered the kids department at the other end of the men’s department. This department was in a complete mess. The stocks were displayed in such a manner that it would obviously be difficult for customers to pick the required merchandise from the racks. All the merchandise was over stacked. The look of the department itself showed that the merchandise were just displayed without proper themes in place and most of the stocks were either damaged or soiled due to this. I could notice signage not in place, some dropped from where it was placed, and some were just lying on the floor. There were also many empty hangers lying either on the racks or on the floor. The space between fixtures was also not as per the retail standards, due to space constraint or due to excess stocks which have made way to more fixtures within the department. Overall the department was also looking very congested.
“Sir, I am short of staffs in my department, hence finding it difficult to manage the department. In the morning shift I only have two staffs” said Ashfaque pointing out to two of his lady staffs.
Ashfaque was a tall, thin guy in his early twenties and was the assistant department manager in the kids department. During the next few weeks I noticed that he was very good in analysing the sales reports, and had a good rapport with the buyers in the head office. His people management skill was also good among his team.
The ladies department was to the other side of the floor. I thanked Nilesh for taking me around on the floor.

The store was divided at two levels. The FMCG section at Food Bazaar and general merchandise section of Big Bazaar were at the ground floor while the apparels section was at the first floor. To the right side of the main entrance of the store the customer service desk was situated. The house hold and home appliances department was situated just opposite the stretch of cash counters lined up in front of the store entrance. I had a strong doubt whether the air conditioning system was working or not. It was very stuffy and humid inside the store. Some of the spot lights were also not working.

“Am I gonna work at this place? It is such an unorganized store. Why is it so dirty?” The entire store for me just resembled a huge warehouse. The fixtures were very old, not aligned and placed properly, the merchandise were looking very old or soiled and all just dumped as and wherever place was available. I just could not understand anything, even if I tried to work out, as far as the lay out of the store is concerned. Those days Big Bazaar used to have lots of external suppliers’ surplus assorted stocks and hence due to this the merchandising of stocks within the store was a mess. Gradually the merchandise mix, the quality of stocks and buying of stocks by the buyers in the category team improved and also gave way to introduction of private labels. As I was responsible for the apparels section in this store I knew I will have to put in lot of effort. I had decided I shall take each assignment one by one, starting from setting up the departments and sections.

What I noticed is that most of the staffs were fresher or were not at all trained in basics in retailing. I immediately decided that I need to meet up with all the management team of the store and discuss with them my experience inside the store.

Big Bazaar was a value format store where the focus was on volume sales. “Is Se Sasta Aur Acha Kahin Nahin” was the tag line of the store, in Hindi, the national language of India, which meant you won’t find anything cheaper and better elsewhere.

CONT'D...

What is the day to day activity that generates inside a retail store apart from selling? Many assume inside a retail store you only need to sell merchandise to a customer who enters your store. Is there anything more into it? If yes what is it? Sometimes I feel it’s suspense to a layman and I need to open this Pandora’s Box to them. There are many things that a person needs to know and understand about retail store operations. If you’ll open the box you will find inside it various activities like selling, customer service, warehousing, systems, sop’s, security, merchandising, layouts, stock take, cashiering, stock planning, placing fixtures, human resources functioning, report generation, schemes, events, housekeeping, target planning, end of season sale, buying, negotiating, servicing, managing people, the list is endless. Imagine so many activities under one roof. This it-self makes operation more interesting. Let’s take every aspect one by one to understand each activity more clearly.

One needs to first and foremost understand the format of the store, whether it’s a lifestyle format or a value format. In a lifestyle format to ensure quality service the ambience within the store is very pleasant, all the merchandise is well placed, and quality of merchandise is maintained, availability is not in abundance, the visuals are very specific to the concept of merchandise, the sales associates are provided with the skills required to assist customers, infrastructure within the store is beautiful. To maintain these service standards the price of merchandise available here is high. Discounts are not available at such stores often, except during an end of season sale or clearance sale. All departmental stores are lifestyle formats. Compared to this a value format store is similar to a supermarket where the ambience is similar to a market. Here the availability of merchandise is in abundant and at all times they are either put on discounts or some offer or scheme is available. Hence service provided is compromised. The infrastructure is very simple and not similar to the one within a lifestyle format. Personal customer assistance is not ensured, merchandise displayed will not be very expensive and of high range quality. Basically value formats target volume business and for the mass.

