Retail management career opportunities have boomed with the huge expansion in retail sector not only in India but also globally. All the major industries have their own retail outlets or certified agents with retail outlets who deals mostly to serve the customer as the end user. With every industry having its own retailers has also increased the demand of retail management professionals in this field.

Retail management career has now become an integral part of curriculum for most of the Top B-schools in India. It’s now considered as a specilization topic sub headed under marketing. The retail management sector is believed to survive economic upheavels without major damage.

Today more and more management professionals are opting for retail management career as they see vast growth opportunity in this sector. The fact that India has a huge customer base with good buying power is attracting more and more foreign investors who look forward to open retail outlets and gain maximum profit which also increases career opportunity in this sector. The professionals get to learn domestic and global retailers market and imply it usefully for the organization they work for.

Retail management career opportunities are available in all the renowned job portals in the internet.

Lavasa is free India’s largest and first Hill Station which is being developed by Lavasa Corporation Ltd, a part of HCC. The agreement has looked forward to commence its academic operations from the year 2010 and the NMHS Knowledge Campus will admit around 1600 students every year for a wide range of courses which would have high employment value in the retail, management and media space. The Campus spread over 20 acres at LAVASA would have 1.5 lakh square feet for academic space and 2 lakh square feet for residential space.

Rajgopal Nogia, the President of Lavasa Corporation Ltd said, ‘We are delighted to be associated with NSHM’s first retail university and look forward to its launch. This initiative will reiterate our commitment towards establishing Lavasa as a centre of education with best-in-class institutes.’ NSHM Chief Mentor Cecil Antony expressed, ‘NSHM has established itself as a quality provider in management education. We are proud to be involved as a key partner in this association with Lavasa for the retail industry. We aspire to create a modern campus amidst the green and serene environs of Lavasa,’ Gibson Vedamani CEO of Retailers Association of India was also enthusiast for this development. He said, ‘Lavasa’s retail plan is quite comprehensive and the students will have the unique opportunity of accessing all retail formats for gaining practical experience within the campus itself. We at RAI are excited at this development and look forward to working with NSHM and Lavasa closely in the years ahead.’

For education space the Lavasa has already achieved a milestone and has signed up with the University of Oxford for executive educational facilities and the Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST), UK so that they can provide expertise for a residential IB school which would be started in 2010. Another achievement is that Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) which is bringing their world famous hospitality school to Lavasa with an intake plan of 2009. Christ University, Bangalore and Symbiosis, Pune which are both deemed universities are expected to open their campuses by 2010 in LAVASA.
NSHM is ready to offer a large number of courses in the areas of Business Administration, Hotel Management, Management and Technology, Retail, Innovation and Thinking Management, Communication, Media and Design.

The various courses in the NSHM are designed to cater to the needs of the recent retail, management and media industry at both undergraduate and graduate levels. The courses are also expected to attract foreign students as well. The various courses would be affiliated to various universities or organizations like ASTL of USA, the Retailers Association of India, Sheffield Hallam University of UK, APICS of USA, University of Teeside of UK, ABODE and AUTODESK. NSHM has also been successful in launching the NSHM deBono Centre of Thinking and Innovation Management to bring to India the internationally acclaimed deBonon Tools on Lateral Thinking.

NSHM

The schools will be established under the guidance of the umbrella of the small time traders that is the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT). The CAIT general secretary Mr. Praveen Khandelwal said, ‘The schools will seek to change the traditional outlook of the traders and educate them to adopt a contemporary approach in business to retain customers and increase profitability.’ They are thinking to open as much as 500 schools across the country within the next one year.

The first retail school is expected to come up in Delhi by the end of this month and the next one in Nagpur. Mr Khandelwal clarified, ‘Our fight is not against the big names in the retail industry but to help the kirana stores to transform their business from traditional retail to modern format of retailing.’

According to various estimated there are nearly 5 corers of small time retail businesses and traders in the country who face such tough competition and loss a livelihood. The traders’ body has ultimately joined hands with the India Retail School as knowledge partner. The faculty of these schools would comprise of retail experts from different parts of the country.

Mr N K Pandey, the Indian Retail School Chief Executive said that the program which has been scheduled to be imparted in such schools are completely customized and well structured to meet the needs of the retail traders. The traders would be introduced to subjects like marketing, visual merchandise, monitoring retail operations and marketing.

The Super Fibre watches have been designed keeping in mind the needs of age group between 16 and 30. The price range of the watches would be pocket friendly and is estimated to be between Rs 275 to Rs 500. The tag like for this Sonata watch is ‘Super Strong, Super Style’.

Managing Director, Titan Industries, Mr Bhaskar Bhat said that the new model of Sonata was on its way towards becoming a 10 millions watches per year band in the coming three years. According to him, ‘This will make Sonata one of the largest volume brands of watches in the world.’ Further he added that the estimated investment for this plastic watches would be around 7-8 million.

