The Hindu Business Line : Bharti, Wal-Mart may look beyond retail for talent

With the formal announcement of the Bharti-Wal-Mart foray into the retail sector, CXOs in the country may soon be rolling up their sleeves for the next round of salary and job negotiations.

There's no doubt that a talent shakeout is imminent, but executive recruiters across the country are forecasting that the company may spread the hiring net much wider than the existing retail players. Talent would be hired from across all sectors, rather than top-level CXOs from rivals Reliance and Pantaloon, say search firms.

"Very large BPOs may lose people," says Mr Navnit Singh, Partner at Heidrick and Struggles, a global executive search firm. The reason: BPOs head honchos are more customer-focussed and have been in the CRM (customer relationship management) business for the last 10 years.

"Newer players such as Bharti-Wal-Mart and the Aditya Birla Group (which is likely to announce retail plans soon) may not cannibalise the existing talent resources as this will be self-defeating for the industry," feels Mr K. Sudarshan, Managing Partner, EMA Partners International. Poaching within the industry will hype up salaries and negate the cost-competitiveness that MNCs realise from talent in the country.

Currently, CXO salaries in retail is anywhere between Rs 2 crore and Rs 5 crore per annum. A large number of expats and Wal-Mart executives on interim assignments are also expected to be brought into the country, say recruiters. So, will retail, the new kid on the block, push up attrition figures in the IT sector even further? Says Mr Gautam Sinha, CEO, TVA Infotech, an IT recruitment company, "I won't be surprised if this happens. People will move wherever there is opportunity." He quotes of instances where IT has lost people to financial services and banking. Retail will be the next big employer and people will cross floors, he says.

Mr Sudarshan points out: "For a good senior management bandwidth, the training input is crucial and could be given to CXOs from across sectors such as IT, telecom, banking, FMCGs and make them retail-ready."

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