I had received an interview call from Pantaloons. Their corporate office is situated in Jogeshwari, near Majas bus depot. It was situated in an area surrounded with lots of huge trees. Those days it was termed The Knowledge House. It is a huge building with glass façade facing the entrance. As you enter the office the reception counter is situated just in front. To its right at one corner is a very beautiful idol of Lord Ganesh, neatly seated and well decorated. Near to it was the seating lounge. All around on the walls were various inspirational quotes, the vision and mission of the company neatly and colourfully displayed. The receptionist directed me to the first floor where I was to meet Rakesh Biyani and Nikhil. RB was one of the directors of Pantaloons and also was a cousin of Kishore Biyani. Compared to KB he was very fair in complexion and soft spoken. Nikhil was a short man with an average height, a bit stout and carrying a French beard. My interview went fine. They gave me an option to either join Pantaloons in Ahmedabad or Big Bazaar at Lower Parel situated in south Mumbai. I preferred to be in Mumbai as I was not keen to go to Ahmedabad.
My joining date was 15th August, the day India got its independence, the day observed as a national holiday, and celebrated in full swing, each citizen bringing out his patriotism to his country in full swing. I had to report at Big Bazaar-Lower Parel at 10 am in the morning.. Being a public holiday the store was completely jam packed with customers. I had no clue as to what was happening inside the store. It was a huge mall constructed on a plot where a mill used to operate earlier. Since the inception of this mall the area around thrived. More small shops and stores came into being, and gradually the entire complex was named High Street Phoenix, named after the mill. It is one of the well known malls in Mumbai. The store is approximately sixty thousand square feet in area and boasts of offering everything that a consumer needs under one roof. There was a huge rush inside the store. I had never in my life seen such a crowded store. I could literally see customers pushing each other to get in one of the sections. All the shopping trolleys were full with merchandise and were being pushed by the customers towards the cash counters. There were long queue in front of every cash counter. I could hear the loud announcements of offers and staff announcements coming out of every speaker at regular intervals. At every corner on the floor, and below every fixture that my eyes could take I could see merchandises dropped, getting either damaged or soiled. Even if I wished to, I could not do anything to save these merchandise. There was utter chaos inside this store. Being the first day in this store I somehow felt lost. Why the hell did they want me to join today? Who am I supposed to contact? Where is the back office situated? These were the many questions lingering in my mind. I somehow managed to reach the first floor. The store had one mezzanine floor apart from the first floor. To one end of the floor I noticed a small board with a message “STAFF ONLY” I assumed it was the door to the back office. I literally had to make my way to reach the other end of the floor. I noticed one security guard stationed near the door. He was a thin guy, in his twenties, wearing a greyish blue uniform, a scarf on the neck, wearing a cap which was tilted to one side, and an old worn out shoe which were not polished. When I requested him to let me in so as I can meet the HR manager he gave me a disoriented look. At first he did not understand as to who I was looking for. He then asked for my visiting card, which is a usual practise which these security guards have whenever any visitor approaches them. I feel this is a part of their mechanical training programme which is imparted to them. As I did not have one he told me to wait outside, opened the door halfway peeped inside and then looked at me once again. He then told me to go in. I was a bit surprised at his behaviour. Once inside I met Sarika, the HR executive of the store. Sarika and I eventually turned out to become good friends. She explained to me the reason for the chaos inside the store. The store had just newly opened some two months back, and everybody was still settling down. Here I had joined as an assistant store manager. As it was a busy day I did not do much on my day one in the store.

