The True Sense of Talent Transformation!

Many retail organizations focus on training their employees and ‘Talent Transformation’ is the current buzzword. But only a few organizations perhaps have understood the very meaning and essence of transformation. Those who are serious about developing their employees and would want to engage their people for a longer walk with the organization are committed to fostering transformational learning as part of their manpower development plan; they institutionalize learning practices that would ultimately lead to the transformation of employees.

Bata, as an organization is one that has institutionalized learning practices for its employees worldwide. The company’s programmes have stood the test of time and have helped many retail professionals grow in their careers. Even many modern retail professionals of current times would have come across retail business practices in India transferred from this legendary retailing organization. Only well-established training practices if structured in an organization and systematically marked in enunciation for various levels can result in facilitating talents for transformation. The advantage of following such practices can help employees be engaged productively in the organization. Bata has various programmes developed with utmost care, like that. “A Step Ahead” is a conceptualized weeklong training programme for the front-end sales and customer service personnel and one must have undergone this programme successfully to sit for the store manager’s selection examination. ‘Retailco’ is a conceptualized programme, that prepares a District Manager to perform well on his job. ‘Mermanco’ is a programme for merchandising executives and those aspiring to become merchandising managers or category managers should have done this course. Retail Managers are taken through the company’s most coveted programme called ‘Advanco’.

Every course is entrusted to a competent Course Leader who ensures that the programme is conducted efficiently following the course directive. People to be trained are chosen using objective measures. There is a test conducted at the end of every course and certificates issued to every successful participant. Each course has a scientific approach to it focusing on the relevant intelligences needed for each position and responsibility. The methodology too is a mix of kinesthetic, visual-spatial, verbal and naturalistic deliveries planned meticulously and in the right proportions for each programme.

The hierarchy of functional training programmes delivered by the organization is planned to take the employee from one level to the other. A time tested transformation plan that the organization has, Bata keeps updating the content and the delivery methodology in tune with the need of the contemporary times.

I decided to discuss the talent transformation methodology followed by Bata in this blog because we often see that employee development is not taken seriously in many retailing companies in India. Training tends to be only measured by the number of days a person is trained in a year! In the case of Bata, it has been institutionalized, like helping an employee pass systematically transforming from one stage to the other – say, from high school to undergraduate to postgraduate and then on to professional levels! The many ’home grown’ Country Heads of every Bata Company in the Bata Shoe Organization would bear testimony to their own transformation, having grown in the organization for years, thanks to the organization’s best initiatives!

With patchy training, retailing companies can never associate their efforts with talent transformation!

- Dr. Gibson G. Vedamani

Retailing for Posterity!

Whether he is a Vellaiyan of Chennai or a hero of Sulur he cannot prevent FDI in retailing from being allowed in the country. It can only be like the nuclear power project at Kudankulam where the opposition sent waves of concern but the commissioning has moved ahead in full swing to operationalize the project in due course. Similarly even if retail FDI is allowed by a limited number of States, the others are bound to follow suit soon! Otherwise customers from the State where FDI in retailing is not allowed will cross borders to buy the merchandise multinationals might sell in the neighboring State! A big ‘Nadar Peravai’* in Chennai repeatedly asked the question of what good is FDI in retailing going to do in the country and I was asking those who raised that question to introspect and see how better their posterity is going to be in the new FDI regime! As the Nadar shopkeepers in yesteryears took to setting up shops, shunning the bootlegging their ancestors did for decades (they thought that their earlier generation was not in the right business!). They did not bother to grow more Palmyrah trees nor were they inclined to draught toddy any longer. The next generation took to trading in retail and they have been quite successful. The threat for the Nadar retailers of Tamil Nadu is not FDI in retailing but the attitude of their own posterity. These retailers have slogged it out right from early morning 6 o’clock till 11 o’clock in the night, serving customers, every day. They have known their customers like the back of their palms! Will their children take over their business? In my opinion, the answer is a big NO! The children may not like to take over the family business exactly like how their own fathers had refused to take over their ancestors’ business of brewing toddy, which gave rise to the entry of Indian Made Foreign Liquor in India! There were no modernized techniques to climb the trees to distill toddy from the Palmyrah trees! How many ‘Nadar Annachis’ have grown new Palmyrah trees in the last two decades to support brewing toddy? Likewise the new generation will try to get into newer businesses like IT & ITES and modern retailing, without trying to take over the family business of small time retailing. One needs to modernize the family retail business in order to make it attractive for the younger generation to jump into.

This afternoon a friend and I took a walk in the busy Ranganathan Street of Chennai to have a glimpse of what is happening in the Mecca of Retailing, as they call it! As we walked into Saravana Stores, a floor manager greeted us offering us help to take us around, guessing rightly that we had come to take a look! The merchandise categories are so relevant to the target customers that Saravana Stores has got the model right! A Walmart may find it next to impossible to make a tie-up with the seven hundred ‘artisans’ and ‘karigars’ that Saravana works with for over two decades now! The compelling sales strategies of the one hundred varieties of sarees ranging from ‘Kushboo Cotton’ to ‘Kerala Zaris’ at the best prices can never be organized by any retailer who comes through the FDI route!

A Kannan Annachi who has organized to retail more than fifteen varieties of ‘idli podis’ ‘vadhaams’ and ‘pappadams’ in each of his store, is a unique phenomenon by himself to the retailing landscape of South India. He subtly sells a few varieties of dry fish in a remote corner in the store, redefining and rediscovering the right adjacencies to steer clear of veg from non-veg categories! Any multinational store may find it difficult to organize its categories specific to every store's customer preferences at all! Let the ‘Nadar retailers’ of Tamil Nadu rework their strategies to become successful amidst competition from multinationals. Let them welcome FDI in retailing but forge closer associations with their customers. Let them modernize their stores in such a way that the youngsters in their families are encouraged to take to retailing! It may be a matter of ‘sail or sink’ for many retailers as multinationals may start spreading across the country soon. Collaborative buying by small retailers by teaming together can work wonders!

Goliath was big enough to be hit by the tiny David easily. Strategies alone need to be worked out well. The sling has to work and hit the target right on the forehead where the gap is! Domestic retailers have to think of the many strategies that they can deploy to win over foreign retailers. If the strategies were new and exciting, the younger generation would not mind taking over the reigns of management of the family retail stores. Many soft drink brands in India fell by the wayside as Pepsi and Coke started to rule the Indian beverage market because they tried to copy and emulate the big brands. Perhaps if they had stuck to the original 200 ml bottles, many brands like Torino, Gold Spot, Parnar, Bovonto perhaps may not have had a tough time! FDI is welcome as many members of the family belonging to posterity may take up rewarding assignments in MNC retailing because the incumbents may come with their traditional retail training! We are good at what we are and let us strengthen our domestic retailing skills to win over customers rather than trying to see if we could emulate the look and feel of large competing retailers for no reason!

- Dr. Gibson G. Vedamani

* Nadar community in Tamil Nadu is engaged in the business of retailing largely and Nadar Peravai is an association of nadar traders in Tamil Nadu.