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