BIG BAZAAR-LOWER PAREL

The best way to understand the way a retail store functions is to begin with the shop floor or the warehouse. Only at the shop floor will you be able to learn your products, understand the store and your customers better. The operations team to my knowledge and experience is the best place to be in a retail industry as you get exposed to all the verticals like operations, marketing, HR functions, project handling, visual merchandising, logistics, etc. To work in a retail store you need to have the passion and eagerness to work. You need to have the potential in you to deliver, spend more time on the shop floor, sacrifice the daily entertainment activities, public holidays, the Sundays, etc. You need to mentally mould yourself to submit yourself to the lifestyle of retailing. Here when the world enjoys you are required to assist them to enjoy more at your cost of enjoyment. That it-self is a task and if you can achieve this it in itself is a great feeling of achievement and satisfaction. Here you get to meet many different types of customers, from different cast, creed, different places, and having different lifestyle. Here customersunlike marketing people come to visit you and that itself is a great fun as you get to understand different types of people of different nature from whom you get to learn a lot every day. Store operations involve a continuous learning process. ItStore operations teaches you to become stronger, become more aggressive, more confident, and get exposed to extreme situations and to tackle all sorts of activities or situations as and when it comes. The best thing of store operations is you do not have to wait for the work to come; you get it or create one at all the time. You will be learning new things every day, every moment. It makes you act effectively and think at all stages. There are many fields within the store operations where you can put your thoughts into action. The best part in a retail store operations is you get to incubate your thoughts into action, can become very initiative and also get to learn from the errors you create. Sometimes the errors caused by it-self may become an entry level for fresh thoughts to come in and create something new at the shop floor. It also makes you more systematic, disciplined as it teaches you to schedule your work process and get tuned to it. The best part in a store operation is its activities differs on week days and on weekends and public or bank holidays, reason being the activities within a store depends onis in to the customer walk-ins. The more the walk-ins more is the activity.

Back in India I was impressed by the way organised retail had come up. I felt very happy as this industry was coming up in a big way, and especially because I started my career in this industry. Many malls and individual super stores and shops were coming up or were planning to be set up in most of the western and central suburbs of Mumbai. I was very eager to visit one such mall in south Mumbai. I was extremely fascinated by the way the mall had come up. It was very much similar to the malls that I had visited abroad. I spent almost an entire day visiting all the shops within the mall. I did some bit of shopping, moved around within various outlets to understand the way they operated, made some observations, and also got into a casual conversation with many of the sales employees. Every day I used to visit one of the malls in the suburbs, and get into either window shopping or just interacting with some of the floor staffs. During these visits I used to observe the day to day operational activities within the stores, how it was different from the other stores, which activity was unique to that store, or what was not right in the store, and so on. What I observed was that some retailers were efficient in setting up the standard store ambience, some were experts in service standards, some were efficient in stacking stocks, or some were experts in service as well procuring stocks and so on. Overall what I observed was that every one of the retailer was a master in one of these parameters or all of them. But still what I could experience was there was still lot of commotion within the store when it comes to billing a product, no proper trial rooms, crowd around the one existing, or handling the customer flow on week ends, or managing the operations within the store. I am sure you must have surely experienced this sometimes, somewhere in one of the outlets in a mall you had visited.
The main reason for this is the absence of proper systems and processes or if present then not adhering to the same. To ensure all activities within the store is run smoothly proper processes need to be in place. Most of the activities within the store operations is mainly process driven. Hence it is very essential to enforce Standard Operating Procedures - (SOP). It is a pre-designed document officially approved by the management, hence an official method of getting all work done. One should ensure that when these processes are designed and implemented it should benefit both, the customer as well as the employee. if it does not benefit any one then its existence is not justified.
The most common activities within a store are:
Merchandising
Visual merchandising
Receiving and out-warding stocks
Schemes and offers
Week end activities and Events
Customer service

Scope...

