From a mere farmer to the world of retail: That's Spencer's Udaya Kumar (above). Barista's CEO Partha Dattagupta is an FMCG industry veteran

Now, you don't need anyone to tell you how organised retail is booming across the country. Malls, supermarkets, discount stores, specialty stores, multiplexes and cafes have become as common a sight, across metros and small towns alike, as the ubiquitous kirana store or the dusty bazaars that still dot our urban landscape. And almost every marquee corporate name, from HLL, ITC, Reliance, RPG, Marico and Tata, has a foot inside the retail door.

According to KSA Technopak, a New Delhi-based retail consultancy firm, organised retail is currently pegged at Rs 40,000 crore, employing around three lakh people. With estimated growth rate pegged at 25-30 per cent over the next decade, the market size is expected to touch Rs 1 lakh crore within the next five years. The job op: 1.5 million people. This is without factoring in any Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows, currently barred, into the sector.

"The single biggest challenge in this industry is the lack of talent at the leadership level," says Arvind Singhal, MD, KSA Technopak India. There is a severe people crunch even down the line, at the level of functional heads in the areas of buying, merchandising, supply chain management, logistics and retail operations at the store level. With no option but to either aggressively poach from direct competitors or laterally hire from other consumer-led sectors, organised retail presents a compelling career opportunity-for business school students, middle-level managers and even senior managers like CEOs, CTOs, CFOs, et al.

Space For Everyone

"Retail is a burgeoning industry and Barista is a strong brand," says Partha Dattagupta, CEO of Barista Coffee Company, and an 18-year veteran of the FMCG industry (he was earlier with Cadburys' and Agro Tech Foods), on his decision to hop on to the retail bandwagon last May. The sheer challenge of growing a new industry ground up, and partaking in its success, much like telecom a decade ago, is what is attracting professionals such as Dattagupta to organised retail now.

And adding to the sector's lure are various service formats the industry is experimenting with. Marico Industries' three-year-old specialty service retailing foray, Kaya Skin Clinic, is one such innovation. "I was intrigued because they were corporatising dermatology," says Aparna Santhanam, Head of Kaya's Skin Advisory & Medical Services, who had an independent practice before joining Kaya.

"There is a huge dearth of trained professionals," says K. Radhakrishnan, Vice President, Spencer Retail. And, with most existing retailers across segments looking at ramping up their operations, and new ones teeing off almost every other month, the industry is becoming quite innovative in its quest for new people. "There is a pool (of people) in call centres that we manage to attract," says Rakesh Pandey, CEO, Kaya Skin Clinic. The company will add 15 new clinics to its existing 40 by March 2006. "I got all my experience from sleeping under a tree and in the vegetable market," says Udaya Kumar, Senior Manager (Merchandising), Spencer Retail. That's tremendous career growth for a man who prides himself as being a farmer from Coorg who used what he learned on the fields to manage perishables for a modern retailer-from product planning, logistics, buying to displaying of fruits and vegetables.

The RPG Group, which runs Spencer Retail, is depending, to a large measure, on its Spencer Institute of Retail Management (SIRM) in Chennai, which trains close to 3,000 people every year, to fill up the over 2,000 new jobs it plans to create as it doubles its retail space to four lakh square feet over the next three to six months. "The job market is hot; retail even more so," says R. Subramaniam, MD, Subhiksha Trading Services. No wonder then that 50-odd visual merchandisers, who worked as interns with Spencer, have gone ahead and joined other companies, obviously lured in by better compensation structures.

Kaya's Aparna Santhanam: It's quality that matters

Learn And Unlearn

"It is guest experience and word of mouth that makes (or mars) you (in the retail business)," says Dattagupta. Groomed in mass marketing and mainline media advertising in his FMCG career, he adapted fast to the café industry's one-on-one approach of employee and customer feedback. And yet, he brought all his FMCG experience of focus on bottomline and supply chain management to bear at his job at Barista.

Santhanam, while designing and driving new treatment at the skin clinic chain, uses her background in cosmetic dermatology and experience of dealing with pharmaceutical companies to manage over 118 doctors who work for Kaya. "Most doctors are entrepreneurial by nature and it is important to anchor them," she says. And for all the talk of being just a farmer, Kumar makes sure that his is also the voice of the consumer for farmers, who supply the chain with fruits and vegetables. But then, what's a little unlearning for the huge upside that a booming retail sector provides any new jobseeker?

COUNSELLING
Help, Tarun!

I am a 39-year-old with an MSc in Zoology (specialisation in fisheries). I have also done a diploma course in journalism and PR, and a certificate course in computers. After that, I joined a government enterprise as an assistant. Shortly, I went on a study leave to Australia for a diploma in environmental management. On returning to India, I was forced to join my old job as there were no better offers. Now, I wish to switch to a better-paying job. Should I do an MBA or join a call centre? Or should I go abroad? I have over 10 years of work experience.

