3 core elements ofeffective retailing; which entails the efficient working of any retail chain


Today's retail environment is tough. Shrinking budgets,layoffs, consolidation, and demanding construction schedules mean that youhave to do more with less time, less money, and less staff. To get storesdesigned, built, renovated and maintained on time and on budget, it is highlycritical to work smarter than your competitors and stay connected with the 3core elements of effective retailing - People, Process & Technology.


If you have found yourself in a situation where the processseems to change, accountabilities are uncertain and deadlines are missing, thenperhaps you have a people, process and technology problem. Getting all 3aligned is absolutely essential in ensuring a process change will work.


And they have to be resolved in that order.


People- what are the key issues: who ownsthe process, who is involved, what are their roles, are they committed to improving it and working together and importantly are they prepared to do the work to fix the problem. It is important to stay connected with retail professionals in the industry to maintaina good talent rate. The industry needs to focus on maturity of their human practices, guide a program of continuous human resource management, focus on improving individual and team capabilities, integrate people process improvement with business process improvement, establish a culture of performance and professional excellence and alignhuman resource strategies with business goals. Also we have ignored theknowledge creation or research aspect of our educational system for too long.Creating a culture of research and innovation requires a significant commitmentand a long-term view from all stakeholders. This is a fantastic example of anindustry-academia linkage necessary to create the next generation of knowledgeworkers. This global initiative will certainly provide a path to success forcompanies worldwide through new business initiatives related to performance excellence.


Process- a process can be defined asstarting with a trigger event that creates a chain of actions that result insomething being prepared for a customer of that process. Starting at a highlevel and identifying the key big steps is important to see the process from end to end. Then moving into more detail to capture the various layers involved andvarious exceptions. Focusing on the high frequency transactions (Pareto principle) can have significant benefits to standardizing the process. But also remember that itcan be the non-standard transactions where service is slipping most, or thepotential for significant failure in the process may exist.


Technology- Now that people are aligned, and the processes developed are clarified, technology can be applied to ensureconsistency in application of the process and to provide the thin guiding railsto keep the process on track - to make it easier to follow the process than not do so. Of course there is much more to getting a technology project right - but get the above 3 sorted out and you will be a fair way down the path toachieving business success. Great retail technologies and business solutionsare about much more than clever application. These end-to-end integratedbusiness applications provide retail businesses around the world with the extraedge over its competitors. It's about blending the right software withexperienced people that understand retail and can offer a great service before,during and after implementation. But most of all it's about you, your businessand putting your vision of what you want to achieve into practice.


While we accept that most of today's retail businesses aretalent driven and that people are our biggest assets, historically, (at leastwith IT) organizations have focused more on proactively improving their delivery processes and their investments in technology.


In fact, the current global hue-and-cry on talent shortfallsand high attrition rates in the retail industry are only the tip of theiceberg. At the business level, there are imperatives like improving productivity, moving-up the value chain, enhancing competitiveness and getting closer tothe customers. At the organization level, issues like managing a multi-culturaland multi-geographical workforce, managing rapid growth and creating "cool"work cultures continue to take a large mind-share of business leaders and HR professionals. All this, while today's professional is trying to get multi-skilled and chart aclear career path for himself / herself.



 

So, it's not good enough to win the 'talent wars'. Its also not enough to try solutions (like Business Process Reengineering, Employee Stock Options, Assessment Centers and 360-degree appraisals) in a piece-meal manner. Instead, the need of the hour is to take a holistic view of the organization's business, culture, technology and talent needs. And adapt solutions based on an integrated and proactive approach towards developing & engaging talent, growing the business and delighting the customers and all stakeholders of the organization.


The strategic objectives of the industry should include:


  • Improve the capability of the organizations by increasing the capability of the workforce
  • Ensure that process capability is an attribute of the organization rather than of few individuals
  • Align the motivation of individuals with that of the organization
  • Retain human assets (i.e. people with critical knowledge and skills) within the organization


By aligning the above core elements, organizations will get enabled to gain insight into its capability for managing and developing its workforce. Retail organizations need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their current human resource management practices in order to understand what steps should be taken to improve them. The organization can then relate its strengths and weaknesses of its practices with the best practices indicated in the model, which helps the organization to prioritize their improvement actions and focus on changes that are most beneficial in the near term while having a roadmap for the long term objective.


About the Author:


The author is the Founder and Managing Director of Dynamic Vertical Solutions.