Scope
· Retail is clearly the sector that is poised to show the highest growth in the next five years.
· The present size of the organized retailing sector is approximately 3% and is expected to grow to 25-30% by the year 2012.
· There are about 300 new malls, 1500 supermarkets and 325 departmental stores currently under construction.
· Entry of global retail giants such as Wal-Mart, Tesco, Germany's Metro AG in Indian retail markets.

Leading Indian Retailers
Future Group: Big Bazaar, Pantaloon, Central, Food Bazaar, Home Town
Raheja’s Group: Shopper’s Stop, Hypercity, Globus,
Reliance Group: Reliance Fresh, Reliance Trendz, Reliance Mart, Reliance Digital
Tata Group: Westside, Star Bazaar, Croma

A glimpse of the International Retail
One of the world's largest industries
47 global fortune companies & 25 of Asia's top 200 companies are retailers
Dominated by developed countries
US, EU & Japan constitute 80% of world retail sales.
Biggest player in India is Kishore Biyani’s Future Group.

Key Trends
The existing players like Big Bazaar, Shoppers' Stop, Piramyd are expanding to smaller towns and cities. Many other business houses are planning to enter the retail sector either on their own or through partnerships. New entrants like Reliance Retail Ltd and Wal-Mart are also expanding their business. Even rural areas will provide a huge opportunity to be explored.
Easy entry
· Education and Training: 12th pass with basic knowledge in retail preferred
· Salary Median—INR 4000 to 5000 per month

Newspaper want ads and career sites on the Internet often list openings for retail sales executives. Employers prefer 12th pass students for entry level positions. For jobs in specialty stores employers may prefer to hire executives with some experience or trained students. Given the high turnover rate in the retail industry, sales employees can sometimes be promoted to supervisor within a year.

Employment Outlook
· Retail store entry-level sales executives serve customers, sell products, are into cashiering, stock movements, and other entry-level store activities in retail establishments.
· Sales executives are employed by general and discount department stores and by specialty stores such as furniture, book, and music stores.
· In smaller establishments sales executives may cover the entire sales floor during their shift.
· In large department stores the sales executives generally cover a single department such as men’s department or ladies department.
· Sales executives typically report to store supervisors. They also handle customer queries. Sometimes they are entrusted with stock keeping responsibilities.
· In big department stores they may be responsible for organizing the merchandise on store shelves, and to make sure everything is in stock, and achieves the sales goals for their departments.
· Sales executives in specialty stores may need specialized knowledge. For instance, an executive employed in an electronics supply store should know a good deal about electronic goods.

Advancement Possibilities
· Some retail store executives become store supervisors.
· Those who work for chain stores may be promoted to administrative jobs in the company's headquarters.
· As retail operations expand, companies will hire more employees at entry level.
· Most openings will occur as experienced workers transfer to other occupations or leave their jobs.

Earnings and Benefits
· Earnings for retail store sales executives are reasonable to begin with and vary widely with location, individual experience, and the responsibilities of the job.
· They are also provided with various incentive schemes, and perks on achieving monthly as well as yearly target.
The most important of all this is the store operations which is the heart and soul of this industry. In store operations they say “Retail is detail”. Retail operations offer exciting and challenging career opportunities. It offers profit and loss handling activities and the experience of managing people early in your career. Entry-level retail jobs for college graduates offer both of these opportunities. Most college graduates can begin their career in retailing as department managers if they have undergone proper retail management training. As a Department Manager one will be responsible for the profitability of a category of merchandise or a department of the store and will be managing people who will work for you. You will get opportunity to provide lot of innovative thoughts which will be initiated immediately to increase sales and will be rewarded in a huge way through incentives and perks.
Career opportunities:
Tremendous opportunity exists in this industry and one can achieve a good career launch through this sector. Retail as most assume is not just about shops and salesmen. Apart from sales one can consider various functions from the choices listed below.

