Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Monday, Jan 02, 2006
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Monday, Jan 02, 2006 |
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Marketing
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Retailing Industry & Economy - Human Resources Lack of skilled labour major concern for retail sector Dharini Nagarajan
New Delhi , Jan. 1 LACK of trained personnel has emerged as a primary area of concern for the high growth retail sector. The retail industry, which is growing at a double digit pace, has been facing an acute shortage of trained personnel. "While investment in human resource is essential for running the retail business, ensuring a continuous supply of trained workers is proving to be a big challenge for employers,'' say analysts. "Forget FDI in retail, the real need of the hour is trained manpower in the retailing sector," Mr B.S. Nagesh, Managing Director and CEO of Shoppers' Stop Ltd, said at a summit recently. And echoing his sentiment is Mr Sanjeev Duggal, CEO and MD of NIS Sparta Ltd, who feels that if India is to be the ideal retail destination in the world, investment in people merits far greater attention. Analysts point out that the domestic retail industry has an estimated market size of $202.6 billion, which is expected to grow at a CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) of 30 per cent in the next five years. New forms of retailing such as departmental stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets and specialty stores are seen to evolve and the share of the organised retail industry is likely to grow from its current 2 per cent to 15-20 per cent over the next decade. This retail boom is expected to translate into eight million new jobs over the next five to six years. It has being repeatedly pointed out by industry majors that the current education system in the country is not sufficiently geared to address the new sales system and processes. The increasing emphasis on providing more value-addedservices is creating the demand for trained people. Mr Sandeep Kohli, Managing Director, Yum! Brands, says, "If we expand rapidly, the current supply chain may not be able to gear up to our needs. We need 8,500 employees in the next year. Where would we recruit them from?'' The lack of workforce has led to several players mulling with the possibility of setting up their own training schools. In fact, Yum! Brands and Ferns `N' Petals are already on the way to concretising the concept, so that they can absorb students into their business directly from the training school. Ferns `N' Petals has already announced an investment of Rs 50 lakh for such a venture to be set up in Delhi. "It's one of the solutions to the current problem," says an industry official. Mr Nagesh, however, pointed out that the industry needs a proper mechanism to recruit skilled labour. "India can create almost 10 million jobs if we make it a national agenda to help students to get appropriate jobs in retailing," he argues. Retailing should be taught from the school level and be made a mandatory course at the university level, he suggests.
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