Career in Retail - Why ?

Career in Retail - a tough rewarding choice!

I was at a Management Institute on Friday, talking to students why they should consider a career in retail in today's economy.

While i will get into different options within retail in a separate blog, am trying to put together top 3 reasons why one should get into retail :

Reason No 1 - " there are no set rules still " - If you are one of the dreamers, who believes in old fashioned "create a dent in the universe theory" - this is the field. With hardly any work done on processes and management capabilities in Inian retail - the field needs people who hate to work with SOP's from day one in their job. No wonder, that people who deliver grow really fast. it took me 8 years to head a company, one of my friends became head of operations for one international brand in 5 years time.

Reason No 2 - "Young, fun and learning industry" - In one of my earlier jobs, i have stayed at a plant where average age was 50, and trust me - it was helll of a month for me. This industry is young, this industry enjoys college kind of culture at work - loves to see people making mistakes and learning from them.

Reason No 3 - "There is money - enough and more" - Yes, i have seen salary jump from Rs 2 lacs per annum to 28 lacs per annum for the friend of mine mentioned in point no 1. I have seen jump of 60 times for another friend who started her career with selling on shop floor. I have myself seen 15 times salary jump in these 9 years of my career.

In a nutshell - Learn, Earn and Fun - summarise three reasons to be part of this wonderful industry!!

Looking out for people who dream to create that famous dent in the universe.

Vikas

Retail Profitability - What is the answer ?

For the first five years of my career- the holy grail in retail was psfpd (per sq ft per day sales). All the numbers, buying plans, profitability projections, rental decisions - centred around what the psfpd projections were. The fact that India was shining (as they wanted to believe us) has something to do with this optimism (get the topline, profits will follow)
My next five years have seen shift to the level of obsession - towards Full price Sell Through and gross Margin % as the indicators of retail performance. Again - the recession, failure of many a retail ventures, and the perception that it is impossible to make money in retail has fuelled 180 degree shift.

In the last six months - working with arious teams- I have come to realise that age old "Rupee gross margin per sq ft" - is the term that will offer way ahead to people looking at profitability in retail.
While rupee gross margin per sq ft has always been the focus for bog box retailers, EBO's never looked at this as the concept to follow. No wonder there were missed opportunities on higher sales (trying to chase better gross margin %, or there were unprofitable ventures even after achieving stupendous psfpd's)

I am working on a matrix that can correlate the three. if the Disclosure policy of my organisation allows me to upload the results, should be able to do it in a months time.

Chase Perfection, not Success

These words have been cast in stone - when Aamir Khan used this line in his movie three idiots.
I started my career - chasing misplaced career Goals like - "To be a VP by the age of 35" . Very soon i gave up that aspiration and decided to be the "best retail experience designer in India, running a profitable retail company"

My first job exposed me to corporate world (no wonder still hold that group in high esteem). It was a job that was about branded wholesale business. Gave my heart, soul and everything to learn the fundamentals for five years. My batchmates, had changed 3 jobs by then and were at 2-3 times my CTC package.
My second job was my first step in the business of branded retail (which is very different from wholesale). Two years of hard work, doing things with passion, experimenting without any fear of failure, mastering the art of planning and operations - i proved to be a good student. Did not work for grades (promotions) but invested two years to learn retail.
My third job - helped me grow from a functional expert to a business head. Here i was, learning things about business plans, P&L statements, legal documents, Lease agreements - things that i always thought i will never be able to do. All credit to my CEO for pushing me into doing all of that. He was the one who was never satisfied with 95% application. He just wanted nothing less than excellence (it is another fact that even 115% did not satisfy him ever). Never bothered about people with much lower IQ at better or similar positions or salary.
And here i am in my fouth job - with the responsibility of handling multiple businesses. I have got this break so early in my career - only because of the way my learning happend in the first three assignments. Am going to give my heart, sould and everything - just like my first job - again - to make this a perfect organisation that i have always dreamt of.
The fact that my package is twice that of my B school batchmates - helps me to confidently state that chasing perfection is more profitable than chasing success !!!

Harbingers of change - where are they?

I was at a reputed management school recently for a reorientation program with Year 2 students. Nothing has changed there. the campus, classes, staff and unfortunately the way students are being groomed for the corporate world.
And I don't blame the management running the institute for this. I did not see the hunger in the students to change the system. the hunger to go out and be the catalysts, harbingers and implementers of the change. And when I compare this with another B school that i have been interacting with - i can't miss the comparison with the iconic ad - "we are no 2, we try harder"
The corporate life enactment of this same attitude can be seen when management trainees join the organisation. Within a year they are tamed by personalities or politics. instead of changing the things for the better, 80% of them change themselves for better positions. It never takes them far, but rare is the common sense to be far sighted.

To be or not to be

The more i think - the more i realise that life is what we make out of it. We have that amazing ability to choose - choose to be or not to be in any circumstance.
We can decide that we want to be there and excel in everything that comes our way after that. Or we can choose to move on. But - what we end up doing is staying there - and keep thinking of how good life would have been if we were not here, but somewhere else (and 98% of the times we are not aware of what that some thing else will be). and we do this because this gives us the liberty to be mediocre at work - justifying it with the sense that we deserve better things in life and are not made for what we are doing.
Such a pity - the amount of potential that goes waste.