Segments within the industry:
Apparels
General Merchandise
Fast Moving Consumer Goods
Consumer Durables

Various inter department roles and functions:
Organization structure and Human Resource Management
Information Systems and Supply Chain Management
Merchandise Management
Communication Mix
Store Operations
Store Layout, Design and Visual Merchandising
Financial Strategy
Customer Service
Loss Prevention Cell

Various other roles one can fit into are:
Marketing
Logistics
Facility Management
Real estate/Properties
Category Management
Design/Creativity
Project Management

There is tremendous growth for an employee in store operations from any section, whether frontline or back end team, be it vertical growth or horizontal growth which again is an advantage. Reason is because the growth of an employee here is directly related to the number of store openings which opens the gate to various different openings in various levels. One also has an advantage of getting exposed to other departments and develops their knowledge.

Because this industry is witnessing a huge growth, one can also look for tremendous growth options within the industry. One can easily climb the ladder from a supervisor level to a store manager level in a span of four to five years time. Apart from this one also has a tremendous opportunity to grow horizontally in this industry as scope for learning is wide

Let us limit to operations and understand Store Operations in depth.
An operation is a transformation process of inputs into outputs. Store operations are linked to all processes related to a store. A store operation is a task by itself and requires trained people to manage this process efficiently for more productivity and profitability.

A store operation is the heart and soul of this industry. In store operations they say “Retail is detail” as it deals with every activity in the minute detail. Retail operations offer exciting and challenging career opportunities. It offers profit and loss handling activities and the experience of managing people early in your career. Entry-level retail jobs for college graduates offer both of these opportunities. Most college graduates can begin their career in retailing as a sales executive or sales advisor, but can also join in as a management trainee, and after completion of the training period get designated as a floor or department manager at floor level if they have undergone proper retail management training. As a department manager one will be responsible for the profitability of a category of merchandise or a department of the store and will be managing people who will work for you. You will get opportunity to provide lot of innovative thoughts which may be initiated to increase sales and will be rewarded in a huge way through incentives and perks.

The Operations: Front end career path for front end store operations begins with:

Team Member


Team Leader


Asst. Department Manager


Department Manager


Floor Manager


Asst. Store Manager


Store Manager

As depicted above the front line career on the shop floor normally begins with a candidate being appointed as a Team Member. Across corporate in this industry the designation varies as follows:(Team member/ Customer sales associate/ Sales Executive/ Sales Advisor). As a fresher you land up getting salaries in the range of Rs. 3500 – 4500, however if you have an experience of 1-2 years in the industry, then the candidate will be absorbed as a senior team member with a salary of around Rs.5000+ . The team member looks after the front line sales within a store. The team leader is in charge of the members. The hierarchy follows as explained above. A Team leader draws around Rs. 6000 – 7500, who reports to an Assistant Department Manager- ADM. In some cases the team leader may also report to a Department Manager-DM depending on the size and business generated from the department. The ADM in turn reports to the DM who takes care of a specific department e.g. Men’s wear which would in turn comprise casuals, formals, accessories etc. In certain cases an ADM may directly report to the store manager if the department is smaller in business and size.
Depending on the size of the store the hierarchy may further grow up to the floor manager, an assistant store manager and finally the Store manager who is responsible fFor the entire operations and the business of the store. E.g. Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, Pantaloons, More, Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle etc. An ADM /DM normally gets a package in the range of 1.5 – 3.5 lakhs per annum. Further up the remuneration normally depends on industry experience and expertise.

The growth path…..

