‘Around 60-80 lakh retail jobs will be created in next 5 years’

Hotel Management graduate from IHM-Aurangabad, Aman Minocha has worked as an F&B manager in the food and beverage department in various cities during his 12-year stint with the Taj Group of Hotels. In June, 2007, Minocha joined the Berggruen Education to set up UEI Global. He is currently heading the operations and managing all the 14 UEI Global Institutes at PAN India level. Minocha speaks to DNA about the lucrative career options in the fast growing retail industry of India.

How do you see the evolution of retail sector in India?
Glamourous and spacious malls are the new face of the Indian retail industry. Organised retail is changing the old shopping norms of the traditional unorganised stores, which tied the domestic shoppers for long. The growth of retailing in India is marked by the entry of formats like departmental stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets, speciality stores and Western-style malls. All of these are innovations of modern retail. With multinational retailers to open stores in India and debut with huge investments, they all translate into increased manpower requirement. Bharti Wal-Mart, for instance, plans to open 8-10 new stores and employ approximately 4,000 people by year end. Around 60-80 lakh new jobs will be created in the next five years. The vast middle-class, with rising purchasing power, is attracting global retail giants into the almost untapped retail industry.

What are the career opportunities in retail industry?
Retail management is mainly service-oriented career that involves a direct interface with the consumers. New age retail is fast becoming an attractive career destination for most of the youngsters. Growth in a typical retail organisation starts from being a trainee in different function areas like cashier, sales, administration, buying, logistic, marketing, customer contact to store manager, category sales manager, regional manager, territory manager and then national dead.

A store manager is like the profit centre head of a company. In a typical retail store operation, a store manager gets revenue target, which then gets divided among employees of the store.

How can one excel in this challenging sector?
Whether it is product or service retailing, the challenges are distinct. A pleasant smile, sophisticated communication skills and product knowledge are desired qualities for which aspirants must attain right qualification from a reputed institute before taking up a job in the Industry. Retail management as a field of research and study is becoming more and more popular day by day.

For example, UEI Global offers retail operation course that includes study of retail buying and operations, consumer relation, accounting and marketing strategies and ethics, just to name a few. To excel in this challenging sector, the candidates are given sessions on personality development and grooming to make them dynamic, versatile and develop the right attitude to be successful.

What is the average salary expected as a career in the retail industry?
With the retail industry growing significantly at 35% annually, the compensation and growth progression has become much better. The requirement for candidates with relevant qualification in retail operation from reputed institutes has risen.

For an intern working with a premium brand, the salary starts at Rs6000 to Rs15,000 on an average. In addition to this, bonuses, incentives and special packages are the peculiarities of the job in the retail industry. For a store manager, it is Rs30,000 per month and a step higher, the cost to company (CTC) increases to Rs50,000 per month. A national head’s CTC will be Rs1.5 lakh per month or above. Career wise, retail management is definitely a dynamic field worth working for.