It seems your education is all over the place and your career is nowhere. First and foremost, going abroad will do you no good because most economies aren't doing all that well. So, just keep you eyes and ears open and continue applying for various jobs here only. Pursuing an MBA is not a bad idea, unless it is a full time, two-year degree, and one from a reputed institute. Is it possible for you to take a study leave again and pursue MBA full time? If this is not feasible, then how about switching sectors to one that has better-paying prospects? And how about a supervisory position in a call centre? You could also get into sales, if you have the personality. Finally, just remember one thing that though a government job doesn't really pay all that well, there are lots of additional benefits, like pension and so on, that you may or may not get in the private sector.

I am a 24-year-old medical representative working with an MNC for the last four years. I have a bachelor's degree in physics and recently completed my MBA, specialising in marketing. I now want to pursue a career in banking and finance and am thinking of doing MS from ICFAI. Is it OK to move from marketing to finance? And are my educational qualifications good enough for a career in finance?

If you are interested in finance, then a career switch isn't a bad idea after all. Your educational qualifications will certainly come handy, though they may not guarantee a successful career graph. And as far as your medical representative background is concerned, it may not be of much help and will only get discounted. By the way, have you ever thought of joining a finance company or a bank on the marketing side?

I am a 24-year-old commerce graduate working as a trainee (with a working capacity of a senior merchandiser-cum-production-cum-documentation) with a garment export firm for the past two years. I now think that I have gained enough experience to start my own firm. The problem is I don't know how to go about it. I also don't have adequate financial resources at my disposal. Please advise.

Don't start your own firm, at least not right now. Instead, try getting in touch with some buyers in the industry to get a feel of things. You must be aware that the quota system is applicable to a large number of products and many garment exporters have gone under due to this and competition from countries like China. So, if you don't want to meet with this fate, you need to do your homework more diligently. Give yourself at least a year before you finally take the plunge and also save as much as you can. Then, find someone who is willing to lend you some capital. It could be a venture capitalist or a government finance corporation, which specialises in loans for the small-scale industry. You will also need a concrete business plan (research on demand and supply, costs and revenues etc). So start searching the internet to collect relevant material for the purpose. But all this will take time, so continue with your present job for the time being.

I am a 24-year-old with a BE in industrial engineering. Despite securing a distinction, I have been unable to get a good job. I am keen on working as a management trainee or an operations trainee in the retail sector. I have approached various placement agencies and applied on numerous job sites too, but to no avail. What should I do? Will an additional qualification help?

First, most recruitment/placement agencies don't deal with entry-level placements. Didn't your university/institute have a placement cell? Or is it that you didn't get a job through that? Anyway, do you get nervous during interviews? If yes, why don't you take some interviewing/public speaking classes? And as for getting into the retail sector, with your engineering background and no experience whatsoever, the going will be tough. An MBA will definitely help your cause.

Answers to your career concerns are contributed by Tarun Sheth (Senior Consultant) and Shilpa Sheth (Managing Partner, US practice) of HR firm, Shilputsi Consultants. Write to Help,Tarun! c/o Business Today, Videocon Tower, Fifth Floor, E-1, Jhandewalan Extn., New Delhi-110055..

Jobs For Teachers & Animators
Schools adopt computer-aided teaching tools.

'Smart Class': The next big thing?

There is a new wave in content creation that is triggering demand for new jobs. 'Smart Class,' a project to translate textbook content into computer-enabled 3d format, is being currently used in over 60 schools across the country and is also being tested in a few schools in the US.

And naturally, school teachers, animators, instructional designers and programmers are in demand. Educomp Datamatics, the company behind Smart Class, is scouting for talent across its offices in New Delhi and Bangalore. Currently, there are about 150 professionals from various disciplines working for the project, with another 300 more needed. But isn't finding such people, in a country with over five lakh teachers and millions of computer professionals, easy? "It's tough because you need an it qualification or orientation together with domain expertise," says Shantanu Prakash, CEO, Educomp Datamatics.

With the government's focus on computer-enabled schools and Indian parents' obsession with their children's education, surely a lot more schools across the country will join this computer-aided teaching trend, creating not just thousands of content creation jobs, but even new companies, much like Datamatics.

-Amanpreet Singh

Money, Growth And Satisfaction
In a booming market, jobseekers want everything.

Just fathom this. Employees in India, across sectors, are expecting a hefty pay rise next year. Almost half of them expect it to be over 20 per cent. And yet, more than half of all India Inc's workers are on the lookout for new jobs, according to results of two recent Monster India online surveys of 20,000 odd jobseekers on www.monsterindia.com.

So, are Indians becoming unsteady and greedy workers? Well, not really, for the results merely demonstrate employee bargaining power, hitherto absent in the job market in India. "It only suggests that jobseekers are optimistic about finding new jobs, and business wise, companies are doing very well," says Dhruv Shenoy, Vice President (Marketing), Monster India. True, because not all these figures translate into reality, for attrition and pay hikes are much lower than these numbers suggest. But nonetheless, it helps the case of the geek who is toiling at the desktop or the salesperson on the field, to know that his/her employer has a sense of what he/she expects.

-Shailesh Dobhal