Area Manager


Operations Manager


Business Manager

SCOPE OF RETAIL IN INDIA

I returned to India from UAE after three years and joined my parents in Mumbai. Mumbai is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the financial capital of India. When I came to know Marks and Spencer is starting its operations out here through one of its franchisees from Jakarta I joined the group for store operations in Mumbai. PT Mitra group was a well known group in Jakarta and was the main partner for the Indian operations of Marks & Spencer in India, through their organisation named Planet Sports, in the late nineties. Allan Thomson, the business development manager, South Asia Pacific region, from Marks & Spencer was heading this project. With the help of his team from Jakarta we successfully opened the first store of Marks & Spencer in India at the scintillating ‘Crossroads’, a happening mall those days in south of Mumbai. It was a small ten thousand odd square feet store and consisted of men, ladies, toiletries and lingerie departments. All the staffs working here were fresher and had no previous experience of retailing. We all underwent exclusive one week training on customer service skills and communication skills conducted by the employees of Marks & Spencer- UK. It was a good learning for all the employees. The team was very eager and excited to work for such a well known and established international brand. As we had to start our operations from scratch we had to identify a warehouse to station all the container of stocks coming from abroad. From our team as only I had the experience of handling warehouse activities and setting up the warehouse, I took up this challenge. We identified one warehouse at MIDC area in Navi Mumbai, an extension of Mumbai. All the goods were shipped and were docked at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust. To release the goods from here was a major task, and this is where I learnt the street smart skills one needs to have to face odd challenges. Most of the days I could not go home as we had to release goods at odd times as the containers used to arrive at odd times. It was also risky to leave the goods at the dock for a longer duration to avoid pilfering activities. I also had to monitor the store warehouse opening and closing activities at the same time. As I was not well versed with the statutory norms required for handling any business I was finding it a bit tough those days, and to add to it the absence of any processes.

Finally we opened the store for trading successfully with a soft launch. Its only after working here that I realised how different and difficult it is to operate a store in India, mainly for two reasons, one because of the ignorance of this concept of retailing and the other because of the lack of systems and processes involved in it. It was here that I realised that just having an exposure of international experience in retailing won’t help me to operate a store smoothly, and hence I had to unlearn my self, and learn retailing the Indian way. Pantaloons store was situated just opposite to our store. It was a complete Indian departmental store. This is where I decided if I need to succeed in India in this industry I need to join one such store.
In the year 2002 I joined Pantaloons Retail (I) Ltd., now Future Group. It was here that I learnt retailing the Indian way. My role model was Kishore Biyani, who was a true inspiration for me. During my five years with Pantaloons I got to learn the core aspects in retailing. Through this book I wish to share all that I have learnt and experienced in store operations. Most of my time I have spent in Big Bazaar situated in Lower Parel in Mumbai and was mostly exposed to apparels. Hence you will come across incidents and cases related to such a scenario. Through this book I just want to spread as to how retail store operations work but this is in no way to communicate that this is the only best way to run store operations.

According to me store operations is the happening place in a retail industry and this is the only place which will make a person an all rounder in the industry. It is here where I learnt, that to become a perfect store manager, you need to have hand-on experience in all the departments, starting from the warehouse. Hence whenever any new recruit used to join us, be it a management trainee, or a sales advisor we used to start their training at the warehouse. But it is not the same here in India, which I feel is a disadvantage. Most of the new recruits, who pass out from the B- schools and join the organisation as management trainees in store operations feel working in a warehouse, is not their cup of tea as they carry the tag of MBA along with them. This it-self is the first sign of failure. Hence mainly because of this reason most of them are not a successful store manager. Most of the stores which are doing great numbers are not because of the existing managers’ contribution, but because of the high rise in consuming power of the existing population. If you have shopped in such stores you will notice that there is still chaos within such stores and still most customers are not satisfied with the working of the store. The store manager will mostly be seen in a reactive mode and doing mostly fire fighting activities, rather than being in a proactive mode. There are two major reasons for the same, one being dearth of trained store managers and inhibition to learn from their mistakes and the second not understanding the importance of processes and application of the same within the stores. It is very crucial to set processes in place to operate a store very efficiently. Lot of scope is available to improve the operations of the store. I strongly believe that all management trainees who have joined the operations team dreaming to become store managers need to compulsorily start to get trained from scratch in store operations and understand each and every process, only then will he be able to run a store successfully.

