Quality management – facing up to a new challenge
According to Hyman, the quality of management in retailing is more important today than ever before. Over the last 25 to 30 years, retail success has been largely to do with being good at things like property, sourcing, cost management and able to deploy new developments in IT.
A major change is that selling on the high street is no longer top of the agenda. As the role of management changes, having a grasp of strategic issues is of less importance.
As Hyman suggested, “It seems that a different kind of manager is required to meet today’s challenges. The hope is that there is sufficient quality of management to deal with the major challenges ahead.”
Jones felt that it was primarily about people and that there was a shortfall in some of the leadership qualities required in the people management side of things. When recruiting, he found it hard to find people who were good at leading and motivating people. Consumers judge the performance of the retailer by the calibre and quality of the people they employ. When you have good experience it’s very much the exception, so maybe we’ve still got a long way to go.
Thomas holds the view that your business is only as good as the leaders who lead it. There is a realisation that the employee/customer value chain process starts with the calibre of the people that you employ. Highly motivated, capable people will identify the needs of the customer and do a really great job. The feeling still exists that good customer service is still quite rare and that overall, the quality of people being employed is still not up to scratch.
As Ratner points out, like most industries, there are good and bad managers across the board. However, he feels that a weakness of some major retailers is that there is too much promoting from within. “Managers promoted up the chain suddenly find themselves having to deal with things like return on capital, without having a broad experience and are unable to see the broader picture and view the business as a whole until they get to a very senior level – which is far too late.” That may be the fault of some companies, but overall Ratner suspects that it’s no better or no worse than in other areas of the industry.
Akers sees Store Management as a vital area, as it affects the performance and profitability of the stores. As a way to protect his assets, his company actively gets involved in ensuring that Store Managers are of the right calibre.
They’ve developed a scheme in Bristol city centre they’re working with training organisations and engaging in training people to work in stores. And they have a facility in Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow where they’ve actually devoted space to a training academy to train people to work in shops.
Hyman is adamant that the quality of management is essential. After years of relatively easy growth, today the customer is looking for added value. And if you can’t add value, you can’t add profit. So it’s about understanding what your customer wants and being able to translate that into proposition development. That’s the challenge for management and challenge for the retail industry which has not really worked like that in the past.
“Your business is only as good as the leaders who lead it.”
Gareth Thomas
