Managing the Store

Article summarized by Group 1

AKHIL CHAUDHARY PGP/05/05
RAHUL SARDAR PGP/05/035
LAL RAMDINA PGP/05/027
VIMAL BIJORIA PGP/05/50
Key Points from the Intro
• Respect is earned
• A great place to work is where you have your value system and firms
value system aligned
Store management Responsibilities
• Recruiting and selecting store employees
• Job analysis
• Job Description
• Locating prospective employees
• Partnering with government agencies
• Using employees as talent scouts
• Screening applicants to interview
• References and online check
• Testing
Continued.
• Selecting applicants
• Preparing for the interview
• Behavioral interview
• Predetermined questions
• Legal considerations should also be kept in mind
Transition from Student to management
trainee
• Training
• Via structured programs
• On-the-job training
• Blended approach
• Analyzing successes and failures
• Motivating and Managing store employees
• Leadership
• Behavior
• Decision Making
• Styles
Should managers maker them do it?
• Motivating employees
• Setting goals or quotas
• Maintaining morale
Motivating different Generational Cohorts
• The major generational cohorts working in retail stores include baby
boomers (born between 1946 and 1960), Generation X (born 1961-1979 and
Generation Y cohorts(1980-present)
• They have to be managed and motivated different because of different
generations
Some of the important measures in managing the cohorts are:
1. Avoiding Sexual Harassment
2. Evaluating store employees and providing feedback
3. Compensating and rewarding store employees
4. Job enrichment
Increasing operating efficiency
1. Labour Scheduling:
 Determining the number of employees assigned to each area of the store.
Difficulties:
• Multiple Shifts and part-time workers
• Bad weather, holiday and sales can alter shopping patterns and staff requirements
Use of computer software to deal with complexities of Labour Scheduling:
• Tracks individual store sales, transaction units and customer traffic
• Compares data to the previous year’s
• Tracks the time taken to complete a certain task to predict how many workers
required
2. Green and Energy efficient stores:
• Going green increases profit as well as being socially responsible
Case of Walmart:
• 100 specialists from its headquarter control all the energy consumption
• Minimise food delivery trips by buying more produce closer to the
stores
• Building wind power and waterless urinals
• Reduce packaging globally by 5%
• Developed 7R’s of Packaging(remove, reduce, reuse, recycle, renew,
revenue and read)
3. Store Maintenance:
• Managing the exterior(parking lot, entrances & signboards) and
interior physical activities(walls, flooring, ceiling) of the store
• Influence the perception of the consumers
• Affects sales generation of the store
• Poor maintenance shortens the life of the store’s appliances and floors
4.Reduce Inventory shrinkage:
• Common reasons are employee theft(47%), shoplifting(32%),
mistakes(14%), inaccurate records(4%) and vendor errors(3%)
• Loss prevention requires coordination among store management,
visual merchandising and store design
Calculating shrinkage:
Recorded value of inventory bought and received-Value of actual inventory÷
Retail sales during the period
Organised and High Tech Retail theft:
• Counterfeit bar codes, duplicate gift cards
• Gangs of professional thieves
Detecting and preventing Shoplifting:
Losses due to shoplifting can be reduced by;
• Store design
• Merchandise policies
• Special security measures
• Personnel policies
• Prosecution of shoplifters