I still remember how people used to look at me in the early nineties when I used to tell them that I am working in a retail store. They used to compare me with one of those salesmen working at a small shop situated at every lane in the town. Most of them are not clear as to what exactly this industry is all about. There is a wrong notion, especially in the rural areas about retail shops. One here feels people working in this industry are no one but the common kiranawala working at the neighbourhood kirana store. But it is gradually getting its importance and people have started accepting it as another career prospect. Retail is the code word on every individual tongue. Every second individual is talking about the retail industry. It has started growing rapidly since past five years. It generates more than ten percent (10%) of India’s GDP, and around eight percent (8%) of the employment. Organised retailing is gradually developing and due to this there is a great demand of skilled people in this industry. But as this industry was not so much in demand five to seven years back there is a tremendous shortage of skilled people to run the business, especially store operations. Due to this many institutes have started launching courses in retail management so as to develop skilled manpower and provide to the industry people with skill to run the business. But even now most of the institutes are finding it difficult to provide the full knowledge required to run the business, especially in store operations, reason being lack of exposure to this industry. Need is now to provide specific detail knowledge on every aspect in retailing such as, store operations, visual merchandising, merchandise buying, function of human resource in retail, logistics, retail marketing, retail finance and so onetc.

BHS-AL AIN

“Wow!” the sight was indeed bedazzling. I looked in awe, mouth agape at the splendid work of art, a real masterpiece by the connoisseur architect, the unique design, the façade, the beautifully laid garden, and the small fountains at the atrium. This airport was much bigger, and more attractive than the one I had seen before in my life.

The magnanimous airport was swarming with travellers moving around, from different nations around the world. Some could be seen patiently sitting at the waiting lounge, waiting for their flight to be announced, some reading magazines, newspapers, the ladies taking care of their children, who could be seen either with a cola in their hand or a piece of burger. Some could be seen waiting in the queue at various terminals to board the flight, and some collecting their boarding pass. In the back ground I could here various announcements being made through the centralised speaker system. The announcements mostly were in Arabic followed by English.

The cynosure was the duty free shops; the most excitement could be noticed there. This entire section by itself was equivalent to a huge mall, the shops with a veritable cornucopia of all kinds of stuff, a big supermarket, electronic showrooms, branded outlets, and a huge food court. Name a brand and there was an exclusive showroom of the brand carrying various varieties of clothing, perfumes, cosmetics, electronics, and general articles. There also was a huge section devoted entirely for cigarettes and alcohol. The world’s best assortment of alcoholic brands like black label, red label were to be seen displayed.
I think such a phantasmagorical, and enormous duty free shop doesn’t exist in any other international airports.

Once I came out of the airport I was equally struck by this wonderful oasis in the middle of the desert. Dubai is one of the seven emirates of UAE, and is known as Dubai City to distinguish it from the other emirates. Dubai is surely a tourist’s favourite destination. What a lovely city to be in. The first time I landed in Dubai I could only manage to be there only for a few hours inside the airport. I had to travel from Dubai to Abu Dhabi to join in my new office situated there. When I checked-in for a paid taxi I was stunned to see a Mercedes Benz waiting for me outside the airport. I was thrilled. Imagine a Mercedes for a taxi. I enjoyed the entire one hour journey from Dubai to Abu Dhabi. During the entire journey the driver made sure I was comfortable, played some good Hindi music for me and also entertained me with his experience as a driver in Dubai.
After my stint in Jeddah for four years I joined Liwa Trading Agencies here in United Arab Emirates. The corporate office was situated at Abu- Dhabi the capital of UAE. Here I got exposed to more brands like JCPENNEY, APPLEWOODS, FLORSHEIM, and PREMAMAN apart from BHS.

Stylo, Ranjith and Manoj had joined this organisation a few months before me and were based at the corporate office.

