Retail Stalwarts Deliberate on Building a

RETAIL STALWARTS DELIBERATE ON BUILDING A FUTURE-READY LEARNING ORGANIZATION AT THE RAI RETAIL LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT 2022

 

Shining the spotlight on the role of the L&D function in helping organisations be future-ready in the light of the rapidly changing dynamics of the retail industry, the Retailers Association of India (RAI) recently concluded its annual Retail Learning & Development (L&D) Summit 2022 that was held virtually over January 19 & 20, 2022.

 

The RAI Retail L&D Summit primarily focuses on exploring the most exciting tools and technologies that are currently transforming learning, including AI, predictive analytics and VR. The summit is a platform to explore fresh ideas, modern innovations and new initiatives. 

 

With uncertainty becoming a constant, organisations need to identify and address the skills gap while also focusing on helping employees develop their enduring capabilities like teamwork, critical thinking and resilience to thrive. Retail L&D Summit 2022 brought the retail Learning and Organisation Development fraternity and industry captains to engage in a common dialogue on various facets of building a future-ready, resilient organisations.

 

Setting the context of the summit, Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India (RAI) said, “Today, we thrive in shared economy concepts. Learning initiatives could also be built as a collective framework enabling anybody from anywhere to take up initiatives. This would possibly mean a common learning management process that all of us in the industry could use for easier interoperability as the pandemic has also created new aspirations in the minds of the individuals and new ideas around work-life balance. If we are able to create assets that we can use interchangeably, and create robust processes then we will be able to easily switch over capabilities of one person to another without losing on efficiencies and progress. The discussions at the Summit revolved around exploring such digital avenues for a more efficient people and processes in retail.”

 

Over the two days, six thought provoking panel discussions had retail CEOs, CHROs and CLOs deliberating on the many aspects of Learning & Development in the context of the modern day shared and distributed resources. Topics discussed at the summit were Building a Future-Ready Learning Organization, Reimagining learning and development in retail to make frontline future-ready, Role of Academia in Shaping a Future-Ready workforce, Employee Wellbeing & the Hybrid Work Environment, Embracing the Gig Economy- Impact on learning & Organisation Culture, among others.

 

Delivering a Keynote on the first day of the summit, Rajendra Mehta, President & Group CHRO, Welspun Groupsaid that, “Consumer is at the forefront of change which we are seeing subsequent to COVID. The race to occupy market share is gaining momentum. Organization’s will succeed if employee capabilities are aligned and prepped towards these expectations. This L&D Summit focuses on bringing critical strategies towards building a Learning Organization keeping organizations future-ready. I wish RAI, all its members and retail institution the best in the journey ahead.”

 

A discussion on the ‘Role of Academia in Shaping a Future-Ready workforce’ included panellists such as Dr. Kartik Dave, Professor and Dean, School of Business, Public Policy & Social Entrepreneurship (SBPPSE), Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD); Dr. Gagan Katiyar, Chairperson-PGDM (Retail Management Program), BIMTECH; and Abhishek Sharma, Regional Campus Director – North, Pearl Academy.

 

The Chief Guest on the second day of the summit, Hemalakshmi Raju, Chief Learning Officer (Hydrocarbon Business), Reliance Industries, delivered a special address on Humanizing Digital Learning followed by a riveting panel discussions on the topic. During her address, she said, “Fully understanding and leveraging digital and human enablers is how we can convert the skilling challenge into a skilling opportunity. Only then will we be able to meet the speed and scale demands for skilling. In 2022, organisations should focus their efforts on this front.”

 

Retail Heads, HR CXOs and leaders speaking at the summit were Saurabh Kalra, COO, Hardcastle Restaurants; Rajiv Nair, Group CEO, Kaya; Sadashiv Nayak, CEO, Future Retail; Sandeep Varaganti, Chief Business Officer - Marketplace, Reliance Retail; Manavi Pathak, Head - Talent and Learning, Trent (Tata Retail); Narayanan Sabharatnam, Head-Retail Training, Titan Company; Neeti Sharma, Talent Partner, Global HR, Adidas; Naveen Kumar Nerlaje, Head Human Resources, Licious; Jeeva Balakrishnan, Chief Talent Officer, Reliance Retail; Swatee Sarangi, Global - Head Learning, Leadership and Organization Development, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories; Karanjeet Uppal , General Manager - Learning and Development, Bata India; Dhanashree Thakkar, Vice President HR, Bharti AXA Life Insurance; Isuru Kalamulla Waduge,  Country Leadership and Competence Manager, IKEA; and Neelam Ahluwalia, Vice President - L&D, Bigbasket among others. 

 

The summit concluded with recognising retail organisations that demonstrated  enterprise wide success as a result of employee talent development through L&D interventions. The award for ‘Best Learning & Development Strategy’ was given to Infiniti Retail Ltd. – Croma, while United Colors of Benetton, India was recognised as the First Runner Up and  Marks & Spencer Reliance India as the Second Runners Up.

 

Recognising the young dynamic talent in the L&D functions within retail companies who have made a huge impact to L&D functions in their respective organizations, the ‘Learning Champ’ award was given to Srinivas Balaji, Reliance Retail - Fashion & Lifestyle. While, Arpita Mishra, Skechers South Asia was recognised as the First Runner-up and Mohan M, Reliance Digital as the Second Runner Up in the award category.