The sub-brand from Sonata would come in 68 designs of which 47 designs would belong to the analog category and the rest would be digital watches. The entire range of designs, would be water resistant and would come with one year replacement warranty, which has been confirmed by Mr. Harish Bhat, the COO of Titan Watches Industries. The analog watches would fall within the price range of Rs 275-Rs 475 and the digitals would be between Rs 400- Rs 500.

The estimated target for this Super Fibre sub brand watches is to achieve the one millionth mark by 2009-2010. Mr. Harish Bhat also confirmed that there would be 360 degree marketing campaign for this watch to make it popular among its targeted youth.

The TV commercial for this brand has been unveiled featuring the ODI captain of India Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who would pose in a ‘brand new avatar’, according to company press release. The company has decided to distribute the watches through its 12,000 retail outlets and 2,500 towns across the country.

The TICI opened its first company owned company operated (COCO) store called the BSA Go in Hyderabad and stated that out of the proposed 120 retail outlets across India, they would maintain 15 as COCO stores.

VP, Sales and Marketing of TICI Mr. B.K. Singh said, ‘With the opening of the exclusive store in Hyderabad, our consumers from the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad will benefit significantly. The store will offer a premium buying experience and quality service.’

The BSA Go stores under their plans are planned to be located in the leading metros, with a population over one millions. They are targeting today’s urban youth who are very much inclined towards sports, health and fitness. Singh stated that the BSA Go stores would really bring a revolution in fitness retail.

TPG is also to make an open offer for the same and will be indirectly holding 26.7% stake in the Shriram City Union Finance, which has been confirmed by the latter in a statement to press.

DR. Gangadi said to Press, ‘We are not into acquisition mould as nobody really has a decent size. In the future, however, we would be open if the size compliments our expansion plans.’

At present most retail chains of medicines across the country has around 50-75 stores or less. The Apollo with its highest numbers of 600 rules the charts. The Guardian in Delhi has more than 100 and is counted among the bigger ones which is still growing. MedPlus the Hyderabad based company has 520 outlets which put it just below the Apollo and among the top rung.

DR. Gangadi said that India requires several thousands of pharmacy outlets which can serve them better and this growing demand in the near future has scope for many players who want to run a successful business models. And the targeted growth states are the ‘Neighbourhood’ states which are Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

These states would be followed by other nearby states like Maharastra, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Kerala. All these states would help to cross the target of 1000 retail outlets in the coming months easily.

With a typical MedPlus store which requires an investment of nearly Rs 50 lakh, the franchise model would help in promoting the entrepreneurship among pharmacy graduates or those diploma holders. The company is willing to provide a small loan and training to carry forward the business.

At least 25% of the company’s stores are run by those Pharmacy graduates or people who are diploma holders. Every retail outlet has a licensed pharmacist to ensure control of quality sale, storage facility and also inventory control.

The MedPlus had received an investment of whopping Rs 23 crore from iLabs, a Hyderabad based fund last year. The CEO of MedPlus has assured that they would be using the internal accruals and such other funds for their expansion plans and refrained from disclosing the financial position of the company.

More Franchise info:  Medplus

The discussion would be solely on ‘Where is the Opportunity?’ This would be a lively event which would discuss shopping behaviour, how changes in time like the present and how consumers react to an economy rebounds. Hargrove having more than 20 years experience in retail will draw on this experience to share the panel and audience his expertise on how technology can help enhance and improve customer satisfaction and differentiate a retailer from others.

Hargrove commented that he is delighted to take part in this panel of discussion at the Retail India Event. He said that they had seen many changes within the retail industry in the lat 20 years and as India is a fast growing retail market, it is important for him to understand what the needs of the key players are. He said that it had been a honour for him to be seen as an international observer and he had been very much interested in taking forward an interesting and thought provoking debate.

During this even, Torex for the first time will be showcasing the Global POS portfolio in India for Future Shop Section.

The Chief Executive officer, Srikant Gokhale, of Impact Retail Ltd told mediapersons on Wednesday after inaugurating the company’s first retail store in Hyderabad that they are planning to open nearly 30 Xcite exclusive consumer electronic showrooms in the top 15 cities across the country by the end of 2009. And they have planned to invest a wholesome 200 crore for this plan and are very much excited even.

The Impact Retail had arranged a franchise and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) relationship with Alghanim Industries. This is a Kuwait based conglomerate which is very much interested in consumer electronics retails in India and also in auto retail and manufacturing. It is willing to its stores under the Xcite brand.

The retail store according to Mr. Gokhale would be multi branded format stores which would have carpet cover area of more than 20,000 square feet. And the store would be offering more than 3000 products from different categories - like home entertainment, computers and peripherals, small appliances, white goods, music, imaging, communication, and gaming from 150 both international and national brands.

Besides that the electronic retail store would sell its private label products which would not include mobiles and laptops. Under Wansa brand, sourced from the OEM. The company would launch its retail stores in cities like Pune, Bangalore and others by the end of 2008 to fine tune their understanding of customer needs and formats. After they have learned this they would be eager to expand the plan aggressively to pan-India footprint.

The Indian consumer electronics market is currently hooked to an estimate value of $13.3 billion and is still growing at a fast rate of 10 percent per annum. The organized retail accounts to 7.3 % of it.