I was based at AL-AIN the oasis of UAE. It is also dubbed The Garden City of UAE. It was a beautiful town with no high rise. The town was full of greenery, with more of villas and less of buildings. The existing ones were also only having two to three floors. As it was a small town there were not many malls around like the ones they had in Dubai. Hence the BHS store at Al-Ain was a very popular store among the locals.

In Al-Ain I got introduced to Imtiaz, who used to work for Kodak. He was from Mangalore, a small city situated in south of India, a man in his late twenties, a bit short in height, but with a good strong built and having a helpful nature. Imtiaz helped me a lot during my early stage at Al-Ain. The best part of him was he used to never hesitate in helping anybody. He later introduced me to his native friend Harish, who had come down in search of a job. He was a debonair, and compared to Imtiaz and myself he was taller and handsome, and was very possessive of his appearance. I helped him in getting a job in my organisation. Harish joined my store and started working in the men’s section of BHS. Around this time I got married and my wife also joined me here in Al-Ain.

The BHS store was a huge single storied building. The warehouse was attached just behind to the main building. It used to operate from 9am in the morning to 1pm and 5pm in the evening to 9pm. It was a huge white coloured building with office premises given on rent on the first floor. To both the sides of the entrance to the store were huge window panes used for window displaying of the products and new arrivals. As one entered the store two walkways were available one to the left leading to the men’s section and the right one leading to the ladies section. To just the left side of the store was Premaman and way down to the right side was the lingerie section. Applewood and household sections were inside towards the other end of the store.

The only difference in this store for me was that even ladies were allowed to work. Most of them, in fact all were from Philippines. Sulekha was the senior supervisor of this store and it was she who taught me visual merchandising. She was an expert on the same. She was a short, slender lady, with short open hair which was shoulder length and in her late twenties, married to an Indian, was a very honest, smart and hardworking lady. Premaman, a well known brand from Belgium known for infant collections and maternity outfits was handled by Geraldine, a very hard working lady, known for her skills in displaying stocks in her department very efficiently. Eva and Editha used to handle the kids department. Eva was known for her speed in every job she was entrusted. She was an expert cashier as well. Editha was known for her customer service skills. She also had a very enchanting smile, of course, the reason for her efficient customer conversions. Loretta and Divina used to handle the ladies department. Divina was a cheerful girl and was the youngest among all the staffs, and also a keen learner. Loretta was a tall girl with beautiful hair, and was good at keeping the department neat and clean. Rosemary was in charge of APPLEWOODS which was a brand from UK known for its aromatherapy products. Rosemary was the eldest among the ladies and was an expert in giving tips on beauty, and knew her products very well. All the lady staffs were from Philippines. Siraj was in charge of the house-hold collections here and was a very senior person by age. Srishan was in charge of the warehouse and a master in his area. All alone he used to take of the entire operations of the warehouse. It was Siraj who had trained him here in warehousing. Harish was the youngest male staff and was in-charge of JC Penney household section. He used to also assist Jamal in menswear. Jamal had a very good sense of humour and was also very good in maintaining relationship with his customers. Siraj, Srishan and Jamal were from Kerala. Buhari, a tall dark and handsome guy from Chennai in South India was responsible for the house keeping of the store. He was very efficient in his work, and used to get shworama, an Arabic sandwich for me everyday during our break time. I used to enjoy Buhari’s company as he was a gem of a person. At the back office Sanjeev was our commercial manager and responsible for all accounts related activities.
His and my family became close friends. I have fond memories of our outings together not to forget the visit to the famous ‘Global Village’ during the Dubai shopping festival which occurs yearly. Movie-time was a special weekly feature and this is when I got addicted to our bollywood movies.

Here I understood and learnt how to prepare a schedule and do stock-take more efficiently for the entire store. As I had already worked for BHS I found it very comfortable to work here, share my experience and at the same time get to learn more especially from these girls from Philippines.Compared to Jeddah here at Al-Ain I got exposed more to the lifestyle of the locals and was in a better position to adapt to the working culture. It was also easy to get settled down here compared to Jeddah.