Retailers continue to witness 67% degrowth, leading to

 Retailers continue to witness 67% degrowth, leading to non-recoverable economic damage to the value chain, finds RAI survey

The latest business survey conducted by the Retailers Association of India (RAI) with more than 100 big and small retailers revealed that there has been no significant growth in business for retailers even during the second half of June. Retailers witnessed 67% degrowth from June 15 to June 30 compared to the corresponding period last year. During the same time frame, malls witnessed 77% degrowth (y-o-y) on account of not being allowed to open uniformly across the country, high street retail showed degrowth of 62% (y-o-y) in business despite being allowed to open across India. 

Commenting on the current state of retail despite the best efforts of the Central Government to open retail, Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India, said, “Although the quantum of degrowth marginally reduced in June 2020, The first quarter of FY21 continued to witness degrowth of -74%. The figures depict a grim situation for not just retailers but the entire economy as retail is the backbone of consumption. The need of the hour is concerted efforts by all stakeholders— While retailers are doing their bit by following stringent hygiene practices, the policymakers too need to ensure uniform opening of all kinds of retail across the country.”

An earlier consumer sentiment survey by RAI had revealed that more than 60% of the consumers will wait up to 90 days before shopping, keeping in mind expenditure and safety factors.  This has resulted in slow growth for the retail sector throughout June. The sentiment got reflected in categories like QSR and restaurants (-71%), followed by beauty, wellness, and personal care (-69%) and apparel, clothing, jewellery, watches, and other personal accessories (-67%).

As work from home continues in several places across the country even as we move further into unlock, it has reflected into a faster recovery for consumer durables (-19% y-o-y), followed by furniture and furnishing (-44% y-o-y) and Food and Grocery (-40% y-o-y) in June 2020 compared to June 2019. High street retail stores are leading this recovery across these categories, while business in malls continues to be in deep red.

In June, large size retailers (>300cr) witnessed a degrowth of 59% (y-o-y) and small retailers (<300cr sales) witnessed a degrowth of 69% (y-o-y). Region-wise findings indicate that West (-74% y-o-y) and North (-71% y-o-y) continue to suffer the most. East and South both signalled a 62% (y-o-y) fall in sales.

With Unlock 2.0 on the cards in the next few days and several sectors opening up, retail can hope for a revival of consumption and signs of recovery at least in the second quarter of the year

Degrowth rates peak, lockdown relaxations ineffective for

Degrowth rates peak, lockdown relaxations ineffective for 

retail, reveals RAI business survey

No industry or individual has escaped unscathed from the lockdown, and retail lies at the very intersection. A recent survey by the Retailers Association of India (RAI) of more than 150 retailers – big and small, revealed that lockdown relaxations have done little to relieve the pain of the sector. A business assessment for 3 months between (March, April and May 2020) shows severe degrowth in businesses across sectors and regions. During the stringent lockdown in April 2020 and May 2020 retailers lost around 80 - 90% of their last year sales.

The relaxations provided by government in May 2020 were ineffective as retailers across the board continued to lose. Large size retailers (>300cr sales) in the food and grocery segment have witnessed 86% degrowth in business, while the non-food and grocery segment has seen a 75% degrowth compared to last year. Small and Medium sized Retailers (<300cr sales) in the Food & Grocery segment fared slightly better but still lost 33% of their sales in May compared to last year.

The survey also revealed that lockdown relaxations have been ineffective in stimulating retail across geographies as all regions have impacted almost the same with degrowth of 76% to 81% in May 2020 Y-o-Y.

This degrowth across retail businesses is consistent with the findings of the RAI consumer sentiment survey (link), launched last week, where a majority 67% consumers showed little to no excitement in shopping post the lockdown, citing safety and hygiene as their biggest concerns.

Interestingly, the business survey further shows that beauty and wellness, footwear and apparel and clothing were most impacted even as they featured as top preferences in a consumer’s shopping wish list (as per RAI’s ‘Unlocking Indian Consumer Sentiment Post Lockdown’ survey in association with LitmusWorld) The Beauty and Wellness segment witnessed a slump of -75% degrowth, followed by footwear at -67% and apparel and clothing at -66%.

Commenting on the findings of the business survey, Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India said, “Retailers are amongst the most resilient entrepreneurs of the Indian ecosystem. Despite the lockdown relaxations, retailers are still facing a challenging time to revive their business. The impact on retail across the country is concerning and it will take a considerable amount of time for retailers to return to the green. We trust the Government and other stakeholders will take note of this situation and help in boosting customer sentiment by enabling smooth functioning of retails stores across the nation by addressing state and local level issues.”

The trend was largely similar across turnovers as the industry lost 40% sales in Mar 2020 followed by 70 - 90% losses in April and May 2020 compared to the corresponding year last year.

The survey reveals a very grim picture of the impact of the pandemic on retail business. Considering consumer sentiment, the road to recovery appears to be a long one. What is needed is support from the government and a revival of consumer confidence.

MHA announcement

In line with the MHA announcement today, please find appended a media statement by Mr. Kumar Rajagopalan – CEO, Retailers Association of India (RAI).

“The MHA guidelines today brings the focus that the Government has on maintaining social distancing while ensuring that consumers get what they want in a safe and contactless manner. It demonstrates the intent to support the safety of the people while also enabling movement of goods required to ensure economic activity. We urge the Government to strongly consider that all forms of direct customer delivery across retailers be allowed the benefit of doing business via contactless home delivery.

By ensuring that this allowed for all retailers and not just ecommerce players it makes the availability of all goods at the doorsteps of customers possible. This will ensure that there are less reasons for the public to go outside, greater availability of supplies and helps keep to the norms of social distancing. This move will further support the economic revival for the country as well as allow for new avenues of job creation in the market.”